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The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

forbes.com

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Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#11

Post by samwillis »

mooktakim wrote: post #7
encoderer wrote: post #2

Paddle buying ProfitWell is big. Paddle would also take over all my billing support. I don’t want to do a billing migration right now but if I did I probably would switch to Paddle. The first real contender to Stripe in a long time.

I still don't understand what Paddle offers to SaaS. As a dev I thought maybe easier integration. But it doesn't seem all that different from Stripe Invoice.

My understanding is that Paddle becomes a middle man in the transaction taking on all international tax responsibility. They pay you out after paying all tax/vat local to the customer. This massively simplifies international sales, particularly for EU business.

I also believe that an awful lot of small online SASS and digital good sales by companies are committing (unintentional) tax fraud in the countries of their customers.

I hate trying to understand vat/sales tax on digital goods, to the point that it has until now discouraged me from starting that sort of business on my own. With Paddle I wouldn't have to even think about it.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#12

Post by jokethrowaway »

mooktakim wrote: post #7
encoderer wrote: post #2

Paddle buying ProfitWell is big. Paddle would also take over all my billing support. I don’t want to do a billing migration right now but if I did I probably would switch to Paddle. The first real contender to Stripe in a long time.

I still don't understand what Paddle offers to SaaS. As a dev I thought maybe easier integration. But it doesn't seem all that different from Stripe Invoice.

They handle paying vat and sales tax for you. Your customers purchase from them. You make a single b2b invoice to paddle.

That said their API is very basic and their UX is not on par with what you can. A lot of operations are not possible (eg. Letting users change their billing details, such as company or personal, vat number, etc)

They also won't migrate your credit card data if you're too small.

www.getrevin.com looks like a much better alternative: they basically create a stripe account and add you to it. You integrate with your their stripe account and they pay you, same as paddle.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#13

Post by jokethrowaway »

samwillis wrote: post #11
mooktakim wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand what Paddle offers to SaaS. As a dev I thought maybe easier integration. But it doesn't seem all that different from Stripe Invoice.

My understanding is that Paddle becomes a middle man in the transaction taking on all international tax responsibility. They pay you out after paying all tax/vat local to the customer. This massively simplifies international sales, particularly for EU business. I also believe that an awful lot of small online SASS and digital good sales by companies are committing (unintentional) tax fraud in the countries of their c…

A simple solution is to do a b2b company only and thanks the EU for complicating the situation so much. Another thing I used to do was to just sell to everyone except European customers (explicitly written on the website).

The funniest thing is that the EU ostensibly did it to make "Amazon pay their fair share" while most small merchants that used to run e-commerce have moved to sell on Amazon or eBay just not to have to keep up with all the regulations and bs.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#14

Post by ralston3 »

warent wrote: post #9
tootie wrote: post #5

It's a really amazing case of a business going into a crowded space and building a solution to what anyone would have called a thoroughly-solved problem and still managed to disrupt it. They didn't really "invent" anything or make a new market, they just did something better than everyone else. And, I think, got incredibly lucky with entering the market at the exact right time.

It is curious to wonder how they managed to lead the company this successfully. How often do young founders actually hang onto leadership this long without either imploding or being replaced? Why are the Collison brothers different?

IMO...value. I personally feel like it's always easier for founders to stay on when their product provides actual, tangible, objective value. It clearly shows that they (the founders) sort've know their market, and know what they're doing (to some degree). When that's the case, I feel investors are happy to get out of the way and watch their equity rise. Whereas when a service isn't providing any real differential value, it's a lot easier to try to swap out the founders for the MBA/finance/corporate type that doesn't really know the market/audience.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#15

Post by samwillis »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #13
samwillis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Paddle becomes a middle man in the transaction taking on all international tax responsibility. They pay you out after paying all tax/vat local to the customer. This massively simplifies international sales, particularly for EU business. I also believe that an awful lot of small online SASS and digital good sales by companies are committing (unintentional) tax fraud in the countries of their c…

A simple solution is to do a b2b company only and thanks the EU for complicating the situation so much. Another thing I used to do was to just sell to everyone except European customers (explicitly written on the website). The funniest thing is that the EU ostensibly did it to make "Amazon pay their fair share" while most small merchants that used to run e-commerce have moved to sell on Amazon or eBay just not to hav…

I believe that two some extent these sort of regulations are lobbied for in the background by large corporations in order to make it harder for small business to enter the market. If they are going to get regulated anyway best make it to their own advantage!

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#17

Post by goodoldneon »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #8

absolutely ZERO chance they could get a $95B valuation in public markets today HN/VCs also said Uber was a $150B company...Lyft was a $50B company...Peloton was a $40B company... if Stripe went public today, I would say they would be lucky to crest at a $30B valuation, even that may be lofty...PayPal has 3x market share as Stripe and has a $92B valuation

Uber peaked at ~$150 billion market cap. Peloton peaked ~$55 billion market cap.

They were absolutely overvalued at those market caps, but it's wrong to say that "HN/VCs said those companies were worth X but they didn't reach X in public markets"

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#18

Post by fredsted »

samwillis wrote: post #11
mooktakim wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand what Paddle offers to SaaS. As a dev I thought maybe easier integration. But it doesn't seem all that different from Stripe Invoice.

My understanding is that Paddle becomes a middle man in the transaction taking on all international tax responsibility. They pay you out after paying all tax/vat local to the customer. This massively simplifies international sales, particularly for EU business. I also believe that an awful lot of small online SASS and digital good sales by companies are committing (unintentional) tax fraud in the countries of their c…

Exactly. Paddle saves me so much time and money. I couldn’t even imagine what my accountant would bill for something similar.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#19

Post by fredsted »

samwillis wrote: post #15
jokethrowaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple solution is to do a b2b company only and thanks the EU for complicating the situation so much. Another thing I used to do was to just sell to everyone except European customers (explicitly written on the website). The funniest thing is that the EU ostensibly did it to make "Amazon pay their fair share" while most small merchants that used to run e-commerce have moved to sell on Amazon or eBay just not to hav…

I believe that two some extent these sort of regulations are lobbied for in the background by large corporations in order to make it harder for small business to enter the market. If they are going to get regulated anyway best make it to their own advantage!

EU generally can’t make good (tech) legislation. Cookie law is the goto example. It’s too complicated. Too many cooks.
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