7 ms·

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that i

• breck 13y ago
  Two day payouts looks like a great innovation to me. :)
  • pc 13y ago
    To Stripe's discredit, that's not a new idea :-). Don't worry; we'll fix this soon.
    • melvinram 13y ago
      YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • frankdenbow 13y ago
      Oh yes, this is the clincher!
    • maxmzd_ 13y ago
      Please do. That's the one feature of Simplify I saw that made me want to switch.
    • adventured 13y ago
      As others have noted, this is very important. Could care less about 2.85% or other silly gimmicks.
  • yogo 13y ago
    As a Stripe user that's one of the things that stood out to me immediately. This will definitely inspire some change on Stripe's part hehe. That's a good thing since it helps Stripe win in the long run.
• jusben1369 13y ago
  Look at the bright side. This is complete validation for your approach. Now MC is copying your business model and got to market strategy. You're defining the landscape. Powerful stuff.
• white_devil 13y ago
  PLEASE tell the world why it's so damn difficult to let non-US businesses use a payment service? We're dying to know. Is it because of bullshit regulations everywhere? Why has it taken you forever to set up shop in a couple of places in Europe? Why not the rest too? Seriously. What is it?
  • rdouble 13y ago
    It's usually the regulations in the foreign country.
  • pc 13y ago
    It's a combination things. - Legally, we need to be able to verify identities. We want to do this frictionlessly and in real-time rather than with some paperwork sheaf that gets mailed to you a week later. The solution looks different in almost every country. - Visa, MasterCard, and co. have rules that effectively prevent you from using the same backends in different areas. (E.g., you can't use the same backend in Europe and the US.) So we have to rebuild a lot of our stack in each country. - The infrastructure for doing daily deposits into bank accounts also differs by country. Often, the basic operation is relatively easy, but figuring out all of the edge-cases is hard. - The laws in every country differ. Sometimes, we need to obtain licenses or something like that. - Etc... We could have hacked around this by partnering with existing payments companies in each area. That's what people usually do -- it's much cheaper and way faster. The downside is that you end up with a much worse product than what you have in the US. For obvious reasons, we didn't want to do that. So we now have an office in London that's working full-time on bringing Stripe to other markets and we're processing production transactions in four countries. I'm sorry that it's slow :(. I guess the tl;dr is that a substantial fraction of the work required to build Stripe in the US has to be repeated in each new country -- the work and complexity scales O(n). We're still just 55 people, and it takes time. (Still, if you'd like to help speed it up, we're hiring!)
    • ryangripp 13y ago
      This
    • 13y ago
• sjtgraham 13y ago
  Don't worry, it's not worth considering. Continuing to innovate, is.
• greghinch 13y ago
  That is fair. I've only seen Stripe from the outside, and haven't even actually implemented it on any projects. Certainly I can appreciate how frustrating and disappointing it is to have some established player in the greater ecosystem come in and build a nearly direct copy of your service. I'm also sure that there's much more to Stripe, and payments in general, than the API and docs, and it's highly unlikely they can come up with a copy of the rest of the company.
• loceng 13y ago
  This is what businesses do, they copy. Hopefully they improve something, but otherwise the end result is the more competitors, the lower the profit - the more competitive and therefore the more benefit to the end user. No matter what industry you're in, service you're offering - people will copy it / do it themselves. It's really an innovator's dilemma (not referencing the book). Once you innovate and find a better way, the optimal best way - that is how others will do it. The power big giants have is copying to stay competitive (rich get richer..), and really they must to stay alive and relevant - even if it ends up being a zero sum game. Facebook does the same thing, Google does the same - though they produce actual innovation themselves, meanwhile I'm not sure what Facebook has uniquely created, even their beginnings were a copy so it's in their DNA. MasterCard will likely leverage their brand name and try to get long-term partners of theirs using their service and not Stripe or others. They validated your market though, so focus on growth, and perhaps a MasterCard competitor will want to try to buy you at a premium -- assuming that's what you want.
• sheena 13y ago
  (I also work on Stripe's API and dashboard.) I actually find it more interesting that quite a few of the obviously copied bits aren't even really worthy of copying if you're already going through the effort of building an entirely new product -- they're pieces of our product that could stand to be improved. :)
  • pdog 13y ago
    Such as?
    • pc 13y ago
      The live/test switch is a good example. It confuses everyone: you're just switching between the data that's shown, but everyone thinks you're switching the underlying state of your account. It's something we've had on our list to fix for a long time.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      • IronWhale 13y ago
        I'm so glad to know that, I was thoroughly confused :D
    • kibibu 13y ago
      U.S. availability only?
      • Kudos 13y ago
        Zing, however Stripe is in 4 countries now.
        • pc86 13y ago
          Never let facts get in the way of snark.
• jacquesm 13y ago
  Stripe.js is copyrighted content. The rest is not too big a deal but if they've copied your software (even if it is JavaScript) that's not legal.
  • ceejayoz 13y ago
    I'd guess they meant "the idea and general implementation details of Stripe.js", not "the code, verbatim".
• antr 13y ago
  The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley. Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good. Is it disappointing that MasterCard launched a similar service? Sure, I would too be disappointed and I sympathise. Having said that, stating that "a product copies everything" is not really true. They can not copy execution, culture, customer service, customer loyalty, etc. You have that on your side. People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s. All of them car startups. When the technology goes in one direction it is difficult to be the salmon that swims upstream, in the opposite direction. To tell those +100 car startups to "go and innovate, I own the combustion engine on top of four wheels" is simple unrealistic. Expect competition, that's my point. How did Ford survive having less resources than many others? How did Ford survive the great depression? Execution. It improved the assembly line, vertically integrated to bring more production in-house, etc. Stripe's case should be no different. Today's technology and innovation is commoditised in months. Execution can't be commoditised. Don't expect competitors to rest on their laurels.
  • dmix 13y ago
    Calling it "lazy" was fair given the points he made. He's not talking about copying products, he's talking about copying the product AND all the little UI/UX details. That really is lazy.
    • ISL 13y ago
      Unless Stripe is your competitor, and you think they're doing a good job. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and all that...
  • markdown 13y ago
    > People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s. There were over 1,800 automobile manufacturers in the United States from 1896 to 1930. Very few survived and only a few new ones were started after that period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobile_manufacturers_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobile_manufacturer...
• presidentender 13y ago
  Stripe's terms of use prohibit both weapons and virtual currencies. If Simplify's terms of service prohibit either, I can't find the relevant paragraph. That alone makes Simplify somewhat more attractive.
  • haldujai 13y ago
    "a. Illegal Activities b. Certain Adult Oriented Products and Services c. Illegal Drugs d. Counterfeit Goods e. Gambling Businesses f. Money Making ("Get Rich") Businesses g. Tobacco Products" Source: https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/misc/legal/merchant-terms-of-use https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/misc/legal/merchant-t... Much, much less restrictive than Stripe, and cheaper to boot. Now adult websites can switch to this instead of CCBill (which I find more sketchy.)
    • newchimedes 13y ago
      They updated there terms of service. Adult is strictly not allowed... as are many of the same lines of industry that are forbidden on Stripe and other payment processors. Source:https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173592-how-can-i-tell-if-my-business-is-eligible-to-process-payments-through-simplify-commerce- https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173592-h...
    • phreanix 13y ago
      Sketchy is a massive understatement.
    • whimsy 13y ago
      Uh, doesn't b. preclude your conclusion?
• nazka 13y ago
  It is something I don't understand... It's not possible to patent/copyright the whole design of website to see it as a whole product? And avoid people to do exactly the same design?
• ww520 13y ago
  On the bright side, MasterCard has validated the space and your work. Visa and Amex might buy you out to compete in good time. Don't feel discouraged.
• Volpe 13y ago
  Surely you (Stripe) must have known that providers would respond. If people are saying "Feature X in stripe is awesome", it isn't lazy to copy, it's smart (That's what startups would do). They quickly catch up to your product and hopefully (for them) innovate further. I get you'd be flustered/angry you have a worthy competitor (with way more resources than you), but companies don't have to be innovators to be competitors. You innovated, and got first mover advantage, now comes the competition.
  • RussianCow 13y ago
    I don't think he's upset because Stripe has a new competitor. I think he's upset because MasterCard copied every little detail of Stripe, down to the wording and the little UI details. I would be upset, too, if a large company released a product that was a mirror image of mine.
• 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  > ...but I don't think it's particularly worthy of support from other engineers and makers. Simplify might be a Stripe clone, but if it's just as reliable, cheaper and allows me to get my hands on my money faster, why shouldn't I consider it? I'm an engineer/"maker" but that doesn't mean that I select commodity services based on emotion or ideology. After all, saving money and getting my money faster supports my ability to continue making stuff. I need to accept payments online. I am your customer. You should be trying to convince me that Stripe is the best payment solution for my business, not labeling a new competitor "lazy" and suggesting that I avoid it because it opted not to reinvent the wheel. > We should encourage each other any time we see great, original work -- creativity is hard, and new ideas are often delicate in the early days. It'd be really cool if MasterCard did that, but Simplify unfortunately doesn't seem to have anything that's new. I really, really like Stripe and think you have built a great service but reading this makes me cringe. Innovation and first mover advantage do not guarantee success. In fact, sitting back and following can be a smart approach: it's less risky and less costly to let others invest in new ideas and "copy" what gains traction in the market. I know this is blasphemy in Silicon Valley, but it's the harsh reality of business. We'll see if the market finds Simplify's lower pricing and faster payouts compelling enough, but I don't think it's fair to insinuate that the only source of legitimate, meaningful and effective differentiation comes from building something "original".
  • pc 13y ago
    I was probably too incendiary in my phrasing, and I agree with what you say. If Simplify solves your problems better than Stripe does, you should use it (and good job to them for doing so). It's our job, of course, to have that not be the case. The point I was trying to make was fairly narrowly scoped: needlessly copying even tiny details of Stripe is pretty uninspired. (P.S. Any chance you could drop me an email? I'm patrick@stripe.com.)
    • breck 13y ago
      > needlessly copying even tiny details of Stripe is pretty uninspired. I disagree. Copying tiny details is a very smart strategy for non critical parts of your product. Do not try to reinvent the wheel...and the axle and the airbag, all at once. Designers should focus on what's unique and different about their offering, and leverage from the community the other parts. I'm sure Stripe put a lot of design time into those API details. Simplify is bringing new features to the market (faster payouts and lower prices), and so their time and money is better spent on those than trying to also reinvent API design. And it's better then to just copy verbatim than to put up the first thing that comes to mind. I could otherwise argue that Stripe's use of JSON and HTML is pretty uninspired because Braintree was doing it years before.
• confluence 13y ago
  Original work doesn't exist. Everything is a remix of old ideas. For example, one could argue that Stripe is just a copy of one of the many already existent payment processing APIs, with better marketing. What exactly do you do that's so different? Better ad copy? And honestly, the things you say are "copied" are fairly lame things that anyone could've done. It's not like they stole any secret sauce, like when Boeing used industrial espionage to steal information on rocket manufacturing from Lockheed Martin. Competition exists. You don't have a right to monopoly. Suck it up, because you just aren't that original.
  • ahoyhere 13y ago
    What "already existent payment processing APIs" do you think Stripe was a "copy" of? Because as somebody who actually takes a lot of money in CC payments online, I can tell you: Stripe changed everything.