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Ask HN: What is your experience with Stripe Atlas?

• bborn 8y ago
  I created a business through Atlas this spring, and it was great. The community aspect is really cool and active (it's basically a forum of other Atlas founders).
• anonytrary 8y ago
  For simple e-commerce websites, Stripe is a fantastic and simple option. If you're trying to do anything remotely interesting with money, Stripe probably isn't for you. Stripe rejected two of our applications for a standard Stripe usage, and they rejected another of our applications for Stripe Atlas. All three applications were completely separate products, using payments in different ways from each other. They told us that our two applications interfered with their acceptable-use policy[0]. The application for Stripe Atlas was rejected because it interfered with the goals of Stripe's bank(s). Stripe isn't in control of how their product is used, their product exists almost entirely at the whim of the banking network which Stripe depends on. In my experience, I have learned to avoid Stripe for any use-case which isn't a simple E-commerce site. Stripe is incredibly limiting and, evidently, their primary goal is to avoid risk at the expense of innovation. We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit cards and banking networks. No doubt, using cryptocurrency payments for our application would be simpler and less limiting. It would just be us and our customers at that point, which is how it should have been all along. [0] https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses
  • patio11 8y ago
    (I work at Stripe, on Atlas.) We're building Stripe to be useful to anyone building internet businesses. This occasionally is a balancing act; we are a regulated financial institution and we do have commitments to partners, and sometimes this means that we can't support entrepreneurs who we'd otherwise like to support. We attempt to build products to allow entrepreneurs to innovate inside the system, like Stripe Atlas (which, among other things, lets users get on good financial rails even if good financial rails are not abundant in the area they happen to live) or Stripe Connect (which allows entrepreneurs to build complicated use cases for moving money around in commerce without having to themselves become e.g. a regulated money services business). We also attempt to advocate zealously for good entrepreneurs within the constraints of regulations and partner requirements. One example: it's surprisingly difficult to accept money for selling alcohol. That's a perfectly legitimate business, and so we've worked with several companies (like e.g. 750 Commerce, which makes wine order management software, for wineries) to get them access. We have some representative examples of the types of exceptions we fight for here: https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed We're working constantly to get good companies supported and to help regulators and the financial industry understand that they can have their concerns met while saying yes to more entrepreneurs more quickly. I'm happy to discuss your specific use cases privately if you'd like; my email is patio11@stripe.com. (Offer open to anyone; I'm always happy to talk to HNers.)
  • usaphp 8y ago
    > We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit cards and banking networks. So does it mean the problem was not Stripe, but you could not get account in any of the payment processors due to the nature of your product?
    • anonytrary 8y ago
      Braintree supported two of our apps. We didn't try with the third.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• maxk42 8y ago
  I always worry about legal implications. Living in California, the legal advice I see always tells me to incorporate in my state of residence. Could having a Delaware LLC be seen as tax evasion by the IRS or the Franchise Tax Board?
  • patio11 8y ago
    Delaware entities are extraordinarily popular for startups doing business in California, including e.g. many YC companies. Both the IRS and California them happily process tax returns from many Delaware LLCs. (Stripe Atlas can introduce you to accountants to help you prepare your returns and give you peace of mind with regards to whether you're filing in all the right places given your personal situation.)
  • ageitgey 8y ago
    It's totally legal and normal to start a corporation in any state in the US you choose and Delaware is by far the most common for tech companies. However, California is especially tax-hungry and will penalize you for doing this if you live here. If you choose to register in another state instead and thus avoid the $800 CA fee, they will just charge you an $800 foreign corporation tax (minimum) for "operating" in California anyway.
    • justboxing 8y ago
      > If you choose to register in another state instead and thus avoid the $800 CA fee, they will just charge you an $800 foreign corporation tax (minimum) for "operating" in California anyway. I did not know that. Just found this regarding what you've stated. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d29c2a6b-4422-490f-addc-1044c5c0358e https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d29c2a6b-4422... How is the "operating" state determined for 100% online business, ex: a job board.
• jfornear 8y ago
  I used Stripe Atlas earlier this year to incorporate Chatdog (https://chat.dog https://chat.dog) and it has been a good experience so far. Stripe's customer support is responsive and helpful. I'd highly recommend it!
• aloukissas 8y ago
  Going through the experience right now for my startup. It needs a _lot_ more clarity of where you are in the process, what's next, etc. There is a lot at stake here and one needs reassurance that he/she is not messing anything up. Also, modifying the application introduces a long turn-around (the system needs to re-generate the documents). In perspective, a couple of typos cost us 3-4 days in the process. Side note: signing the paperwork with my trackpad on docusign makes signatures look like a 3-year-old has signed the contracts. It would be great to be able to upload a scanned image of my signature (granted, this is a docusign limitation).
  • anthonys 8y ago
    There are many paths you can take if it's a human touch that you are after but none of those will get you there for $500. If you think Atlas could better explain that then I agree with your comment but I never once got the impression that there'd be any hand-holding along the way.
    • aloukissas 8y ago
      A simple live webchat on the dashboard would go a long way, for example. If you haven't done this before (and know the pitfalls of wrong decisions at this stage), the process seems deceivingly easy. A good example on how to do this right might be Credit Karma's Tax product - amazing (& proactive) guidance along the process.
• panorama 8y ago
  We (https://mightyscout.com https://mightyscout.com) started off on Stripe Atlas when they first launched in 2016. We started as a C-corp, as was the default at the time, but since we never wanted to raise money and didn't want to incur double-taxation, we converted to an S-corp. Nowadays they offer an LLC and that's the option we'd take if we started today. Since 2016, we've had to interface multiple times with lawyers, accountants, the State of Delaware. Let me be honest: I absolutely loathe dealing with this kind of crap, I just want to build awesome products. Stripe Atlas has integrations with various accounting and law firms/services, to the point where you can email atlas@${firmname}.com and expect a real human to carefully read your problem and forward it to the right entity. I _love_ that. We recently filed our Delaware taxes incorrectly and received a scary-sounding notice from the State. I emailed Atlas for help and they figured it out, pointed me in the right direction, and the person on that end didn't charge us to make the amendment. In 2011 I started a company and back then our only recourse was LegalZoom, which was an expensive and unhappy experience. Now that I've worked with Atlas for a year and a half, I hope incorporating companies will be just as easy (and inexpensive) as Atlas has made it.
• dkent 8y ago
  I previously worked at a company that was one of the largest in the online Incorporation space, and have used a bunch of others. I feel pretty familiar with all of the offerings and was exceptionally satisfied with my Atlas experience for a number of reasons: As folks have said, they are fantastic with support - very responsive and detail-oriented. The incorporation documents are easily accessible through their online dashboard & I don't have to go hunting for all of the additional corporate documentation. Their partnerships, such as with AWS, makes it very worthwhile if you're going to be experimenting with their partners' services. They have a great community - forums and slack, along with meetups and dinners - this, in my opinion, is unparalleled with the other competitors. My thoughts on the downsides are that some of their partners have hidden fees - we ended up closing our Silicon Valley Bank account as they have some pretty steep fees and switched to a no-fee provider (Capital One Spark). The Atlas team was very responsive in helping us out with this, but it was a bit of a disappointment to discover this. I recognize that SVB has to make money, but the "flat rate" for Atlas didn't entirely translate to "flat rate forever" for me here. Granted this might be more advanced, but we ended up having to use another platform for managing our cap table. Some other providers, like Clerky offer this, but I realize that this might not be a priority for development for the Atlas team to develop. All in all, would definitely recommend.
• xstartup 8y ago
  Most people outside the US are probably committing tax fraud in their home country. I suggest you take some legal counsel. CFCs/POEMs/TIEAs will get you busted in no time.