13 ms·
Stripe Press
- blairbeckwith 8y agoThe books the Stripe has announced here are all pretty exciting to me – I want to read them all. When Netflix started doing original content, "Netflix Original" was essentially a seal of quality, and I was typically excited enough to at least check out each one. As they've pumped out so much quantity lately, that quality bar has dropped significantly. I hope Stripe Press is successful enough to keep putting out great content, but not successful enough to succumb to the same fate. Patrick's love (at least Patrick – I'm sure others) of books that he's discussed at length gives me some hope.
- Shank 8y ago> Patrick's love (at least Patrick – I'm sure others) of books that he's discussed at length gives me some hope. Definitely feels like this is directly channeling Patrick. It looks like Stripe Press is going to republish The Dream Machine, which he's recommended on more than one occasion. They're also all hard cover books, probably in his own preference too.
- pc 8y agoI'm definitely a fan of this project but it'd be a mistake to attribute too much to me... it's led within Stripe by a team of very talented people.
- Shank 8y agoI stand firmly corrected! The entire team did an excellent job, and they definitely deserve credit here. It's very well made!
- yla92 8y agoI wanted to buy the hardcover/paperback version of the "The Dream Machine" but it's all out of print everywhere. And I read on the Bloomberg article[0] about Patrick's buying the rights for the book. So I thought it would be really great if he somehow sells/republishes it. Now it's happening and I can't be happier. On the other hand, I also ended up buying the kindle version and I can't say enough of how great the book is! [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-brothers-turned-seven-lines-of-code-into-a-9-2-billion-startup https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-b...
- matte_black 8y agoKeep in mind that the content they pump out is often meant for highly targeted audiences, so naturally over time as they pump out more content you're going to see you won't like most of it, except the stuff made especially for people like you.
- sailfast 8y agoThis is nice, but some of these titles are listed as "Notify me when available" when I've already read them which seems a bit odd. Did they buy the rights to exclusively publish "Dream Machine"? Looks like it is still available in a number of other places.
- crsv 8y agoElad Gil having quite the PR push today on HN. Conveniently first on the Stripe Press article, earlier post with the Altman interview. Well done on the marketing game today!
- tyingq 8y agoWell at least someone is calling it like it is. Thank you.
- bflesch 8y agoI don't understand why a payment processing company is putting out books? Too much funding?
- blairbeckwith 8y agoTheir about page (particularly their mission statement) provides some color: https://stripe.com/about https://stripe.com/about Stripe hasn't been "just a payment processing company" for quite some time. An optimistic view of this move is that it fits in well with their mission: these books could, in theory, inspire, educate, and motivate people to build or grow their businesses. A more cynical(1) view is that this is simply more elaborate content marketing – getting Stripe's name out there to people who are interested in this content, who are overwhelmingly in Stripe's target market. (1): Cynical in that it's less feel-good, but I don't at all mean that this is a bad thing.
- adamwathan 8y agoI don't think Stripe identifies as a "payment processing company". That's the category their main product exists in but as I understand it, their mission as a business is to "increase the GDP of the internet", which is why they are invested in projects like Stripe Atlas to make it easy for people to form new businesses. Under that banner, releasing content aimed to help businesses be more successful is totally aligned with their goals.
- DmenshunlAnlsis 8y agoWell a higher volume of transactions benefits a payment processing company, so “increasing the GDP...” is very much what you’d expect of a payment processing company, however they choose to market themselves. Plus “making the world better/richer” is a popular SV marketing spiel, and clearly they know marketing.
- inopinatus 8y agoIn the same way, I've seen Mercedes-Benz sometimes claim to be a "Lifestyle Company". They're not. They make and sell cars, and Stripe is a payments processor.
- tnolet 8y agoHard to judge a book by its cover, but this will probably be picked up and canonized similar to the 37signals books and a handful of others. This is fine as long as new founders remember that these books are probably 50% (personal brand) marketing and 50% geniunely helpful. Picking the right 50% is admittedly not that hard.
- ds0 8y agoDoes someone want to explain the rationale behind the color picker at the side of the page which sets the text and image tint before slowly reverting it back to its original light gray?
- gk1 8y agoIt's an homage to chromatic bar codes, commonly found on product packaging and color prints: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/08/color_spots_on_packages_what_are_those_things.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/08/color_spots_o... (... I think. I don't work for Stripe.)
- analogmemory 8y agoClose! > Process control patches, or printer’s color blocks, are used to check the quality or density of colors that are used on the package.
- pen2l 8y agoIt's cool, but it's not as awesome as the average Stripe site used to be. Maybe it's because Benjamin left :(
- fermienrico 8y agoEverytime there is an article about Stripe, someone mentions how great their design is. Am I the only one who thinks that their design is basically same as any other Saas company, albeit just slightly more refined? They all look the same. Material bootstrapy designs. When I was an intern at a defense company, there was this old british guy that always wore a white shirt and a black tie - even in 2010. I went to lunch with him in his old Jaguar. We were discussing car designs and asked him what he thinks about Audi's new eyelash headlights - which was cool in 2010. He said "If you turn off the lights, from a distance, I can't tell if it is a Honda Accord or an Audi A4. All these sedans look the same". It made me think and appreciate Porsche 911 and other iconic designs that have veered off of the beaten path and created something original. Original, not for the sake of being different, but truly original in the full spirit of the meaning. Stripe, I am sorry, but doesn't live up to its design hype. Stripe's design is not original nor iconic.
- orliesaurus 8y agoIf anyone grabs a copy, let me know if it's worth it, here or on twitter (same username as here) please!
- ironjunkie 8y agobook is available for free, another post got the URL. This is probably a PR stunt to print book with a nice design-ish front cover. They want to grab the mindshare of devs, and they are doing the right PR stunt to do it.
- orliesaurus 8y agocool , thank you!
- yashevde 8y agowhere is the book available? The HTML site is up, but the PDFs have been taken down it seems. Wouldn't be surprised if the site is collapsed to a stub soon too; it may be the next to go.
- jgautsch 8y agoLooks like the High Growth Handbook is available online for free: http://growth.eladgil.com/book/introduction/how-to-use-this-book/ http://growth.eladgil.com/book/introduction/how-to-use-this-...
- desku 8y agoThe link to the .pdf seems to be broken though.
- criddell 8y agoI'm confused - are these reprints of existing books? Is Waldrop's book on Licklider the same as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Computing-ebook/dp/B01FIPHEXM https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Co...
- conceptpad 8y agoI think it is the same book. Personal review: This book makes the history of computing tangible, visceral, and fun to read about - covering all the important characters, and showing the network of connections among them, from Vannevar Bush, Norbert Weiner, Claude Shannon, all the way to Bob Taylor and Alan Kay. Licklider forms an important node in the network with his imagination, and actions taken such as this 1963 memo for the "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network" [1] [1] http://worrydream.com/refs/Licklider-IntergalacticNetwork.pdf http://worrydream.com/refs/Licklider-IntergalacticNetwork.pd...
- psetq 8y agoSome are, apparently. A useful summary is buried at the bottom under the #why-are-we-doing-this anchor: Stripe Press highlights ideas that we think can be broadly useful. Some books contain entirely new material, some are collections of existing work reimagined, and others are republications of previous works that have remained relevant over time or have renewed relevance today.
- criddell 8y agoI totally missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
- hibikir 8y agoIt's the same book: Patrick kept recommending it, and it was out of print, so Stripe talked to the publisher to get a private printing, which was available for employees and visitors. This initiative looks like an extension of the same thing: Rescuing books that no publisher seems to want to print.
- julee04 8y agoAnyone know how Stripe is printing these books?
- briannaw617 8y agoHiya, I'm Brianna from the Stripe Press team! What can we tell you about how we're printing?
- alex_young 8y agoAre you printing on demand?
- briannaw617 8y agoNo, we went the slightly old-fashioned way where we found we could get higher quality production.
- niyazpk 8y agoWell... how are you printing these books?
- briannaw617 8y agoWe partner with a printer called Hemlock to make our books: https://www.hemlock.com/ https://www.hemlock.com/
- julee04 8y agoThanks Brianna!
- amelius 8y agoThis can't work for the obvious reason that if everybody applies these techniques, then everybody's business would grow sky-high. They might as well sell a book on how to win the lottery.
- edanm 8y ago> This can't work for the obvious reason that if everybody applies these techniques, then everybody's business would grow sky-high. Why does this obviously not work? Lots of businesses can grow faster than they do, maybe (probably?) even most businesses. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
- throwawaymsft 8y agoAn economist walks down the street and sees a $20 on the ground. “That can’t be real, if it were, someone would have picked it up.” A passerby stoops down and picks it up.
- kickopotomus 8y agoI appreciate the metaphor but it still highlights the same crux of the problem. That first passerby got the $20. The next guy that follows in his footsteps gets nothing.
- throwawaymsft 8y agoBut is that a problem for the first passerby? Do you not read the book because the strategies won't work in perpetuity?
- kickopotomus 8y ago> High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn... No, I don't read the book because I don't like books that claim to be selling some secret sauce to success because they are often rife with survivorship bias.
- neom 8y agoStripe thinks it's something it isn't, and the arrogance of the founders and their message is becoming trite. Not to rain on their parade, but I hope they get taken down a peg or two, they're mediocre philosophers at best. Be a great payments gateway, not HBR.
- neom 8y agoThat wasn't very kind. I apologize.
- csomar 8y agoI don't get it. Why does it take me to Amazon? I thought Stripe is a credit card processing company? Do they need Amazon for fulfilment?
- philip1209 8y ago> Over the past couple of weeks, Stripe began handling a large, though undisclosed, portion of Amazon’s transactions https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-brothers-turned-seven-lines-of-code-into-a-9-2-billion-startup https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-b...
- NeighboringOwl 8y agoYou can see the actual Stripe Press website here: press.stripe.com
- sotojuan 8y agoHope to see a book by brandur there someday.
- jumelles 8y agoThis is fantastic, but some details on the books would be nice. Where are they printed? Paper weight? Dimensions?
- criddell 8y agoAnd I'd like to know what digital formats (if any) they will support. I love books, but I don't want to give up any more physical space to them.
- runevault 8y agoSo when I looked earlier the book is available for Kindle on Amazon but I could not find it on B&N for Nook. They've got at least 1 ebook format though, plus the website.
- lihaciudaniel 8y agohttps://www.amazon.com/High-Growth-Handbook-Elad-Gil/dp/1732265100 https://www.amazon.com/High-Growth-Handbook-Elad-Gil/dp/1732...
- cyberferret 8y agoAs someone whose SaaS uses Stripe for payment processing, I must admit to being somewhat uncomfortable that Stripe seems to be spreading themselves out into areas outside their core business. I read the "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" many many years ago, and it repeatedly spells out the folly of large companies who became huge on the back of just ONE product then thinking that they needed to have alternatives or provide more choice and broadened their range to the overall long term detriment of the main product or business that made them huge in the first place. EDIT: Just to clarify - it is not just Stripe Press. I am including initiatives like acquiring the Indie Hackers site (which I enjoy BTW) a while back etc. I can totally see that these are all related to Stripe's audience of tech startups, but it still has the ring of, say, a candy company who starts diversifying into a clothing line etc. End of the day - every employee who is distracted by looking after the assets & numbers for these side projects is an employee who is not focused on their core payments system.
- gkoberger 8y agoEh. A non-Stripe-employee wrote a book, and Stripe just funded the printing and threw their logo on it. This isn't meant to be a source of revenue, and other than money I doubt many Stripe resources are going toward it. I wouldn't worry.
- skellera 8y agoIt's actually 4 books listed on that page.
- m12k 8y agoAs far as I can tell Stripe is very much aware that they are a one product company, and all this is just part of their larger content marketing and "become popular in the industry" strategy.
- sarreph 8y agoI would argue that some completely separate (sourced) books in a fancy web-giftshop doesn't constitute a product alternative or range-extension. It's almost akin to a successful tech company starting an annual conference — you wouldn't lambast them for 'losing product focus' on spending a similar amount of productivity (as a book line) in a non-tech-stack branch, would you? Now, if they doubled-down on Stripe Press to the detriment of Stripe the service, then they would indeed be making a silly mistake. :)
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoI'd like to recommend if anyone from Stripe is reading around here, that if you want my business with books these days you need to have a DRM-free option. Where I pay you (this should be easy for Stripe!) and I download the book as PDF, EPUB, MOBI, etc. without DRM. It works for No Starch, Pearson, Manning, and plenty of other publishers. I can even buy books this way through Humble Bundle, which I pay for with Stripe!
- zkirill 8y agoI am actively looking for Stripe alternatives because there are several core platform features that are still not fixed or implemented, while every news I hear about Stripe seems to be how they are branching out into auxiliary services. Even their customer support has gotten worse in the past year or two.
- RoboTeddy 8y agoWhat's broken or unimplemented?
- zkirill 8y agoOff the top of my head: * Undocumented surprise error when user tries to re-subscribe in a different currency or change currency. Solution is to recreate the whole customer. * Docs instruct to subscribe new users to free plan which is actually a bad practice for reasons that include first bullet point. * Lack of docs/guidance for China payment systems and seeing Stripe server and frontend errors in testing environment.
- edwinwee 8y agoHrm, could you share more with me about the errors you saw? We rolled out an integration dashboard (https://dashboard.stripe.com/developers https://dashboard.stripe.com/developers) in March to help review errors. Over the past few years, we've invested in how we support users (last week, we launched free, 24x7 phone and chat support). I'm love to hear more and see where I can help (and any cases where we may have dropped the ball)—shoot me an email at edwin@stripe.com
- pc 8y agoI’m sorry to hear you’ve encountered some issues. Rest assured that core improvement remains our primary focus. On support, our metrics (primarily, responsiveness and customer satisfaction) show substantial improvement over the past two years — and we actually just launched free, 24x7 phone and chat support for all Stripe businesses. https://stripe.com/blog/phone-and-chat-support https://stripe.com/blog/phone-and-chat-support For whatever reason, those stories don’t get upvoted as much on HN :-).
- xbryanx 8y agoJason Kotke reminds us who's amplified: https://twitter.com/kottke/status/1019357328343117824 https://twitter.com/kottke/status/1019357328343117824
- ahmedalsudani 8y agoWhy are you helping spread this white man's opinion? Does he not get enough attention already? (I'm sorry for this crude comment -- it just seemed like the best way to illustrate the irony and ridiculousness of that tweet).
- habitue 8y agoI... don't see anywhere they've restricted publishing to white men? Stripe is a very inclusive company, this tweet seems like trying to stir up shit for no reason.
- SandersAK 8y agoI would love for the day to come when things like this launch and I hit command F "she" or "her" and it doesn't come up empty.
- prawn 8y agoBrianna from Stripe Press has commented on this HN story and is the main comment on the Product Hunt announcement: https://www.producthunt.com/@brianna_wolfson https://www.producthunt.com/@brianna_wolfson If there are female tech/business authors/books you'd like to see listed, you could send through the suggestions?
- briannaw617 8y agoPlease do! I'm brianna@stripe.com if you'd like to get in touch directly.
- crossroads091 8y agoThe carousel/panel of book reviews are not fully visible or accessible at a zoom-level of 100% on Chrome - an extremely rare case of UI bug on a Stripe product announcement page. Or, is this a feature? ;)
- kccqzy 8y agoStripe also publishes a tech magazine called Increment, which I've recently found to be a nice relaxing read. The most recent issue is Programming Languages, but it's not an encyclopedic treatise on PL, nor something you'd find in a PL textbook. I definitely enjoyed it and wish the best for the publications team at Stripe!
- appslure 8y agoAppslure is a Brilliant mobile Application Development Company in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Mumbai. Our app developers team are expert in iOS, android, iPhone and iPad app development. For more visit on- http://www.appslure.com/ http://www.appslure.com/
- throwawayqdhd 8y agoAs with everything else that Stripe does, these books are beautifully designed as well. For me, their design has to be their differentiating factor.
- dtmmax33 8y agoI'm going to write a book "Don't Use Stripe for Your Startup" They can shut you down without any reason, just that you are magically high risk. Just when you are freaking out and think you will pick up the phone and call and find out what is going on you discover they don't have a phone number.
- edwinwee 8y agoI'd like to dig more into this—could you send me an email at edwin@stripe.com?
- amelius 8y agoBeware of companies/VCs that want to fool you into thinking how "easy" it is to grow a business, if you just follow their advice and use their services.
- Keyframe 8y agoI know it's HN and YC and all, and Stripe sounds nice and all, but I have never seen it 'out in the wild'. Not once! I'm in Europe and I surf a lot (even buy stuff online often), so what gives? Do I hang around wrong parts of the internet or Stripe hasn't reached out as far yet? Also, Stripe co-founder claims here in the comments that vast majority of their employees ("and there are now more than 1,000) work on their core functionality. I presume core functionality isn't sales. What the hell, man? Quick google search reveals Windows 7 development team was 960 people, more or less. Sure, microsoft has other teams that service OS dev team with their tools and whatnot, but so do we have those 'out in the open' with OSS. I can't even imagine what I could accomplish with a dev team of 1,000 competent developers.
- psaniko 8y agoI read the co-founder's comment as the whole company having 1000 employees (Wikipedia confirms this) and the vast majority serving the core functionality in one way or the other. Without Sales, Ops, etc. I imagine the number of core functionality devs to be 100-300.
- Keyframe 8y agoThat would make more sense.
- koolhead17 8y agoI don't understand why people are commenting negatively of this announcement. Stripe founders are smart enough to understand what they are doing. Marketing & educating helps in customer acquisition. They are on it.