3 ms·

Especially if you have a "money printing business" (which I really think Stripe qualifies, or is really close to)

by raverbashing 4y ago

enahs-sf 4y ago
They take a rake on pretty much all e-commerce so I’d say that qualifies.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  How does Stripe not have a well-developed set of competitors after all these years? What is its network effect? Every time I ask people about this, they say it has an amazing developer-friendly set of APIs. But it’s hard for me to believe nobody has been able to replicate this experience a decade later, when Stripe’s APIs are sitting right there to crib off of.
  - 0xy 4y ago
    It's because Stripe negotiate steep discounts. The APIs are merely the trojan horse to get inside your org. Speaking from experience at the table at some of these deals, Adyen or other competitors would often approach my employer (large e-commerce company) offering a better deal, but executives would merely take the deal to Stripe and say "match it or we're leaving", and they would. Given the cost of leaving is only somewhere between $50-200k depending on the complexity of your checkout systems, the client base isn't particularly sticky. I'm bearish on Stripe for this reason. If they're just racing to the bottom with Adyen and others then where are they going to make money? Their other products are pure garbage (Stripe Radar is worse than useless).
yumraj 4y ago
Groupon[0] was also considered a "money printing business" at the time of their IPO. But post IPO they had to open their kimono and everyone found out that it was all just funky accounting. They went from reporting a positive operating income of $60.6 million for 2010 to an operating loss of $420 million for 2010 after proper accounting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon
- twelve40 4y ago
  I dunno, I haven't really bought into Groupon hype. Its easy to imagine life without coupons. It's much harder to imagine life without payment processing. For all of its flaws, Stripe is plugged into almost every online business I've worked with, so I'd say they are in a position that is harder to screw up than Groupon. But possible, of course.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Especially if you have a "money printing business" (which I really think Stripe qualifies, or is really close to)

enahs-sf 4y ago

They take a rake on pretty much all e-commerce so I’d say that qualifies.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
How does Stripe not have a well-developed set of competitors after all these years? What is its network effect? Every time I ask people about this, they say it has an amazing developer-friendly set of APIs. But it’s hard for me to believe nobody has been able to replicate this experience a decade later, when Stripe’s APIs are sitting right there to crib off of.
- 0xy 4y ago
  It's because Stripe negotiate steep discounts. The APIs are merely the trojan horse to get inside your org. Speaking from experience at the table at some of these deals, Adyen or other competitors would often approach my employer (large e-commerce company) offering a better deal, but executives would merely take the deal to Stripe and say "match it or we're leaving", and they would. Given the cost of leaving is only somewhere between $50-200k depending on the complexity of your checkout systems, the client base isn't particularly sticky. I'm bearish on Stripe for this reason. If they're just racing to the bottom with Adyen and others then where are they going to make money? Their other products are pure garbage (Stripe Radar is worse than useless).

yumraj 4y ago

Groupon[0] was also considered a "money printing business" at the time of their IPO. But post IPO they had to open their kimono and everyone found out that it was all just funky accounting. They went from reporting a positive operating income of $60.6 million for 2010 to an operating loss of $420 million for 2010 after proper accounting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon

twelve40 4y ago
I dunno, I haven't really bought into Groupon hype. Its easy to imagine life without coupons. It's much harder to imagine life without payment processing. For all of its flaws, Stripe is plugged into almost every online business I've worked with, so I'd say they are in a position that is harder to screw up than Groupon. But possible, of course.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]