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Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

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Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#121

Post by Wintereise »

canadapups wrote: post #111
Firebrand wrote: post #99

So maybe I don’t understand because I’m a dumb-dumb lay person, but what does Stripe do differently from all the other payment processors that has given its rise and hype. Is Stripe popular because its developer friendly? What makes it better than Apple Pay, PayPal, and Square? Normally, when I shop online, I’m usually given an option to type my credit card info or use my PayPal account. Where does Stripe fit into al…

For my side project website (see my profile), I started to implement PayPal and got seriously confused with the documentation and process (I'm not a professional developer). Mid-process I actually didn't even know if I was even dealing with PayPal or Braintree anymore. Then magically I received a package in the mail from Moneris. They shipped me a stack of those carbon-copy paper credit card slips and machine (that c…

> I started to implement PayPal and got seriously confused with the documentation and process (I'm not a professional developer)

The feeling is the same for most "professional" developers too. The old XML API is horrible by modern standards.

They do have a new one though that's less of a pain.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#122

Post by saadsg »

aacook wrote: post #101

Stripe's awesome. I'm in YC's startup school and used Stripe Atlas to incorporate. I got an email from Stripe, sharing an opportunity to post your landing page and get feedback from Stripe's design team. That Friday I got an awesome teardown from Stripe's design team. The page ( https://nanagram.co ) still has quite a ways to go, but I incorporated most of their feedback and I'm super happy with it. Another cool thin…

How long did the Atlas setup took you? Few weeks? Update: Just saw your landing page. Pretty cool concept :)

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#123

Post by snowmaker »

chadash wrote: post #51
haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

And this is why Y Combinator may not be right for your startup. The 100 billion dollars of valuation listed on YC's website may not be up to date, but it's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots. And they also invest in multiple competitors in the same space in the hopes that one will pan out. So if you're building the kind of company that mi…

The thing is that it is very hard to tell, early on, if you have a potential $10M or $10B company.

You're right: if YC had a crystal ball where we could somehow only invest in the $10B kind of company and never in the $10M kind of company, we'd do that.

But I don't think such a crystal ball is possible, because companies morph too much. Famously, Microsoft's first product was an interpreter for Altair Basic, which had a total market size probably So when we see a startup that has an idea that seems small, we ask ourselves, "What Microsoft is this the Altair Basic of?" (http://www.paulgraham.com/altair.html). Most of the companies that today seem like moonshots started with mundane, even trivial ideas.

So if you don't currently see how your idea can become a $100B company, that doesn't mean that you won't figure it out later.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#124

Post by amelius »

ergothus wrote: post #57
amelius wrote: post #45

How much money would it take to duplicate the offerings and marketing of Stripe. And shouldn't that be the actual valuation?

And when we have a formula that can express developing a user base and market trust, particularly in the face of a company that already has it, may be we will. Until then, it's not terribly accurate to say "A team of 5 can write it in 6 months, so call it $2 mill valuation after hardware and support" because spending some money to have the exact product DOESN'T mean you have nor can get their customers.

$2 mil on devs and $1B on marketing should do it.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#125

Post by kevinr »

chadash wrote: post #51
haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

And this is why Y Combinator may not be right for your startup. The 100 billion dollars of valuation listed on YC's website may not be up to date, but it's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots. And they also invest in multiple competitors in the same space in the hopes that one will pan out. So if you're building the kind of company that mi…

> [I]t's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots.

You've just described the entire business model of every Silicon Valley VC firm, not just YC.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#126

Post by adtac »

zck wrote: post #16
dajohnson89 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also has the benefit of system redundancy, in case one goes down.

"Goes down" could include things like "we're going to increase your pricing by 10 cents per charge". It's a much stronger negotiating position that Uber is in if they can say "we can switch 100% of our volume to Stripe in a minute by going to admin.uber.com and flipping a single feature flag".

Or even better: "we automatically route traffic to the cheaper option and this requires no human intervention, so don't even bother"

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#127

Post by adtac »

sophiebits wrote: post #98
briga wrote: post #97

Stupid question: how does a $245 million dollars bring a company's valuation from $9 billion to $20 billion? Last I checked, $245 million =/= $11 billion

It means a VC paid $245 million to purchase 1.225% (which is $245M divided by $20B) of Stripe's stock.

In transactions, is it typical to just create new stock such that the newly created stock is 1.225% of the final total? Would the previous investors agree to diluting their stock like that? Or is it common to sell from a common pool of stock that's owned by the company (who is that? the CEO? what is the company if not for the stock distribution?)?

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#128

Post by bschwindHN »

A bit off topic but I'll ask it here anyway - I see Stripe Atlas advertised as an easy way to start an "Internet Business". What exactly is the definition of an Internet Business? If I sold a physical product, would I still be able to set up the company through Stripe Atlas?

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#129

Post by puranjay »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #83

As a client, I love working with them. I never thought I'd say that about a payment processor. I get pitched lower rates by their competitors all the time, but their software sucks. Giving a refund on Authorize.net feels like I'm being forced to travel back to the 1990s web. Stripe's site is intuitive, their rates are good, they integrate easily with every software I use and their customer service speaks to me like h…

I'm not even a Stripe customer but I still like to visit their site from time to time for design cues. Of mainstream B2B tech companies, I think Stripe has some of the best front end design I've ever seen. Everything is gorgeous AND useful. And despite so many products and pages, you never feel disoriented on their site

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#130

Post by OJFord »

jp_sc wrote: post #115
joering2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are lucky! Argentina is over 3 months (!) I moved on to Gate2shop and Argentina payouts are once a week.

You are lucky! In Peru we can't use Stripe at all.

You are lucky! In Yorkshire, Stripe uses us!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch

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