Furthes, he ran this "lifestyle" business with outside investors.
He's written a nuanced, heartfelt essay, and this comment seems to have missed all of that to nitpick on a word.
Hackers news comments in a sentence.
Being a part of the SV startup ecosystem myself, I also see the term "lifestyle business" used as a soft-perjorative for "not ambitious enough".
They now have come around and appreciate their success. Their use of "lifestyle business" was chosen to convey their own negative attitude at the time.
The comment I replied to totally missed that the author wasn't critcizing their own business! They just felt badly about it a few years ago. See the part of the comment where they praise gumroad.
A more self aware comment would have merely decried the prevailing VC attitude that led the founder to feel bad. Instead the commentor seems to think the founder needs cheering up and convincing.
It's refreshing to see this perspective from founders. It's a story not often told and does well to characterize the grinding rollercoaster of hard decisions you won't easily find in the sea of "A-co raised $40mm!" press releases.