{"id":41218,"date":"2023-10-20T15:12:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/not-a-startup-whizz-kid-story-how-stripe-grew-into-a-6-billion-tech-giant-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:12:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:12:26","slug":"not-a-startup-whizz-kid-story-how-stripe-grew-into-a-6-billion-tech-giant-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/not-a-startup-whizz-kid-story-how-stripe-grew-into-a-6-billion-tech-giant-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Not a startup whizz-kid story: How Stripe grew into a $6 billion tech giant – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

In 2010 two Irish brothers founded a tiny startup called \/dev\/payments.<\/p>\n

Nearly seven years and a name change later, John and Patrick Collison\u2019s tech company is now worth more than $6 billion ($US5 billion), operates in over 20 countries and has 520 employees.<\/p>\n

Based in the US, Stripe is a tech platform that allows businesses and individuals to accept payments over the internet, and was born out of the brothers\u2019 first-hand frustrations with handling payments online.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would vent at you \u2013 the early market research was very easy because this was such a huge issue for people and it was causing so much heart burn, and yet it hadn\u2019t been solved,\u201d John Collison tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said at one point, \u201cwe should just build something to make payments easier. How hard could it be?\u201d It turns out, pretty hard actually. We\u2019ve been at it for seven years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not your stereotypical startup story<\/h3>\n

Stripe has now raised $US300 million in funding and is used by some of the world\u2019s biggest companies, including Salesforce, Twitter and Shopify, along with big brands in Australia like Canva and Shoes of Prey.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to look at Stripe\u2019s rapid growth to the summit of the tech world and use it as a shining example of two whizz-kid brothers building a startup from the ground, Collison says the actual journey doesn\u2019t fit this bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that irks me to no end is the emphasis on the founders \u2013 it\u2019s so misplaced,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at how companies actually run, there are a huge number of really experienced, qualified managers that are a very significant part of making them tick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stripe recently celebrated its second birthday in Australia with the launch of Stripe Connect, and he says this is all part of the \u201cgrinding effort\u201d across the last seven years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the launch that we have with Connect in Australia, all the progress that we\u2019ve made in the market and all the interesting product stuff \u2013 that\u2019s not us, that\u2019s a really wide spread of people across Stripe who are very experienced in what they do,\u201d Collison says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all of this was really gradual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Word-of-mouth<\/h3>\n

This gradual growth began with a small online software firm \u2013 Stripe\u2019s first customer and a friend of the founding brothers.<\/p>\n

But as interest in the platform grew, they soon realised that they had created something that people really wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon celebrated when they got the first order from someone who was not their parents,\u201d Collison says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something similar for us \u2013 you get your first customer that\u2019s someone who does not know you personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even today, Collison says Stripe\u2019s rapid growth is thanks to word-of-mouth rather than a big marketing budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cStripe still doesn\u2019t spend any serious money on marketing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate that startup communities and developer communities are really passionate about tools and infrastructure, and love to talk about what they\u2019re using. We would find people spreading the good news on forums.\u201d<\/p>\n

This organic growth has been so successful that now a quarter of Australians have bought something from a Stripe-powered business, he says.<\/p>\n

But most of all it\u2019s about building something that people actually want.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you build a better mousetrap, something that\u2019s not just incrementally better but that makes life significantly easier \u2013 10 times easier for businesses than it was before \u2013 word is going to get out about it,\u201d Collison says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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