rscherf

Take a look through the original thread. Lots of hot takes didn't age well. Currently processing $14M per month in gross volume ~ $150K/Month.

AMA!

I always had an interest in design, designing a lot of websites before and during college. My first job out of college was a Java Support Dev, for a health care company, which was soul-sucking. Troubleshooting production bugs and fixing them was not something I wanted to do.

I volunteered to build the interface of a product we were working on and never looked back.

Chip & pin is not a requirement in the US, but I agree with you that using it does alleviate risk. This is why Stripe offers a fee discount to 2.7%+5c when using their card reader vs. 2.9%+30c. These are common fee structures for other gateways like Square.

The app runs all transactions through the Connect accounts Radar fraud filters, and the user can opt to force several levels of validation on the card (CVV, zip/postal, name, address).

These types of transactions happen all the time, regardless of if they're more secure or not.

There are several copycat apps that have tried varying pricing structures (some more like 1.3%) and others that tried to go lower (like 0.1%).

Looks like the redirect is broken. Try https://paymentforstripe.com

I should mention, I already went through that with Stripe once. I did an interview for Mixergy here describing what happened. TLDR: I built an analytics app on Stripe, then they launched Dashboard for iOS. Didn't matter because we knew we hit a dead end and weren't into it.

https://mixergy.com/interviews/ryan-scherf-payment-for-strip...

That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. Stripe gets 2.9% regardless of how many users I have. It’s just volume to them.

It’s handled as non card present, similar to e-commerce. At some point, 3DS will be required.

We have an integration with Payworks for non-US, but mostly hoping Terminal rolls out globally soon.

But, no card reader is required.

Not required in the US. Email receipts are built into Stripe if you provide emails.

Thought about this so many times with domain registrars. I’m content not being a huge company. Way simpler.

Larger user base will hopefully protect me from being cut off.

Daniel Vassallo’s post might be interesting to you:

https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/

Ha, extra space was great, but hated the location. Spent all our time in the car (I was working remotely as an FTE), so basically stranded.

Didn’t. First integrated with Magtek (insanely painful). Then I wished that another company would make it simpler. Along cane Stripe’s Terminal and here we are.

Bingo, although the YAUs is a bit lower than that for obvious reasons. However, simple solution for these places to depend on for in person charges.

Though the private jet company and exotic car rental place are a touch higher than that.

Great question. It’s not about the money, but more about how I was passive for too long just letting it be. I’ve waited to invest in several things for growth until I knew had the market cornered. I’m not too concerned about adding more features now, so the only next logical step is growth.

Growing from $6M to $10M didn’t seem huge at the time, but now it does...

This is EXACTLY what I did, and I agree there are soooo many opportunities like this. I think most people are risk averse to it as they think the API might get shut off, but I look at it as a really quick way to build something. If it gets cut off, on to the next.

Thanks! So far, so good after 1.5 years. Truly sucked stuffing more capital into the business as there is a lot concentrated there that is somewhat illiquid, but our working relationship has soured enough that it made sense. No regrets.

That’s right, second is Apptweak

Happy to not be selling my soul to another Evil Inc or having a boss... tried that several times before.

I’m the founder, and although I can’t speak for the other posts, I can assure you the numbers are real. Several posts in my personal and business Twitter feeds can confirm.

Thanks! I work closely with several people at Stripe already across many different teams, so not really holding out hope for anything. Very happy and content with where I’m at.

I guess it’s possible they’ll eat it, but they sort of already are. They get the benefits of my work on growth as they get their same fees and don’t have to dedicate anyone to an app.

Doubtful.

I’m definitely not trying to peddle advice, I was just approached about my story. I think there are tons of micro niche things like this that can be built to earn a living (I have a list of 5 I’d build on top of just Stripe if I had the time). Large companies can’t do everything, and I think Stripe owns that. Not to mention, they still get all their same fees and don’t have to maintain the app.

Agreed, but spent most of it on the business and buying out my partner in the first 4 years.

Thank you! I’ll be first to admit it was perfect timing (which wasn’t planned at all). The freedom is what I was looking for; if nobody buys it, I’ll happy just keep running it. If Stripe launches the same features, I’ll figure out how to pivot. Or, build something completely new. Who knows what the future holds.

Why instantly? Is there not a market for more than one third party app with separate features? Does Stripe want to compete with Square, or are they focused on larger things? And if they do, I got nearly 5 years out of it, which is the longest job I’ve ever had, ironically.

Unicorn isn’t the goal, I’ll let Stripe be that. I’ll take the financial freedom.