To start, the first speaker to come up was Sahil Lavingia (@shl). Sahil is founder and CEO of Gumroad. Sahil started out as a designer in middle school. Starting out at a young age is considered a living testament to what Sahil says about how “Anyone can learn to code! People aren’t born with the ability to code python.”

Despite this interest, Sahil mentions that he never was interested in designing apps or websites at the beginning. He sort of fell into it, which is how many successful individuals in the industry do. If you have the drive and interest, you’ll just fall into what you love.

Sahil went to USC, having products as a side project. From there, he founded Gumroad, a website that allows individuals to sell just about anything. Gumroad makes the whole selling process more equal, without the whole hierarchy that we are used to from other selling websites.

Gumroad has grown from just Sahil, to now having 6-7 employees, including two engineers. Partnering with various venture capitalist companies allowed him to raise nearly  seven million dollars. One way Sahil raised revenue was just by listening in on investor meetings and finding a way from there to pitch his product to them. Sahil mentions that “products keep [him] alive” Investors will see this drive in him and will be willing to contribute. To learn more about Gumroad, be sure to check out their website.

Additionally, make sure to stay updated with everything about Teens in Tech conference on our Twitter page, website, as well as the livestream on our website!