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Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

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Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#171

Post by pc »

nickjj wrote: post #162
csdreamer7 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing your percentage of fraud with the two services? (I assume you are using Braintree.) Honestly, you are the first person to make a good case on using PayPal over Stripe. Especially with the arbitrary horror stories I hear about PayPal all the time. > It's a shame Stripe doesn't offer the Radar service (helps detect and prevent fraud) with custom rules as part of their normal service. You can only…

I use Stripe and PayPal currently but on the next platform I'm currently building I'm strongly (and very seriously) considering Braintree. With PayPal, the fraud experience has been nothing short of amazing. Out of many many thousands of transactions, I've only had about 3 or 4 transactions get flagged as high risk by PayPal. What this means is PayPal will hold the funds, review the transaction and then either give y…

Hi Nick -- I'd love to have us dig in more here to understand this better. Could you email me? patrick@stripe.com.

[In brief, chargebacks/disputes work differently for PayPal payments as compared to credit card payments... I suspect that much of this is mostly a PayPal vs credit card difference. But I want to understand the details.]

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#172

Post by bogdanu »

pc wrote: post #41
therealmarv wrote: post #30

How about opening your business to new markets. Stripe feels like you have to have your business in the top first world countries only. It's unusable even in some EU countries nowadays.

We're still working hard on this. (We just expanded our beta in Bulgaria last week!)

Sadly Romania is still in beta... Do you have any updates on that?

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#173

Post by jcrben »

kingbirdy wrote: post #140
jcrben wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish you could disintermediate credit card fees. I'm sort of hopeful that credit card surcharging might grow ( https://www.cardx.com/ ) and start competition on those costs.

I don't have strong feelings either way on having consumers pay CC processing fees, but encouraging them to use debit cards online seems irresponsible given the non-existent fraud protections on debit cards. Of course it's technically consumers' responsibility to know and trade off that risk versus the savings, but at least in the US the sad reality is that personal finance education is woefully lacking or non-existe…

Yeah. I'm optimistic that the the relentless long-term competitive march to improved customer experience will include better fraud protections on debit cards. Reduced expenses as technology helps us identify fraud will also help.

I haven't used a debit card in years to maximize benefits (altho I sometimes use cash when required by small businesses), but the Capital One debit card advertises $0 Fraud Liability https://www.capitalone.com/bank/debit-card/.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#174

Post by arkh »

pc wrote: post #75

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc... ). That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s). As always, thank you to…

For E2E testing, a mocked Stripe with some state would be a boon. Because calling your test servers takes a lot of time (and some call results differ between test and prod mode). And using Wiremock is a bitch when creating on-the-fly random fixtures.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#175

Post by hobofan »

buf wrote: post #48

I just wish Stripe figured out how to integrate with PayPal. I'm stuck using Braintree because I want a single payment provider for CC and PayPal payments.

The only way that's ever going to happen is if Stripe's volume outgrows PayPal so much that it starts hurting PayPal and they have to play ball.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#176

Post by Despegar »

pc wrote: post #75

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc... ). That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s). As always, thank you to…

Why haven't you gone public yet? Airbnb raising money from private equity who undoubtedly wants to loan-to-own them should have discredited the idea that staying private longer is better than being a public company.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#177

Post by eloff »

asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #135
core-questions wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company. Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there. When a Walmart comes along, the profits all mov…

By that logic, car dealerships in America are a positive because they keep profits locally. In reality, they just increase prices to consumers and limit competition through lobbying. The cost advantage from Walmart is not just in logistics, it is specialization of labor, superior negotiating power against suppliers, and diversification of geographic risk. A small business will be less efficient and give up more profi…

This is true, but are lower prices for consumers better for everyone in the community than keeping the profits locally? I don't think anyone knows. My guess is it creates different winners and losers.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#178

Post by bagacrap »

pc wrote: post #52
tlrobinson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it’s also likely one of the largest and fastest transfers of wealth from small businesses to large corporations. As Amazon hires 100,000+ workers how many small businesses are shuttering for good? Stripe is one of the “good” tech companies in this respect by helping to level the playing field for smaller businesses, but it’s not going to be enough.

The impact of Covid-19 on many businesses around the world is very sad. That said, it's less clear to me that the medium-term impact will be pro-incumbent or pro-large company. Big incumbents tend to be less adaptable and to benefit from large fixed cost barriers to entry (e.g. real estate). We're seeing a lot of nimble small businesses migrate to online business models far faster than the behemoths they used to stru…

I think he's thinking about local specialty retailers, which pretty much by definition cannot pivot into some online model. If you aren't deemed essential, you're likely going out of business as your market is eaten up by Amazon and Target/Walmart (which get to keep selling various non essentials since they're allowed to remain open, so they can sell groceries and drugs). Small local businesses will fail or take out crushing loans from the govt, and your mom+pop kitchen store is not more able to cope than Target with its well staffed IT dept, unbroken revenue stream, and deep pockets.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#179

Post by notJim »

core-questions wrote: post #83
malandrew wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this idolization of small over large (or vice versa for others). The thing that matters most is that businesses best satisfy their customers, whether they are small or large. There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company. I buy from small companies all the time and many of those that I do will likely survive because the…

> There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company. Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there. When a Walmart comes along, the profits all mov…

I'm not so sure about the tremendous benefits of having locally-wealthy people instead of remotely-wealthy people. As I've gotten more involved in local politics, I've discovered that local small business owners have a quite toxic influence on local politics. Who funds the campaigns opposing density? Often it's small business owners. In Seattle, the city was trying to create spaces where addicts could safely use needle drugs (and get services and be off the street). Who opposed this? Small business owners.

Additionally, because they fly under the radar and are less efficient, small businesses can be some of the most exploitative workplaces. Small businesses are also often exempted from pro-worker regulations, for example they do not have to provide healthcare to their employees. Several small businesses in cities I've lived in have waged years-long union-busting campaigns.

The point isn't that small businesses are worse than large ones, I just think they have a progressive halo which is often undeserved.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#180

Post by preinheimer »

tarr11 wrote: post #153
plantain wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My top issues running my business on Stripe: 1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it. 2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transaction…

Completely agree on #3. Felt like a big blow to have Stripe do this. A lot of subscription based businesses were built around "no-hassle refunds" as a core feature enabled by Stripe and will now need to rethink this.

This is the position we're in (our 'legacy' pricing will go away this year). We've decided to just eat it.
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