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> Yes sending emails yourself is just as impossible as hosting a payment processor yourself. Genuine questions, how do companies like Mailchimp get started the

• reustle 5y ago
  Mailchimp was founded in 2001, when the internet was a very, very different place. If you were to try to start one today, I suppose you could rely on sending via another company like Amazon until you have a big enough customer base, then roll out your own infrastructure.
• Swannie 5y ago
  By starting 15+ years ago, when this was marginally easier, and there was far less competition. Mailchip is 20. Campaign Monitor is 17 (and have been buying up other email related companies/brands for years). SendGrid is about 12. Mailgun is 11. There's a lot of competition out there, and it's not easy to overcome all the blocklist challenges - paying customers aren't willing for you to experiment with their customer's getting their email.
• fragmede 5y ago
  Get started early, hire people away from your competitors, make friends with people who work at your suppliers. It's not impossible to talk to Visa and start a payment processor from there today, but regulations and competition make that an uphill battle, even though the technical aspects are doable. Better have a sizable war chest with a long runway.