[On one of the reasons they have a 7 day payout period]

We were not willing to compromise on the experience of going to Stripe, deciding "OK, Stripe looks good, I will sign up.", and then can launch right there and then.

What a great, focusing vision for a product experience.

I have also been impressed with how responsive Stripe is to feedback. In the interview Patrick gets excited about a new webhook for payment transfers that the interviewer recommends. Knowing Stripe, it is probably already implemented.

Do startups who are as hyped as Stripe ever go through the trough of sorrow?

Yes. :-)

Was the trough 'PCI DSS'-related?

Haha. Good (and bad) to know.

What a great interview. Thanks for sharing. He comes across extremely well. I would trust him with my company's cash-flow.

Somehow I missed that Stripe is a YC company. Which batch? (Often goes into titles.)

In the interview he explains that they did not go through a proper YC batch because "the timing didn't really work out". They had been through the process before and he had got to know pg well. Hope that helps!

I didn't think they were in one of the batches (haven't seen the usual YC'whatever badging on any of their posts' titles here). Their job post from a while back (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3099362) does list YC as an investor, though.

Edit: Patrick's previous startup, Auctomatic, was in YC W'07 I think. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I'm glad I asked, then. I'm confident someone with direct knowledge will come in and provide more information. :)

Listen at 13.40, he mentions that although first funding came from YC they didn't go through a YC batch - Patrick had previously been a YC member with another startup: "Auctomatic".

Harj and I did Auctomatic in Winter 07. We merged with Patrick just after YC. Harj is now a YC Partner. I did YC for the second time this summer with Tagstand.com.

I mention the merger here in a series of Viewpoints for the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6701815.stm

Also, the outcome of Auctomatic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7315598.stm

For some reason the soundcloud player took forever to load. Here's the direct link to Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/techzing/techzing-168

You should suscribe. TechZing is a very good and entertaining podcast.

I would recommend a previous episode (167) with the founders of Kaggle - very interesting.

That limerick accent is fading fast:) Top it up by watching some Rubberbandits. Loved the interview.