ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Family first: my mom, Shamina Lavingia, and my dad, Ayaz Lavingia, and my brother, Samir Lavingia, for creating and shaping me. And my wife, Kaede Takeshige, for bearing with and encouraging me all the while.

Like all the businesses mentioned in this book, The Minimalist Entrepreneur is the product of a community.

The idea originally came from Merry Sun, my editor at Penguin Random House. She read my viral Medium post and suggested that we talk if I was at all interested in 'expanding [the] Medium post into a nonfiction book.' That was in February 2019.

Merry introduced me to Lisa DiMona, who became my literary agent at Writer's House. Together, they encouraged me to move beyond my initial favorite title, Leaving Startupland , and helped me zero in on the topic of this book-businesses that focus on 'creating value' in a sustainable way. They also made me realize I wasn't going to be able to do it myself.

David Moldawer helped me take my initial outline and transform it into something that had real structure. He also came up with a much better title: Stop Chasing Unicorns . I felt really great about the whole thing and signed a book deal with Penguin. That was in December 2019.

I started writing in earnest in January 2020. Then COVID happened. Gumroad started to grow like a weed, and I-along with the rest of the world-had an identity crisis. On the one hand, Gumroad was suddenly on its way (again) to becoming a 'unicorn,' but on the other, I was not interested in getting back on the VC hamster wheel. I wanted to craft a third way for myself, and in some ways already had; the way I ran Gumroadfully remote and with no meetings since 2016- meant I was more prepared for the pandemic than many of my peers.

I was also a lot busier. I completed the first draft of the book by summer 2020, but it wasn't good enough. It was too negative ( Stop Chasing Unicorns doesn't tell you what you should do), and it wasn't backed up with enough anecdotes and real data. And frankly, representation was a problem.

Lisa suggested I work with Julie Mosow to help me take the book 'over the finish line.' Together, Julie and I finished the second draft of the book in December 2020. We changed the name to The Minimalist Startup , and then The Minimalist Entrepreneur . Almost two years into writing the book, I finally understood what this book was meant to be about all along. It's about a new kind of human and a new kind of lifestyle that software has enabled through 'permissionless leverage.' The year 2020 gave the world a peek into the future, and I happened to already be living in it. Another example why you should start, then learn.

Together, Merry, Lisa, David, Julie, and I are responsible for most of the words in the book. But the writing process didn't end there! In February 2020, I taught a cohort-based course to test the ideas in the book and make sure they resonated. Each week, the 136 'students' read and gave feedback chapter by chapter. At the end of the month, we had hundreds of comments -about what was boring, confusing, or implausible- to address.

Those students- and coaches- include: Bhaumik, Timothy, Jonah, Shane, Somvir, Shahena, Jens, Nasir, Robin, Akash, Jamil, Dario, Covington, Adam, Kirill, Ganesh, James, Carlos, Karl, Asim, Surya, Binh, Josh, Rajat, Aneesh, Ditri, Karan, Yousef, Yousef-Husaini, Rahul, Dhruba, Hera, Brian, Addy, Padi, Michael, Matthew, Andrew, Preetham, Matthew, Marty, Vaughan, Shaik, Manuel, Ari, Prab, Isaac, Jon, Nick, Mukesh, Julian, Chandan, Gagan, Rachel, Sergio, Sahil, Shawn, Monte, Aman, Theola, Amin, Pradeep, Prolok, Sam, Greg, Woody, Evan, Sean, Ashray, Eli, Manan, Ozgur, Scott, Shirish, Gerben, Justin, Ciprian, Ahmed, Ashwin, Josh, Obaid, Carl, Nara, Sridhar, Andrew, Alex, Clint, Nick, Mike, Marvin, Bugi, Amar, Wes, Lia, Crystal, Michael, Mert, Tribe, Workast, Yasaman, Manish, David, Raphael, Mateo, Nate, Tobin, Mike, Hunter, Michael, Sergey, Aravind, Akhil, Yazane, Sergio, John, Riddhi, Yuhan, Simon,

Daniel, Luca, Carlos, Razvan, Lorenzo, Eduardo, Murat, Devan, Ben, Marcos, Assim, Francis, Vishal, Thomas, Raul, Vladimir, Prashanth, Ralph, Pramod, Inga, Soumya, Louise, Zach, Nate, Soleil, Clark, Sagar, Charles, Albert, Connor, Gonzalo, Marissa, Clement, Nate, Minjun, Vince, Monish, Amaan, Joshua, Justin, Jenny, and Audrey.

And address we did. So if you liked the book, it's due to a community of just about 150 people. And if you didn't like the book . . . Well, it was all me!

Dillon Blue and Amy Stellhorn from Big Monocle designed the cover with help from Brian Lemus and Jen Heuer from Penguin Random House. The illustrations are by Brian Box Brown.

I'd also like to thank the rest of the folks at Penguin who worked on and championed the book behind the scenes, including Adrian Zackheim, Tara Gilbride, Niki Papadopoulos, Jessica Regione, Gabriel Levinson, Regina Andreoni, and Olivia Decker.

And thank you for reading!