PYMNTS’ Post

You couldn't make this up 🤯 Saturday (7 days ago): Australian Government Outage = Couldn’t serve customers. Monday (5 days ago): Google Took Ads Offline = Customers coukdn’t find us. Friday (1 day ago): Stripe Pause All Payouts = No cashflow... The result = I worked 110 HRS+++ in 7 days. But it was all worth it! We are back to normal (almost), and as weird as this is to admit, we've had the biggest week of sales ever. If anyone doesn't know how to read this graph, the purple line is the current week, and the grey line is last week 🚀 #Startup #Stripe #Startuplife

Every company must have a mission statement! So they say... While I agree with the necessity of a mission statement, time after time, I'm surprised by the examples. These examples make you think that a mission statement should be super broad and bold. I agree with the bold part but disagree with the broad factor. Take Stripe as an example. Stripe's mission statement is "to increase the GDP of the internet." I'm sorry, but it can't get more vague than that. The way I see it, Stripe's mission is to simplify online payments and business management. That is their mission. I agree that this is driving global economic growth on the Internet, which increases the Internet's GDP, but so does almost every single startup nowadays in some form. Monday helps other companies manage their workflow better, which results in better-performing companies, which increases the Internet's GDP. The point is that your mission should be bold, but it should also be specific. The main benefit of a bold and specific mission statement is that it serves as your startup's compass. Going back to the mission statement helps you understand whether you are pivoting or changing your startup to pursue a different mission. If you find yourself redefining your startup mission with every pivot - this isn't a pivot. It's a new startup.

::Fintech giant Stripe raises nearly $694m in funds :: Stripe, previously valued at $65 billion in February, has raised $694.2 million via a stock sale Global venture capital investments has fallen to a near five-year low in the first three months of 2024, according to data from PitchBook. Investors have been keenly waiting for years for Stripe's IPO. The company, however, signed a deal in February to allow employees to cash out some of their stock. Analysts have said the agreement could potentially delay plans for an IPO and allow the company to work on further improving its finances, so that it commands a higher valuation when it goes public. "Stripe was robustly cashflow positive in 2023 and expects to be again in 2024," wrote co-founders John Collison and Patrick Collison in their annual letter published in March. At its peak in 2021, Stripe was valued at $95 billion. Even at its latest valuation of $65 billion, the company is among the highest valued private startups in the US The payments processing company serves a variety of high profile customers including Elon Musk 's social media platform X , Amazon , car rental firm Hertz Global and grocery delivery app Instacart #digitalpayments #ecommerce #growth https://www.rte.ie

5 Lessons from Patrick Collison of Stripe 1. Become a Voracious Learner Patrick’s bookshelf is available online and it provides a glimpse into how you become a formidably smart individual. "Patrick is quite literally one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. Like, he puts Larry Page on his heels smart. I don’t know anyone who has 1) read more books and 2) has the near photographic memory for what he has read. His thoughts are provocative and challenge the status quo. His success is no accident." - Chris Sacca From Patrick himself on why he reads so much. "With reading, I don’t feel like I’m weird; I feel like everyone else is weird, in that there’s just … so much stuff to know, and I guess I just feel stressed out by... like, it feels important, it’s obviously important, and I don’t know it. And so, shit, I better get to work. When I’m reading, I’m not in this … especially blissful place. I enjoy it perfectly fine, but I think there are extremely important things that I really should know and I don’t, and that feels problematic." - Patrick Collison 2. Utilize the Collison Installation Paul Graham of Y Combinator described Patrick’s method of signing up customers in the early days. "Stripe is one of the most successful startups we've funded, and the problem they solved was an urgent one. If anyone could have sat back and waited for users, it was Stripe. But in fact they're famous within YC for aggressive early user acquisition. Startups building things for other startups have a big pool of potential users in the other companies we've funded, and none took better advantage of it than Stripe. At YC we use the term "Collison installation" for the technique they invented. More diffident founders ask "Will you try our beta?" and if the answer is yes, they say "Great, we'll send you a link." But the Collison brothers weren't going to wait. When anyone agreed to try Stripe they'd say "Right then, give me your laptop" and set them up on the spot." - Paul Graham 3. Upgrade Your Hiring Process A more effective approach. "This is I think what you find when you’re trying to hire the best people. You can filter first by expressed interest and then you can secondarily filter by which ones are good. Or you can first look for the good ones and then try to convert them to expressed interest. I think the latter is the more effective way to go about it." - Patrick Collison Conversely, this approach requires patience but pays off in the long run. "I can think off the top of my head of five people who took 3+ years to hire." - Patrick Collison 4-5 👇 https://lnkd.in/gV6zdSTG

Breaking ⚡️ Lemon Squeezy got acquired by Stripe...the breaking part? They were another profitable legal tech company...here's how we know 1 ) They are TaxTech. They calculate and pay global sales tax for digital products plus handle legal processing and fees in every country...see Clio note and the first thing Amazon did with AI - https://lnkd.in/eyfz8uzM 2) They did not raise outside capital so their growth is natural and not artificial...key point 3) They, reportedly, surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue nine months after launch. Bonus: their LinkedIn page lists 12 employees Note: it took Clio about 12 years to grow into $100 ARR in legal...this is an amazing feat in itself. But then they double ARR within a year when they leverage fintech - https://lnkd.in/eUR6swFp Btw, legal payment processing is what Clio and others discovered during the pandemic. Something we first noticed in December 2020 and called it FinSec - https://lnkd.in/e3SuhiUe Now about that other profitable AI legal tech company, here's another hint: It is not tax tech and has nothing to do with payments ...food for thought...🤔 https://lnkd.in/erXgHeSE

Are you stumped by the tech challenges of scaling up your product? Don’t worry. You are not alone. Stripe had the same issues growing up. As you begin to scale your product post your MVP success, you run into several foreseen and unforeseen tech challenges. This is doubly true for fintech products. Stripe is a great example of a fintech product that gradually shifted to a microservices architecture from a monolith. Now the key question is, why you might consider doing this? Here are a few good reasons. i. Scalability: Microservices is way easier to scale ii. Reliability: Do you really want a bug in one component to bring the whole party down? iii. Development Velocity: Do you want waterfall development or you want lighting speed product development? iv. Complexity: Can you really sleep peacefully visualizing your monolithic code? Are you grappling with similar questions or considering the shift in your product architecture? Reach out now to discuss and make this transition a lot less painless. #startup #scaleup #productarchitecture #founders #cto

New Post: A Stripe secondary deal worth paying attention to - Venture capitalists and founders are hoping — praying? — for exits to pick back up in 2024. A recent TechCrunch+ survey found that there is consensus among VCs that exits will start to rebound this year, but the when and the how are still a bit fuzzy. The consensus, though, is that fintech Stripe will go public this year. The investors surveyed clearly aren’t the only ones who are excited about a potential Stripe exit in 2024, either. According to secondary data tracker Caplight, there has been an absolute flurry of buyers looking to get shares in the company in recent months. While bids tell us one thing, deals tell us another, and a closed transaction this week tells us a lot about what could happen to Stripe in 2024. On Tuesday, literally the day after New Year’s Day, a secondary sale closed that valued Stripe shares at $21.06 apiece; that values the startup at $53.65 billion, according to Caplight data. Stripe declined to comment. There are a few reasons why this deal is worth paying attention to. For one, Stripe’s $53 billion value marks an increase from the company’s most recent primary round last March, when Stripe was valued at $50 billion. #Stripe #secondary #deal #worth #paying #attentionhttps://lnkd.in/dS5xAwwD

"The Value of Market Diversity: Stripe's Rise in Secondary Markets" Have you ever considered the power of secondary markets? No? Let's take a look at Stripe's astounding ascent. Valued at $115 billion, up from $36.5 billion, the tech giant's growth in secondary markets is nothing short of remarkable. This shift reveals two crucial things: investors are keen on tech startups broadening their reach and diversifying their offerings, and secondary markets are gaining steam. Why? Because they offer an early exit strategy for initial investors, even before the IPO! Remaining privately-owned while making shares tradable is no longer an exception, but increasingly a rule for many tech companies, echoing an industry trend. So, how could you navigate these tides? If you are a founder, you might want to think about diversifying and expanding your product range. Stripe escalated its value by extending to business lending and corporate credit cards. Early-stage investor? Secondary markets present a worthy avenue to realize returns before the company even goes public. Last but not least, going public doesn't have to be the 'be-all and end-all'. Secondary markets can offer a vital valuation assessment, even while you remain private. What's the takeaway? Adapting to the evolving investment market can make all the difference. What are your thoughts on this? Will secondary markets become the new norm for early-stage investments? Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/d9ZJn3-S #Technology #VentureCapital #Startup #SecondaryMarket #InvestmentStrategies

How is PAYZE (YC S21) building Stripe for Caucus/Central Asia? The Realistic Optimist interviewed Payze's co-founder (Giorgi Tsurtsumia) to talk about: - Why Stripe hasn't expanded to the region - Why Payze chose Uzbekistan as its second market - The state of Georgia's startup ecosystem - Strategic mistakes and repositioning The full piece is available for Realistic Optimist paid subscribers only. Subscriptions start at $15/month. https://lnkd.in/gqevApYn

I chatted with $65B worth Stripe founder Patrick Collison about investments. He had no idea of my plans and we had not met before. He was the keynote speaker. I was just a spectator. We wanted to have him as an investor. → I know he had already lost a huge investment to an Estonian startup. → I know he wouldn't want to miss another chance. How to gain attention from such a superstar? I went to see his talk. Asking questions in Q&A would be one thing. → But this could give me just a few seconds of attention  → And a politically correct answer. → With a spotlight and thousands of people in the audience,  he couldn't remember me later. I needed more of his attention to pitch him. I located where the green room entrance was. After his talk, I waited for a few minutes. There wasn't anyone else. He came out. I greeted him and gave a compliment I offered to walk along in the same direction as him. I got his attention and gave a pitch, and he wanted to know more. Do what the other 99% are not willing to do: → That extra mile. → That extra effort. → Being different. → Standing out. Need help figuring out how to gain attention for your company? Send me a message “Warm sales”. Let's take your sales to the next level. —---- ♻️ Share with your network to inspire. 📍Follow Taavi Lindmaa for content about: - revenue growth - building an audience - scaling businesses.