Stripe was founded by Patrick Collison and his co-founder to build a simple payment API to enable easy online payments, which gained early traction through word-of-mouth.
Stripe focused on hiring the right people patiently, onboarded a critical non-technical hire, and developed products based heavily on developer feedback while sustaining reliability as the company scaled.
Stripe aims to provide a modern, reliable payments stack for the internet economy, balancing innovation and extensibility, and Patrick Collison has transitioned to focus on strategy, processes, and hiring senior leadership as the CEO.
Meeting Notes:
Stripe's Origin Story
Patrick Collison and his co-founder John were building iPhone apps and realized the difficulty in getting paid online
They decided to build a simple payment API like a "node in the device file system" to enable easy online payments
Launched the first version called "/dev/payments" in January 2010 to a few friends, and it took off by word-of-mouth even before public launch
Stripe's Early Days and Growth
Later renamed the company to "Stripe" after evaluating multiple options like "KDemon" and "Forge"
Initially served companies coming through Y Combinator and their founder friends, then expanded rapidly by word-of-mouth
The growth was fueled by emerging trends like rise of mobile, shift from advertising to transaction-based business models
Gained initial traction from offering a seamless online payments experience for developers building apps
Hiring and Organizational Structure
Stripe follows a relatively conventional organizational structure rather than reinventing management practices
Focused on being extremely patient and persistent in hiring the right people - often taking months or years to hire key roles
Have an engineering manager overseeing all product teams, and Patrick Collison is heavily involved in key product decisions along with this manager
Onboarded Billy Renton early on, a non-technical hire, who helped build critical banking partnerships despite initial skepticism
Product Development and Innovation
70% driven by feedback from developers they deem as having good judgment, 30% based on their own product instincts
Run product ideas by developers extensively before launching to validate demand
Pace of innovation slows down as the company scales to handle growth and operations, which is expected
Make efforts to sustain reliability and keep launching innovative products in parallel as an ongoing challenge
Expanded offerings organically based on emerging needs, e.g. Stripe Connect for facilitating marketplace payments
Payments Technology and the Future
Stripe aims to provide a modern, reliable payments stack for the internet economy
Areas like cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) are of interest despite unclear long-term impact
Never had any serious acquisition discussions, as remaining independent has been crucial for Stripe's success and culture
Balancing innovation with reliability in infrastructure is an ongoing focus as they build for the future of internet transactions
Making systems extensible and backwards compatible is a key priority (e.g. complicated API versioning)
Leadership and Key Realizations
Explicit written communication becomes crucial as the company grows to ensure alignment
Speaking is insufficient as everyone cannot be reached, and ideas get distorted over time
Writing enables rigidity, revisiting ideas, and clearly identifying flaws - a pivotal realization inspired by Bruno Latour
Patrick Collison has transitioned to focusing on strategy, processes, and hiring senior leadership as the CEO
Letting go of hands-on coding has been difficult but a necessary transition for Patrick Collison