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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

#31

Post by __derek__ »

clra wrote: post #26
asd88 wrote: post #16

More like $50B unicorn nowadays?

It's hard to tell given the private stock and all, but the article mentions that there's reason to believe the company hasn't taken quite as much of a haircut as comparable ones that are already on the public markets: > In March, Fidelity, required to publicly update the value of its holdings, marked down Stripe by 20%. Most unicorns—startups valued at $1 billion or more—are trading on the secondary markets at 20% to…

Does buying private stock on EquityZen include any due diligence? I'm skeptical that it's helping with price discovery, but I don't really understand the platform.

The topic reminded me of a good episode of Invest Like the Best with Carta CEO Henry Ward[1], which included a discussion of their CartaX platform for offering insiders a chance to sell private stock to institutions.

[1]: https://podcasts.apple.com/ma/podcast/henry-ward-transformin...

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

#32

Post by renewiltord »

jonny_eh wrote: post #29
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.

> they just did something better than everyone else Wow, HN's ability to dismiss and diminish major accomplishments continues to astound me.

Better execution is considered the biggest compliment in the industry. Novel ideas are sort of considered a passé path to success. In that context, it sounds more like idolization than insult.

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

#34

Post by pastor_bob »

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.

lol, this is like the bat signal for pc

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

#35

Post by bcbrown »

jonny_eh wrote: post #29
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.

> they just did something better than everyone else Wow, HN's ability to dismiss and diminish major accomplishments continues to astound me.

You think saying "a really amazing case of a business [that executed] better than everyone else" is dismissive and diminishing?

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

#38

Post by laluser »

m00dy wrote: post #20

Let's see what will happen for them in this bear market.

This is exactly why they prefer to stay private. Stock volatility would be wild. They will have access to liquidity and funding for a while as long as they are growing a good rate, which they seem to be.

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

#39

Post by tut-urut-utut »

samwillis wrote: post #21
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.

This so much, Stripes innovation was making it so much easter to integrate a payment api. Paddles innovation is making international tax/vat a complete none issue to new businesses. They are doing everything small business want to make online digital goods sales painless from an admin point of view.

As someone currently looking exactly at this kind of provider, I’m curious about other Paddle competitors whose price model is only revenue based, without a fixed monthly fee.

Gumroad is another merchant of records, but developer documentation is worse, fees are higher and it seems to support only USD pricing.

Other alternatives requires a somewhat hefty monthly fee, which is a non starter for my use case.

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

#40

Post by tomatowurst »

lambda_lord wrote: post #37

Is it unusual for a successful company like Stripe to take so long to go public? It seems like their house is in order, and they are profitable, but employees aren't liquid.

IPO right now is very difficult as the door is closing, and investors are wary about paying a premium like they have before. They delayed it too long and have missed the window, it is unlikely from a year from now they will be able to get any bids for the current market valuations.
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