I had the opportunity to meet both John and Patrick recently.
Like most, I've met many people over my life thus far. I'm a social person by nature. I feel as though I understand people. I've got a good sense for them. I'm not sure how else to explain it.
When I was with them, something felt different. I just felt like they are going to do important things with their lives. Have a huge impact (with Stripe and whatever else they decide to do).
As the article points out, they're both quite intelligent. During our conversation, it was immediately apparent to me that they're also ambitious.
But what probably stood out to me the most, given the other two qualities, was their true sense of integrity. They just seemed like nice people. Unpretentious. Would do anything for their friends that they could, as well as for well-meaning strangers.
I think Stripe will make it big.
But I'm mostly rooting for them for another reason: for being good people.
For caring.
I think the way in which they apply that quality may be what sets them apart in the end.
Being from Ireland myself, hugely proud of the Collisons and what they've achieved. But I'm rooting for them for another reason.
A few years ago when I was in college, I randomly emailed Patrick looking for advice on where to begin on the path to eventually doing a startup. I was only half expecting a response, I mean he doesn't know me from Adam and it was an email out of the blue from me.
Instead, he gave me his mobile number and told me to ring him to have a proper conversation. I had like a half hour+ conversation, about web frameworks, visa advice for the US, and so on. Incredibly guy, unbelievable generosity. I was floored by it.
I've no doubt Stripe will go public some day (unless it gets bought for a huge sum by Visa or someone), I'll be rooting for those guys all the way.
At the close of their beta, I received a handwritten note from the Stripe guys thanking us using them. It was a kind gesture and unexpected humility coming from such a high-profile startup.
Sounds a lot like what people were writing on HN about Dropbox back in 2006.
Stripe has already clearly proven itself as a company operating on a plane far higher than most "startups". My co-founder and I take a look at their team page when we're looking at new hires just to remind ourselves of how high our standards need to be. The size of their recent raise shows investors heard things that got them pretty excited, too. I'll not doubt them.
I think you underestimate the disruptive potential that Stripe gives. Dealing with payments is one of the biggest pain points that a lot of people have when putting together a new web venture. They've uncomplicated the payment part of the system enough that it essentially removes that pain completely allowing many more developers to take the plunge into a side project that they can potentially make a little cash with. Having revenue coming in keeps those developers going and we will see some great things come out of it.
That has huge potential! Unless an easier competitor comes along I do and will continue to use Stripe for anything that I'm not using for a primary source of income.
"I think you underestimate the disruptive potential that Stripe gives. Dealing with payments is one of the biggest pain points that a lot of people have when putting together a new web venture."
No offense but I think this statement shows exactly what makes Stripe so non-disruptive. Stripe has targeted a niche, not a vertical. Payment processing exists beyond the needs of new web ventures. The majority of businesses (brick and mortars) can't even make use of stripe without a VAR or OEM acting as a middle man, and at that point where is the value that stripe brings to the table? The savings will be eaten up by the middle man.
Stripe may be great for a small development shop cranking out mobile and web apps (I'm their target market, I'm considering using it for my SaaS myself) but once a business starts to scale saving a quarter or half percentage point on processing fees by using something like auth.net makes sense when weighed against the usability of stripe from a developer perspective.
The textbook method to disrupt a market is through disruptive innovation. This is serving the very low end of a market with a solution that is just good enough and then moving up market.
Sustaining innovation is when a company keeps improving a product and raising the prices. Stripe is more of a sustaining innovation than a disruptive one. Typically incumbents are the ones to improve their products while raising the price, but it is also possible for a new entrant to do the same. Providing a much better user experience could potentially lead to Stripe dominating the payments market but it is really just a less hassle version of what is in place today. Payments are a huge hassle to deal with as a merchant/developer so this is still an innovation but just not a disruptive one.
Dwolla is a better example of disruptive innovation in that they are circumventing the whole credit card system which could potentially save merchants and indirectly, consumers, large amounts of money.
Changing the basis of competition in the marketplace from price to convenience (i.e., ease of use) is exactly what disruptive innovation is. Not all disruptive innovations are low end.
Stripe is actually more like a new market disruption because it is bringing in non-consumers who might not have even been able to setup payment processing without their solution. The same is true of Gumroad, or Shopify.
Maybe it's just me, but credit cards seem pretty old fashion.
I mean, could you imagine someone inventing a payment technology today that required you to give away your secret password to each and every person who needed to bill you? It's no wonder there is so much money lost to fraud.
I think companies like Dwolla are the real future, even if Dwolla itself fails. The tokens they issue for payments are only good for a certain amount to a certain recipient. Recipient gets hacked? Sign in to Dwolla and expire that token, simple as that.
Also CC fees are absolutely astronomical, we've just gotten used to paying them. We really need a future where money transfer is not controlled by a few private interests that are capturing 3% of everything.
For some reason it feels like this writeup stops at a weird point in the story. Could have expanded more on what they are doing now, how they are doing it and what their plans for the future are.
Completely agree. Just when the story is getting good, it suddenly stops. I too was expecting a story about Stripes accession and where its headed now.
Patrick did a 60-minute interview with me and I took a few pieces that were particularly interesting and featured them. The video clips filled in some of the other pieces I didn't write about. If you want the rest I suggest watching the full interview: http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/patrick-collison-founder-str...
I am really excited for the day when Stripe will be available in Australia (if ever). Is anyone aware of any stripe competitors that are available for use in Australia?
Like most, I've met many people over my life thus far. I'm a social person by nature. I feel as though I understand people. I've got a good sense for them. I'm not sure how else to explain it.
When I was with them, something felt different. I just felt like they are going to do important things with their lives. Have a huge impact (with Stripe and whatever else they decide to do).
As the article points out, they're both quite intelligent. During our conversation, it was immediately apparent to me that they're also ambitious.
But what probably stood out to me the most, given the other two qualities, was their true sense of integrity. They just seemed like nice people. Unpretentious. Would do anything for their friends that they could, as well as for well-meaning strangers.
I think Stripe will make it big.
But I'm mostly rooting for them for another reason: for being good people.
For caring.
I think the way in which they apply that quality may be what sets them apart in the end.