Daniel Vassallo
Former AWS engineer, founder of Small Bets (sold to Gumroad) and UserbaseSource [4]Source [9]Source [2]
Unclaimed profileLast verified Oct 2, 2026
About
Daniel Vassallo is a Maltese entrepreneur based in the Seattle area and a former software engineer at Amazon Web Services. He left Amazon in February 2019 after eight years, writing that his pay had grown from $75,000 in his first year to $511,000 in his last.Source [1]Source [4]
His first independent product was Userbase, a service for adding user accounts and encrypted data storage to static websites. Community Inc. reported that it attracted a waitlist and a number one Product Hunt launch but earned about $10,000 a year after he had invested $100,000 and a year of work. It still operates, open source, with Stripe-verified revenue of $20,971 all time on TrustMRR (as of October 2026).Source [5]Source [6]Source [7]
Much of his income after Amazon came from information products and a paid community rather than software. Community Inc. reported that the book The Good Parts of AWS, written with former Amazon colleague Josh Pschorr, earned over $140,000, and that his video course Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience earned about $310,000. A cohort course on his small bets approach grew into the Small Bets community, started in November 2021 and run with partner Louie Bacaj from July 2023.Source [5]Source [8]
Gumroad bought 10% of Small Bets in 2024 and the remaining 90% in April 2025 for $3.6 million, half cash and half stock options, according to his own post; he agreed to keep running it for five years and to help Gumroad part time. He earlier served as Gumroad's part-time Head of Product.Source [8]Source [9]Source [1]Source [10]
His X profile, followed by about 205,000 accounts, now lists Small Bets, Single Server, a tool for deploying many apps to one Linux server, and Full Send, a browser racing game launched in April 2026.Source [3]Source [11]Source [12]
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Career
| Company | Years | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| FULL SEND Builds and runs FULL SEND, a 2D browser racing game listed on TrustMRR under his name.Source [12]Source [13]
| 2026 to now | FounderSource [12]Source [3] | Active |
| Small Bets Started the Small Bets community in November 2021 out of his cohort course, co-owned it with Louie Bacaj, and sold it to Gumroad in April 2025 while agreeing to keep running it.Source [5]Source [8]Source [9]
| 2021 to now | Founder and co-ownerSource [5]Source [8]Operator under Gumroad ownershipSource [9]Source [1] | Acquired |
| Gumroad Worked as Gumroad's quarter-time Head of Product, about ten hours a week, after becoming one of its sellers; after the 2025 Small Bets sale he said he would also help Gumroad part time.Source [10]Source [9]
| Undated | Head of Product (part time)Source [10]Source [14] | Active |
| Userbase Founded and owns Userbase, an open source service that adds user accounts and end-to-end encrypted storage to static websites.Source [2]Source [6]
| 2019 to now | Founder and ownerSource [2]Source [7] | Active |
| Amazon Spent eight years at Amazon building developer tools in AWS, rising from entry level developer to senior engineer, and left in February 2019.Source [4]
| 2019 | Software engineer, Amazon Web ServicesSource [4]Source [1] | IPO |
Milestones
- 2026-04Launched the browser racing game FULL SEND.Source [12]
- 2025-04Sold Small Bets to Gumroad for $3.6 million.Source [9]Source [1]
- 2024-05Gumroad took a 10% stake in Small Bets in a $500,000 share exchange.Source [8]
- 2023-07Took on Louie Bacaj as Small Bets partner.Source [5]
- 2022-07Opened Small Bets community sign-ups independent of the course.Source [5]
- 2021-11Started the Small Bets community.Source [5]
- 2021-01Named by Sahil Lavingia as Gumroad's part-time Head of Product.Source [10]
- 2020-04Launched the course Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience.Source [5]
- 2019-12Released The Good Parts of AWS with Josh Pschorr.Source [5]
- 2019-06Published his essay on leaving a $500,000 job at Amazon.Source [4]
- 2019-02Left Amazon Web Services after eight years.Source [4]
Books
- The Good Parts of AWSSource [5]Source [17]
Links
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Claim this profileSources
- Maltese Founder Daniel Vassallo closes $3.6 million company sale, Who's Who Malta, 2025-04-22. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- About Us, Userbase. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Daniel Vassallo (@dvassallo) profile, read via api.fxtwitter.com, X. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Why I Quit a $500K Job at Amazon to Work for Myself, DEV Community (Daniel Vassallo), 2019-06-29. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- How Daniel Vassallo Grew a Group of Small-Time Entrepreneurs to $1M, Community Inc.. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Userbase: Logins and persistence for static sites, Userbase. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Userbase, TrustMRR. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Gumroad now owns 10% of Small Bets, LLC, X (Daniel Vassallo), 2024-05-03. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Small Bets is joining Gumroad!, X (Daniel Vassallo), 2025-04-16. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees, Sahil Lavingia, 2021-01-07. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Single Server: All your projects on a single server, singleserver.com. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- FULL SEND: Verified revenue, TrustMRR. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- FULL SEND, fullsend.game. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Q&A with Daniel Vassallo (Head of Product) and Randall Kanna (Head of Community), Gumroad. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- smallbets/userbase repository, GitHub. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Daniel Vassallo (@dvassallo): 2 startups, TrustMRR. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
- Daniel Vassallo, dvassallo.com. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.