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Ok, stripe's wonderful, but... why is stripe wonderful? It's a payment service provider. An expensive payment service provider. They have an API. It's nicely w

by madaxe 14y ago

Ok, stripe's wonderful, but... why is stripe wonderful? It's a payment service provider. An expensive payment service provider. They have an API. It's nicely written - but a nicely written API doesn't make a product. They're available in the US and Canada. OK, but there's a whole planet out there. So, yeah. What exactly is it that's so amazing about stripe? I work in eCommerce, run and developed a little platform that does a few £bn a year through it, so know my PSPs, and fail to see the differentiation.

olalonde 14y ago
> It's nicely written - but a nicely written API doesn't make a product. I believe you should revisit that assumption. Stripe is successful because of its API and UI. Likewise, Facebook and the iPhone largely succeeded because of their UI and API.
- madaxe 14y ago
  Facebook succeeded because they got the network effect right, and Zuck chose the initial rounds of members at Harvard carefully (mostly girls, mostly rabid networkers/socialisers), and the ensuing rollout to other colleges/countries were staged carefully to maximise demand. iPhone - marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and the US had never really seen a smartphone before. Then, ecosystem and snowball. That said, I agree that UI is a fundamental part of any product - API, however, not so much - Joe Public doesn't care and neither does your CFO - and as posited, developers, no matter how much we'd like to think we are, are not influencers in the markets where PSPs are entrenched.
- yesimahuman 14y ago
  The Stripe API is really good...but it's not perfect. It still requires a huge amount of manual development that services like Recur.ly and Spreedly already implement. Having implemented several Stripe sites, I found I preferred more of an automated recurring subscription management service, and then Stripe is just a gateway at that point. That being said, I use Stripe extensively and love it.
j_col 14y ago
> So, yeah. What exactly is it that's so amazing about stripe? You have to remember, they are a Y Combinator funded start-up and this is a Y Combinator site, so there is a fair amount of hype on here about Stripe. That said, I think they are doing something interesting and useful (in a real-world commerce sense), and wish them well with it.
- madaxe 14y ago
  Oh, likewise - I think they've real promise, but they're in a crowded marketplace with a lot of really entrenched players. I guess their principle differentiator is the market they target - but pitching to developers is a big bet. If you've worked around enough enterprises you know by now that developers have little say in business decisions - meaning that their main opportunity is to be chosen by startups, and to hope to high hell that one of them makes it big, and piggyback - and hope to high hell that a big player doesn't use their clout and cash to undercut them and shoulder them out. Either way, kudos to them for building what's undeniably a good product, but I just don't see it as a gamer-changer in the same way as others seem to.
  - napoleond 14y ago
    Honest questions: what percentage of Paypal's revenue comes from eBay? Is Stripe's pricing model unsustainable at the lower tiers? In other words, what's stopping them from serving millions of small merchants instead of a few giant ones?
    - madaxe 14y ago
      Paypal/eBay - couldn't find any published figures on this, but looking at eBay's revenues vs. PayPal's revenues, it'd appear that it's a substantial but not dominant share of their revenue. Pricing model - no, it's great, but as you grow, it becomes uneconomical. What's stopping them? Fraud. Fraud fraud fraud. They will end up with an approval process, as if they get hit big a few times (they will), their merchant acquirers/clearers will insist on it.
      - 14y ago
dclaysmith 14y ago
They were also the first (or one of the first) to (nearly) eliminate the approval process. You could go from registration form to accepting payments in hours rather than the old process of getting merchant service account and then payment gateway. Braintree, which was the "pro-developer" option has only recently followed suit and begun offering this "instant underwriting". http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/01/a-new-twist-in-the-three-way-payment-wars-braintree-finally-offers-instant-underwriting/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/01/a-new-twist-in-the-three-wa...
- jorde 14y ago
  They also eliminated the need for merchant accounts which is a pretty big benefit compared to Braintree. One could also use Paypal but...
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    But CC bill had all that before, and before CC bill Ibill had it, and before Ibill DMR had it and so on. In fact, if there is one Achilles heel in Stripe it is that they don't segregate their merchant accounts. In other words, as far as I understand their set-up, if they lose their merchant account the whole thing goes up in smoke.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      You make it sound like the banking equivalent of running on a single Slicehost VPS, which I think does a disservice to the incredibly smart people running Stripe. I doubt there is any risk at all of "if they lose their merchant account the whole thing goes up in smoke".
      - jacquesm 14y ago
        It doesn't do a disservice to them at all. It's just that there are a few inherent risks to this model and I can't see how 'no merchant account' is a plus for any serious business. A merchant account is expensive and integration can be a pain but there are also distinct advantages to having your own. That does not mean that I underestimate the smarts of the people running Stripe, anything but.
webbruce 14y ago
The easy of implementing it into any app is incredible. The dashboard is also very simple and easy to use. It eliminates needs for Gateways, scammy Paypal and other merchants.

by madaxe 14y ago

olalonde 14y ago

> It's nicely written - but a nicely written API doesn't make a product. I believe you should revisit that assumption. Stripe is successful because of its API and UI. Likewise, Facebook and the iPhone largely succeeded because of their UI and API.

madaxe 14y ago
Facebook succeeded because they got the network effect right, and Zuck chose the initial rounds of members at Harvard carefully (mostly girls, mostly rabid networkers/socialisers), and the ensuing rollout to other colleges/countries were staged carefully to maximise demand. iPhone - marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, and the US had never really seen a smartphone before. Then, ecosystem and snowball. That said, I agree that UI is a fundamental part of any product - API, however, not so much - Joe Public doesn't care and neither does your CFO - and as posited, developers, no matter how much we'd like to think we are, are not influencers in the markets where PSPs are entrenched.
yesimahuman 14y ago
The Stripe API is really good...but it's not perfect. It still requires a huge amount of manual development that services like Recur.ly and Spreedly already implement. Having implemented several Stripe sites, I found I preferred more of an automated recurring subscription management service, and then Stripe is just a gateway at that point. That being said, I use Stripe extensively and love it.

j_col 14y ago

> So, yeah. What exactly is it that's so amazing about stripe? You have to remember, they are a Y Combinator funded start-up and this is a Y Combinator site, so there is a fair amount of hype on here about Stripe. That said, I think they are doing something interesting and useful (in a real-world commerce sense), and wish them well with it.

madaxe 14y ago
Oh, likewise - I think they've real promise, but they're in a crowded marketplace with a lot of really entrenched players. I guess their principle differentiator is the market they target - but pitching to developers is a big bet. If you've worked around enough enterprises you know by now that developers have little say in business decisions - meaning that their main opportunity is to be chosen by startups, and to hope to high hell that one of them makes it big, and piggyback - and hope to high hell that a big player doesn't use their clout and cash to undercut them and shoulder them out. Either way, kudos to them for building what's undeniably a good product, but I just don't see it as a gamer-changer in the same way as others seem to.
- napoleond 14y ago
  Honest questions: what percentage of Paypal's revenue comes from eBay? Is Stripe's pricing model unsustainable at the lower tiers? In other words, what's stopping them from serving millions of small merchants instead of a few giant ones?
  - madaxe 14y ago
    Paypal/eBay - couldn't find any published figures on this, but looking at eBay's revenues vs. PayPal's revenues, it'd appear that it's a substantial but not dominant share of their revenue. Pricing model - no, it's great, but as you grow, it becomes uneconomical. What's stopping them? Fraud. Fraud fraud fraud. They will end up with an approval process, as if they get hit big a few times (they will), their merchant acquirers/clearers will insist on it.
    - 14y ago

dclaysmith 14y ago

They were also the first (or one of the first) to (nearly) eliminate the approval process. You could go from registration form to accepting payments in hours rather than the old process of getting merchant service account and then payment gateway. Braintree, which was the "pro-developer" option has only recently followed suit and begun offering this "instant underwriting". http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/01/a-new-twist-in-the-three-way-payment-wars-braintree-finally-offers-instant-underwriting/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/01/a-new-twist-in-the-three-wa...

jorde 14y ago
They also eliminated the need for merchant accounts which is a pretty big benefit compared to Braintree. One could also use Paypal but...
- jacquesm 14y ago
  But CC bill had all that before, and before CC bill Ibill had it, and before Ibill DMR had it and so on. In fact, if there is one Achilles heel in Stripe it is that they don't segregate their merchant accounts. In other words, as far as I understand their set-up, if they lose their merchant account the whole thing goes up in smoke.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    You make it sound like the banking equivalent of running on a single Slicehost VPS, which I think does a disservice to the incredibly smart people running Stripe. I doubt there is any risk at all of "if they lose their merchant account the whole thing goes up in smoke".
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      It doesn't do a disservice to them at all. It's just that there are a few inherent risks to this model and I can't see how 'no merchant account' is a plus for any serious business. A merchant account is expensive and integration can be a pain but there are also distinct advantages to having your own. That does not mean that I underestimate the smarts of the people running Stripe, anything but.

webbruce 14y ago

The easy of implementing it into any app is incredible. The dashboard is also very simple and easy to use. It eliminates needs for Gateways, scammy Paypal and other merchants.