Building developer enthusiasm and passion? that's great. That's what Stripe is doing, and I'm happy about that. Please don't call that a cult though.
Indeed. It is very off-putting. Developer cults do more damage to the developer community than not.
Building a Developer Cult
101–110 of 132 posts
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#102If we are taking about Stripe, we should mention the silent competitor barely anyone talks or knows about outside the payments industry: Adyen. Stripe’s current, (private) valuation is $36B. Developers love them. Adyen’s current, public valuation is $43B (they IPO’d amongst little press coverage). Most developers don’t know about them. So what is the difference? Market strategy. Adyen only goes after large businesses…
> It will be fascinating to see what happens as these two companies expand to compete with each other Very unlikely, as both markets (smb payments and enterprise payments) is unlimited, there is a few chance they will try to compete with each other. On the other hand almost no company is able to be a leader in both the smb and enterprise space, because as you mentioned it, the cultures need to be different, the custo…
> both markets (smb payments and enterprise payments) is unlimited
What? There are only so many companies in need of (or open to changing) payment processing software at a given time. When it comes to larger firms, those numbers get smaller. That's the opposite of unlimited.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#103If we are taking about Stripe, we should mention the silent competitor barely anyone talks or knows about outside the payments industry: Adyen. Stripe’s current, (private) valuation is $36B. Developers love them. Adyen’s current, public valuation is $43B (they IPO’d amongst little press coverage). Most developers don’t know about them. So what is the difference? Market strategy. Adyen only goes after large businesses…
Why is it remarkable that the company is based in Amsterdam? I live there. There's a decent but not great startup culture. The services infrastructure is fantastic and there are many massive multinationals based here.
I read this sentence as saying "outside the valley" more than saying that Amsterdam is a particularly surprising place.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#104If we are taking about Stripe, we should mention the silent competitor barely anyone talks or knows about outside the payments industry: Adyen. Stripe’s current, (private) valuation is $36B. Developers love them. Adyen’s current, public valuation is $43B (they IPO’d amongst little press coverage). Most developers don’t know about them. So what is the difference? Market strategy. Adyen only goes after large businesses…
> Adyen only goes after large businesses and has something many others, including Stripe cannot compete with efficiently: (far) lower pricing, higher market coverage. The reason is: larger businesses will require more payment options than Stripe offers. India? Adyen got you covered: [1] Philippines? Yup, everything [2], including offline payments in stores [3]. Mobile payments in Africa? No worries [4] And so on and…
This is seriously lacking in terms of what's available on the market in Japan now.
No support for point payments (like RakutenEdy payment), neither Linepay, Rakupay, Merpay, Paypay and other QR payment providers, nor Suica or Pasmo pay, and this is still just the tip of the iceberg what's available in Japan and missing in Adyen (Nanaco, Waon, dPay, auPay, etc). Just saying, before you drink too much of that kool-aid.
I would assume it's lacking similarly in other markets too.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#105If we are taking about Stripe, we should mention the silent competitor barely anyone talks or knows about outside the payments industry: Adyen. Stripe’s current, (private) valuation is $36B. Developers love them. Adyen’s current, public valuation is $43B (they IPO’d amongst little press coverage). Most developers don’t know about them. So what is the difference? Market strategy. Adyen only goes after large businesses…
> It will be fascinating to see what happens as these two companies expand to compete with each other Very unlikely, as both markets (smb payments and enterprise payments) is unlimited, there is a few chance they will try to compete with each other. On the other hand almost no company is able to be a leader in both the smb and enterprise space, because as you mentioned it, the cultures need to be different, the custo…
==On the other hand almost no company is able to be a leader in both the smb and enterprise space==
Concur, Microsoft Office, GSuite, Tableau, DocuSign, Salesforce, Adobe, Slack and Zoom to name a few.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Adyen only goes after large businesses and has something many others, including Stripe cannot compete with efficiently: (far) lower pricing, higher market coverage. The reason is: larger businesses will require more payment options than Stripe offers. India? Adyen got you covered: [1] Philippines? Yup, everything [2], including offline payments in stores [3]. Mobile payments in Africa? No worries [4] And so on and…
This is seriously lacking in terms of what's available on the market in Japan now. No support for point payments (like RakutenEdy payment), neither Linepay, Rakupay, Merpay, Paypay and other QR payment providers, nor Suica or Pasmo pay, and this is still just the tip of the iceberg what's available in Japan and missing in Adyen (Nanaco, Waon, dPay, auPay, etc). Just saying, before you drink too much of that kool-aid.…
Yeah, and how many payment providers provide all that and all the rest that Adyen provides?
I'm drinking Adyen kool-aid because I worked for a company that needed payment methods in Japan, and in India, and in Korea, and in Latin America, and in Europe.
Adyen provides all that. Yes, they will not have 100% of local providers, but it's still 100% better than any competition.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#107I stopped reading when the author described a feedback button as the epitome of customer obsession. Is that really the bar?
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think of it like listen to your users, but don’t do everything they ask. Use your judgement to make sure it aligns with your goals, and hopefully you have a goal beyond ‘make monies’.
Additionally, think about why they're asking for a certain thing, and whether their request is really the best way to solve the underlying problem they want solved
“Treat your users as you would a class of pre-school children. If they’re all screaming for a snack you don’t necessarily give them one, perhaps a healthy lunch would be better for the underlying need.”
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#109What makes Stripe good now is what made it good way back when they first launched: Handling payments sucks and they make it suck less. The design, etc. is the gravy on top of a successful runaway train.
The remarkable thing about the culture around Stripe is that they still get the credit for the things they did well in those early days, even though they are far from the same service now that they've scaled up. Objectively, today's Stripe is often a relatively expensive and unreliable way to collect money from your customers. The API and developer documentation are no longer as simple and effective as they once were…
> The remarkable thing about the culture around Stripe is that they still get the credit for the things they did well in those early days, even though they are far from the same service now that they've scaled up.
This describes the broader Silicon Valley tech scene quite well too.
People worship others for founding/funding X company, being employee #Y at a certain unicorn, creating a cool feature 5+ years ago for a dead app, etc.
Re: Building a Developer Cult
#110If we are taking about Stripe, we should mention the silent competitor barely anyone talks or knows about outside the payments industry: Adyen. Stripe’s current, (private) valuation is $36B. Developers love them. Adyen’s current, public valuation is $43B (they IPO’d amongst little press coverage). Most developers don’t know about them. So what is the difference? Market strategy. Adyen only goes after large businesses…
It's reasonable to look at this from a short-term vs. long-term perspective as well.
Stripe dominates the hobby & startup segments with the hope that those companies will, someday, become very successful. Now, any company at a certain size will be able to switch between payment processors with little cost, but Stripe still has that initial relationship. They certainly have the opportunity to grow business with their current relationships over time, and in some ways more than Adyen can.
Additionally, Stripe will always work to get more payment methods & exist in more countries. It's always some work to do so, but number of payment methods isn't insurmountable, and it's only a matter of time before Stripe & Adyen are difficult to distinguish between their offerings.
Lastly, Stripe has a lot of breadth of products compared to Adyen. Stripe Sigma alone is a huge value add that a regular "insights platform" lacks. There's a lot here to unpack, for sure.