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IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

indiehackers.com

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Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#151

Post by garaetjjte »

posguy wrote: post #145
pc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing we can do is free up Courtland to spend more time on it rather than having him sell ads. We're also going to invest in it so that his brother, Channing, can join him. On top of that, we expect that there'll be some Stripe users who'd benefit from discovering it earlier in their lifecycle and getting advice and feedback from other community members. Most people building a business on Stripe are doing it…

Quick question about Stripe, how do you plan to retain customers long term? I ask this as a person who has moved a couple businesses off Stripe, pricing & corner cases like easy debit support are the main two motivational factors. For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. For low fraud industries, this is a way to leverage very cheap…

>For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc.

WTF? It is amazing that card industry still works with such horrible security.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#152

Post by econner »

csallen wrote: post #45
dollaholla wrote: post #38

So in the spirit of what IH actually is, will the financial details be shared?

As much as I would personally love to share, there are of course other employees working at Stripe and other acquisitions that Stripe will make in the future, which complicates things. What I will do is try to be as transparent as I possibly can about what's going on behind-the-scenes, traffic numbers, product and growth strategy, etc. I've always thought it was cool that I got to talk about growing Indie Hackers its…

Why do those factors prevent you from sharing? Transparency is difficult, but isn't that the whole point of Indie Hackers?

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#153

Post by posguy »

garaetjjte wrote: post #151
posguy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick question about Stripe, how do you plan to retain customers long term? I ask this as a person who has moved a couple businesses off Stripe, pricing & corner cases like easy debit support are the main two motivational factors. For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. For low fraud industries, this is a way to leverage very cheap…

>For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. WTF? It is amazing that card industry still works with such horrible security.

Debit networks are wholly separate from Visa/Mastercard, different ballgame entirely. You get to deal with a few hundred tiny debit networks that replace Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover for processing the payment.

Centurylink has your name/address/SSN and can cut your services off at a whim if anything happens, so fraud would be inadvisable.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#154

Post by tianlins »

kkt262 wrote: post #111

Courtland, this is absolutely fantastic. Congrats man! I'm wondering how this works out for you as an entrepreneur. Obviously now you're working for a larger corporation, but does your long-term vision align? For example, is your deal structured in a way that growing indie hackers also personally grows your income? Or is it now just a strict employee-employer relationship with a bonus (acquisition offer) upfront?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the deal benefits stripe as it acquires a good (and growing) user base.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#155

Post by throw2bit »

posguy wrote: post #145
pc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing we can do is free up Courtland to spend more time on it rather than having him sell ads. We're also going to invest in it so that his brother, Channing, can join him. On top of that, we expect that there'll be some Stripe users who'd benefit from discovering it earlier in their lifecycle and getting advice and feedback from other community members. Most people building a business on Stripe are doing it…

Quick question about Stripe, how do you plan to retain customers long term? I ask this as a person who has moved a couple businesses off Stripe, pricing & corner cases like easy debit support are the main two motivational factors. For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. For low fraud industries, this is a way to leverage very cheap…

I moved out of Stripe because stripe charges $15 for charge backs for my product worth $10. The dispute resolution mechanism sucks and it almost all the time favors the customer and stripe is US only. My product is worldwide.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#156

Post by justinclift »

markdown wrote: post #131
justinclift wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that LLC thought, does that still mean US based? Atlas sounded interesting to me (doing product dev atm), however it's based on incorporating in the US. The US seems like it's gone in a seriously bad direction for non-US citizens (I'm Australian, living in the UK), with no positive end to that in sight. So incorporation in the US isn't really a goer (personally speaking).

Isn't UK incorporating a breeze? I'm sure I heard it can be all done online.

Yeah, that was an option until Brexit happened.

My co-conspirator :) is based in Germany, so setting something up there might be the better idea.

Haven't researched that at all (yet), as we're still focused on getting the foundational tech working decently first (progressing fairly well, it's mostly grunt work).

But, keeping an eye open meanwhile... :)

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#157

Post by posguy »

throw2bit wrote: post #155
posguy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick question about Stripe, how do you plan to retain customers long term? I ask this as a person who has moved a couple businesses off Stripe, pricing & corner cases like easy debit support are the main two motivational factors. For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. For low fraud industries, this is a way to leverage very cheap…

I moved out of Stripe because stripe charges $15 for charge backs for my product worth $10. The dispute resolution mechanism sucks and it almost all the time favors the customer and stripe is US only. My product is worldwide.

Yeah, Stripe only gets so much say over chargebacks with their platform provider and the cardholder's bank, the only platform that I've seen chargebacks successfully fought & won on is Tsys, its always a loser on First Data.

That being said, $15 is a low chargeback fee (damn close to cost the issuing bank & platform charge), generally you'll see a $25 to $30 chargeback fee with a $20 to $75 retrieval fee.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#158

Post by posguy »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #148
posguy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick question about Stripe, how do you plan to retain customers long term? I ask this as a person who has moved a couple businesses off Stripe, pricing & corner cases like easy debit support are the main two motivational factors. For example, Centurylink lets you pay online via debit card with just the card # alone. No CVV, address, expiration date, etc. For low fraud industries, this is a way to leverage very cheap…

Stripe markets to tech companies. Tech companies typically have very strong margins, and are therefore less price sensitive. Ergo, Stripe survives on businesses that print money. Not everyone can afford an iPhone, but Apple still is filthy rich from the people who can.

You'd think, but 2.9% off the bottom line in the form of a large fee every month is something most companies will look to reduce or curtail after a few months or years. If your only processing a few grand a month, Stripe makes sense vs a traditional processor.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#159

Post by daveheq »

Hacker: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data."

This word is not a good connotation, and a company that's an online/mobile payment gateway buying a company with "hacker" in its name that doesn't seem to understand the definition of the word "hacker" doesn't look good.

It wouldn't matter to me what IndieHackers did, I would have passed them up just because they use a nefarious word in their name without understanding how it's used.

Re: IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe

#160

Post by daveheq »

minimaxir wrote: post #6

While going from a blog-to-acquisition in less than a year is an impressive feat, there have been suspicious circumstances around IndieHackers submissions to Hacker News including clickbait titles that are frequently fixed by HN mods, and in one case, explicit voting manipulation with an attempt to bypass the voting ring detector via linking to /newest: http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg This acquisition sends a disappoi…

Are you saying IndieHackers is "hacking" the HackerNews forums?
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