Saurya Prakash Sinha’s Post

Ever wonder what Stripe's early journey from $0 to $100M in 7 years looked like? Here's my uncomplicated breakdown. 2010 -2011: We're Starting Something • brothers John and Patrick Collison, probably over a pint, decided that setting up online payments for their first startup was a nightmare, and they wanted to fix it. So they whipped up a few lines of code to fix it, like it was no big deal. • They slide into Y Combinator's DMs and secured just enough seed money to pay for food while they continued building their software. 2012-2013: We're Onto Something • In 2011, they convince some serious investors like Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others to fork over $2M. Safe to say they were pretty good at talking up their idea, which many were skeptical about at first. • Developers learned about and loved Stripe. Staying true to their engineering roots, clear documentation and easy integration made Stripe the hero developers didn't know they needed. • By 2013, they hit their stride. Stripe wasn't just a cool idea, it was a must-have for businesses who accepted transactions online. 2014-2015: We're Growing Up • Stripe started partnering with big names like Lyft and Shopify. It's like being invited to sit at the cool kids table. • They launched Stripe Connect, adding more bells and whistles to keep customers happy and cash flowing in. 2016-2017: Big Money • Stripe expanded internationally. Turns out, other countries like easy payments too. • They brought in specialists and built a proper sales team. No more winging it for the Collisons. • Hackathons, meetups, and developer love kept the buzz going, because let's face it, nerd love is strong. • By the end of 2017, Stripe had reached their first $100M in annual revenue. Not bad for a couple of guys who just wanted to make payments suck less. Want to try this at home, here was Stripe's blueprint for getting from $0 to $100M within 7 years: 1. Solve a real problem: Find something everyone hates dealing with and fix it. Instant market. Businesses were crying out for a solution, and Stripe answered with simple, elegant lines of code that made integrating payment processing as easy as pie. 2. Developer Love: Make developers happy, and they’ll be your best marketing team. Stripe knew their audience well and catered to them with clear documentation, easy integration, and robust support. 3. Get Funded: Convince people with a lot of money that you're onto something big. Only if you're onto something big. (You don't get to determine that, only the market does) 4. Keep Innovating: Listen to your customers, especially those early adopters who took a chance on you. Stripe continuously added new features and refined their product based on feedback, ensuring they stayed ahead of the curve. 5. Go Global: There's a big world out there. Don't limit yourself to just one market. Did I miss anything?

It was a great couple of days in San Francisco for Stripe Sessions. I know, for those in my network, this is probably the umpteenth post you've seen...but I am going to share a few of my reflections anyway. 1. The Jensen Huang fireside chat with Patrick was off the hook. I didn't take any notes because I was listening so intently. I'm inspired by leaders and companies that are not scared to break the conventional mold. 🤯 Jensen has 60 direct reports. Why? Because he doesn't believe in privileged access to information. How? No 1:1s. At that level, it shouldn't be necessary. Feedback is given publicly and it's a gift for everyone to learn from everyone's mistakes. ✍ He is not quick to fire people, but prefers to "torture you into greatness." Jensen went from cleaning bathrooms to the founder and CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. This stuff can be learned. 2. In the AMA with Patrick and John, Patrick commented on how a beautiful building is an act of generosity. 👨🎨 Some may think that beauty and craft is a bit esoteric in the context of a payments conference, but it's a reflection of the "soul" of a company. There is a greater purpose at play and I really admire companies with depth that goes beyond just the products they build. 🗿 If you have not heard of Monumental Labs, check them out. If you are like me and you are uninspired by the blandness of modern suburban cities and find yourself in awe over ancient stonework, you'll think it's super cool. 3. Mic drop 🎤 to Stripe on all the big announcements and the stage performance. You wowed the crowd and made us laugh trying your best to make us laugh. 📈 Global GDP is $100T, but as Patrick states, that's not a cap. Stripe's mission is to grow that number, in part by enabling new market-making businesses with all their cool tech, allowing more people to participate and benefit from that economic growth. (Patrick's reflection on Ireland's progress made me tear up a bit) 👂 The voice of the customer is heard. For all of us building businesses, it is so important to identify the customer value first, and then revenue will follow. 👩💼 It made me pretty antsy to go build :-) It's a lot of work to put on a great conference. Kudos to the people who put in the work to make it all happen. 👏 And for everyone I connected with, it was great seeing you all IRL!

True impact for our customers (in this case +22.6% revenue increase for Forbes) is what excites me the most. This week at #SFF2024 we’re demoing how Stripe Billing and other products work - live! Find us in Hall 2

Beyond excited to announce that Lemon Squeezy has been *acquired* by Stripe to help build a global merchant of record solution. Such a surreal moment. Let's look back before we look ahead. In less than 3 years we bootstrapped an idea to an acquisition. After a decade of selling digital products, we scratched our own itch. We reimagined a product we would use today. 9 months after we launched to the public, we blew past $1M in ARR and never looked back. Early on, we hung onto 3 core values that helped us shape our company. Craftsmanship. Ownership. Execution. Everything we shipped was executed with pixel-perfect design, speed, focus, and ownership. Over the past few years, we celebrated some major milestones and knew we were onto something big. We turned down acquisition offers and term sheets. Those were tough decisions to make at the time but we knew what we had. If we’re going to align ourselves with anyone, it had to be the perfect fit. As we started discussions with Stripe about joining forces, it instantly became clear we were aligned. From product vision, values, team, and more. And let's not forget their core value of beauty and craft. Together — Lemon Squeezy + Stripe is the perfect fit. Our mission continues to be the same. Make it easy-peasy to sell digital products. Only now, we get to learn from all the amazing people at Stripe, and together, we will keep pushing our products to the next level. As we look ahead, the journey for me and the Lemon Squeezy team continues into a new chapter. The team will continue with Stripe where we will keep improving our merchant of record offering. Last but not least. Thank you to everyone who helped support us along the way. We owe a huge thank you to our team, our community, and all of our supporters. We continue to have thousands of companies choosing Lemon Squeezy to sell globally. We will never take that for granted. In the end, a small but mighty team turned some lemons into lemonade. 🍋 We're proud of that. But it doesn't stop there. We couldn't be more excited about what's to come next with Stripe.

Stripe celebrated a significant milestone in 2023, surpassing $1 trillion in total payment volume! This achievement, coupled with a 25% increase in payment volume for the year, underscores its impressive growth trajectory. With a fee structure starting at 2.9%, the added payment volume translates into substantial revenues, driving robust cash flow. Moreover, Stripe's strong financial position negates the immediate need for additional capital, positioning it favorably for a potential IPO. Notably, 100 companies processing $1 billion or more annually with Stripe highlight its ability to retain large accounts, ensuring revenue stability and future growth prospects. The company's Revenue and Finance Automation offerings are expected to reach a $500 million annual run rate, diversifying its revenue streams and enhancing its attractiveness to investors. Despite VC funding challenges, Stripe notes a record number of startups formed in 2023, demonstrating its pivotal role in enabling entrepreneurial success. Looking ahead, Stripe remains committed to enhancing customer relationships and aims to become the most reliable component of a business's technology stack. While an IPO may not be imminent, Stripe's continued growth and strategic initiatives position it as a formidable player in the payments landscape. Credit: Alex Wilhelm Christine Hall via TechCrunch #stripe #growth #ipo #revenue #payments #technology #success

Pivotal moment in the payment processing space! Let's see what that means for the EU payment processing and European Salas businesses.

Stripe passes $1trn in payment volume. Will they IPO? My full take 👇 Stripe has had a positive cash flow, and its payment volume has been up 25% year over year. Much of this growth is coming from enterprise customers. 🧠 The annual letter is well worth a read for payments nerds. It neatly articulates payments as an R&D and optimization problem and Stripe’s approach to using software to solve that. It’s also a rare leader that creates this kind of letter. Jamie Dimon is another example. What’s funny is I can’t help but read it in John Collison’s voice. 🧠 Being cashflow positive means they can focus on building for the next decade instead of rushing for the exit. The recent “funding” rounds make a lot more sense in that context. It’s not just employers who have enjoyed secondary market sales. Stripe is setting itself up to stay private as long as it damn well chooses and has complete optionality. 🧠 Software and the internet are eating the physical world; as they do, the internet's GDP grows. Stripe highlights robotics, farming, and carbon removal as growth sectors in its client portfolio. Would you imagine farming as a growth sector for Stripe even three years ago? 🧠 Stripe’s enterprise clients are more likely to grow with them than convert to them. Stripe’s biggest enterprise clients are some of the biggest companies born in the past decade and a half. The more price-sensitive retailer on razer thin margins might be less likely to choose Stripe than, say, Adyen or Chase. But Stripe doesn’t need to win there to keep growing. They’re a call option on the internet itself growing. 🧠 Stripe’s risk is trying to be all things to all clients. Companies naturally reach a phase where they want multiple PSPs or a specialized tokenization, billing, or fraud engine that suits their use case. Stripe is designed to cross-sell more Stripe, not be the marketplace for other things that compete with their value-added services. #payments #acquiring #fintech #tech #ipo

This is an interesting post by Tom Alder concerning the views and advice given by top entrepreneur Patrick Collison. Take note all you budding entrepreneurs.

Patrick Collison created $50 billion of value as a co-founder of Stripe. He has also built the largest carbon removal program in the world. 𝗔𝘁 𝟯𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗹𝗱, 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟱 𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗲’𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳: (From his personal blog, in a post titled “Advice”) 1. Go deep on things. Become an expert. 2. In particular, try to go deep on 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦 things. One of the main things you should try to achieve by age 20 is some sense for which kinds of things you 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 doing. 3. Don't stress out too much about how valuable the things you're going deep on are... but don't ignore it either. It should be a factor you weigh but not by itself dispositive. 4. To the extent that you enjoy working hard, do. Subject to that constraint, it's not clear that the returns to effort ever diminish substantially. 5. Make friends over the internet with people who are great at things you're interested in. The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it. 6. Aim to read a lot. 7. If you think something is important but people older than you don't hold it in high regard, there's a reasonable chance that you're right and they're wrong. Status lags by a generation or more. 8. Above all else, don't make the mistake of judging your success based on your current peer group. By all means make friends but being weird as a teenager is generally good. 9. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 having good social skills confers life-long benefits. So, don't write them off. Get good at making a good first impression, being funny, speaking publicly. 10. Make things. Operating in a space with a lot of uncertainty is a very different experience to learning something. 11. More broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview. 12. If you're in the US and go to a good school, there are a lot of forces that will push you towards following train-tracks laid by others rather than charting a course yourself. 13. Figure out a way to travel to San Francisco and to meet other people who've moved there to pursue their dreams. 14. Find vivid examples of success in the domains you care about. If you want to become a great scientist, try to find ways to spend time with good (or, ideally, great) scientists in person. 15. People who did great things often did so at very surprisingly young ages. So, hurry up! You can do great things. -- 👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies. Join 45,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

Patrick Collison created $50 billion of value as a co-founder of Stripe. He has also built the largest carbon removal program in the world. 𝗔𝘁 𝟯𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗹𝗱, 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟱 𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗲’𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳: (From his personal blog, in a post titled “Advice”) 1. Go deep on things. Become an expert. 2. In particular, try to go deep on 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦 things. One of the main things you should try to achieve by age 20 is some sense for which kinds of things you 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 doing. 3. Don't stress out too much about how valuable the things you're going deep on are... but don't ignore it either. It should be a factor you weigh but not by itself dispositive. 4. To the extent that you enjoy working hard, do. Subject to that constraint, it's not clear that the returns to effort ever diminish substantially. 5. Make friends over the internet with people who are great at things you're interested in. The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it. 6. Aim to read a lot. 7. If you think something is important but people older than you don't hold it in high regard, there's a reasonable chance that you're right and they're wrong. Status lags by a generation or more. 8. Above all else, don't make the mistake of judging your success based on your current peer group. By all means make friends but being weird as a teenager is generally good. 9. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 having good social skills confers life-long benefits. So, don't write them off. Get good at making a good first impression, being funny, speaking publicly. 10. Make things. Operating in a space with a lot of uncertainty is a very different experience to learning something. 11. More broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview. 12. If you're in the US and go to a good school, there are a lot of forces that will push you towards following train-tracks laid by others rather than charting a course yourself. 13. Figure out a way to travel to San Francisco and to meet other people who've moved there to pursue their dreams. 14. Find vivid examples of success in the domains you care about. If you want to become a great scientist, try to find ways to spend time with good (or, ideally, great) scientists in person. 15. People who did great things often did so at very surprisingly young ages. So, hurry up! You can do great things. -- 👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies. Join 55,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR