Gumroad, an unsupported and strange platform for entrepreneurs

▶

Hello everyone! This post has a more personal and learning tone, even though talking about negative situations usually makes me uncomfortable. I'm doing it because I've set out to be more open and social on my networks this year, sharing more about my daily work.

For six years working with platforms (starting with Udemy), I've maintained a constant recording rhythm. Now I'm looking to expand, but the key has always been: use the platform, don't let the platform use you. I use Udemy only as a viewer, and that's it, I don't torment myself over what I can't control.

GumRoad: The Platform That Questions the Creator

Here comes my experience with GumRoad, a platform that, although less strong than others, is equally particular.

1. The Initial Suspicion and Lack of Support

Strange Store: I never felt comfortable with the platform. When I asked why my products weren't appearing in their main store, they told me I needed to have sales. When I achieved one sale, their response was, in my judgment, rude or at least dehumanized, stressing that it was only one sale.

The Focus on the Creator: They informed me that only 10% of their sales came from the GumRoad store; the remaining 90% came from the creator's direct effort (sharing links on YouTube, etc.). I find it strange, as it implies that the creator is more famous than the platform, and if the purpose of the website is to upload content, it should boost its internal market more.

The "Money Laundering" Accusation: The strongest thing happened when they explained the reason they asked for multiple individual sales: to prevent the platform from being used for money laundering. It is a very serious accusation directed at a creator who is simply selling online courses.

2. The Catastrophic Error: Total Course Deletion

Since that initial experience, I continued uploading my content to GumRoad to take advantage of it. The most serious problem occurred while I was updating the Laravel course (which has more than 50 hours of videos).

Defective Saving System: The platform works strangely, forcing you to click "Save" after uploading a file. If you don't do it, the content is deleted. In a normal system, the upload and the save should be automatic, assigning the publication ID to the resource.

The Disaster: Upon clicking save to upload the latest updates, the system not only failed but completely deleted the Laravel course (more than 50 hours of videos, folders, and descriptions). Literally, the product URL now returns a 404.

3. The Unacceptable Support Response

I wrote to them explaining that a course of more than 50 hours had disappeared due to an error in their panel when clicking "Save." Their response was short, informal, and evaded all responsibility:

"Hello. We do not have the feature to recover content on your platform. It cannot be recovered. Have a copy of your content." (Translation and summary of the tone).

Irresponsibility: Not only did they not apologize, but they reminded me that I should have a backup copy (which I have, with two copies, but that wasn't the point). The responsibility lay with the malfunction of their platform, not mine.

Lack of Investigation: To top it off, I made a mistake with the email account when writing to them, and they responded the same way. This shows that they use an automatic response and didn't even bother to open a ticket or investigate the system failure to verify the course deletion.

4. Final Words and Recommendation

This failure happened to me after months of updating the Laravel course without problems, which indicates that it is not a constant error, but it can happen. It is a serious problem: an error in their system deletes all content and support does nothing.

Final Recommendation: If you are going to use GumRoad, do so, but be very careful when uploading a large amount of content or updating it frequently. The final lesson is that there is no support in the face of a serious problem.

For my part, I will probably upload the complete course again (taking it as a joke so as not to stress myself out), but the lack of professionalism and responsibility of the platform remains clear.