Jumping on this thread for a flyer.
Any stripe devs know if it's possible to integrate with infusionsoft.com? That integration would make me so, so happy.
MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
31–40 of 133 posts
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
(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 innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…
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?
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!)
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#33Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#34To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…
(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 innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…
Don't worry, it's not worth considering. Continuing to innovate, is.
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#35To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…
(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 innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…
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.
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#36To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…
(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 innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…
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.
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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 Eu…
This
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#38Complete competitor to Stripe and Balanced and Braintree.js. Just a teeny bit underneath pricing for all - 2.85% versus 2.90%.
... which is a fairly terrible percentage rate. Even a small processor should be able to get under 2%, provided you don't have a lot of fraud/chargebacks. There's a tremendous amount of froth in those rates.
provided you don't have a lot of fraud/chargebacks.
A large chunk of the costs associated with taking payments is fraud. (see founders at work - Paypal[1]) So assuming you don't have a lot of fraud is wishful thinking at best.
[1] - http://jesse.la/lessons-from-founders-at-work-stories-of-sta...
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#39Check out https://www.simplify.com// (the double slash ending is important).
Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce
#40To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…
(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 innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…
(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. :)