
Stripe's 22-Year-Old Irish-Born Founder Is Just Getting Started - jkuria
http://www.inc.com/matthew-wong/stripe-john-collison-irish-entrepreneur-tipperary-to-silicon-valley.html
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jacquesm
Patrick and his brother John are two of the smartest cookies on the planet
that I know about. These guys will go very far, and I'll be cheering them on
all the way. They are not only successful and smart, they're genuinely _nice_
, and that's a pretty rare combination.

~~~
sjtgraham
+1 I've met John and spoken to Patrick on email. Both super nice dudes.

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vancouverite
Very impressive achievement for his age, though there is of course also a lot
of spin-doctoring involved[1]. Stripe seems to be heading into the right
direction.

[1] The whole "millionaire at 17" bit decodes to getting a big stock-based
exit for Auctomatic with modest cash. Said stock then dropping to pennies
shortly thereafter (~40x drop in stock price). Add in the merger and $600k in
financing and there probably wasn't left other than a bailout for the
investors. <http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/LIVC/chart>

~~~
jacquesm
So, if we limit the 'millionaire at 17' bit to 'those that made a non-cash
exit for 6 figures and up' would that satisfy you?

To take cash or stock is a difficult decision for seasoned business people, I
really can't fault a 17 year old for going that route and _through no fault of
their own_ see the value of that stock evaporate a short while later.

I've known quite a few people that went bust during the .com debacle in
exactly the same way and none of them was 17 or even close to it.

It's easy enough to identify your mistakes after the fact (heck, I've made
_plenty_ , just this particular one I've managed to avoid), but the big trick
is to predict them ahead of time.

How are you doing?

What company did you sell for any amount when you were 17?

And was that in stock or cash?

~~~
jacalata
I didn't read the parent as saying 'not actually a millionaire because he's an
idiot', you seem a little touchy here. It seems reasonable to ask for that
clarification - if you make the assumption that both brothers came into
control of millions of dollars worth of available assets, you might wonder
what they were doing with the money, especially as related to their continuing
business ventures. The additional information that they don't actually have it
answers that question.

~~~
jacquesm
'spindoctoring' indicates a conscious effort to increase the stature of the
subject of the article, and is a word with a strong negative connotation.

The fact that they had an idea, built it and executed their vision
successfully enough that another company bought them out are the bits that
matter. That the buying party was significantly reduced in value after the
acquisition is not their fault, and even if it had not it would have been
stock (likely with all kinds of encumbrances) not cash.

Doing a stock deal is risky at best and can end very bad for the acquiree.
Assets are not money, stock is not money, even so for a 17 year old that was
an absolutely amazing track record.

I'm not clear on the details of that particular deal, and frankly I don't even
care. All I know is that most people here would dream of doing a deal like
that or even being in the position to make that particular mistake, and
hindsight (the company acquiring tanking shortly thereafter) is 20/20.

~~~
mibbitier
> "The fact that they had an idea, built it and executed their vision
> successfully enough that another company bought them out are the bits that
> matter."

As far as I remember, it was a "buy the team, shut down the company" deal.

The very fact that people in this thread are mistakenly saying that eBay
bought the company, shows how well the spindoctoring worked.

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ronnier
Wow, this guy is amazing. Read his wikipedia page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collison>

~~~
thewarrior
I was born the same year as this guy . How do I reconcile myself to the fact
that I may never achieve so much even in my entire life ? Is it a matter of
lowering ones expectations ? If this is the kind of brilliance it takes to
succeed in the start up world I'm quite discouraged.

~~~
pc
Don't stress out over it.

I'm Patrick, John's brother.

I too constantly feel that I should be more successful, and I'm pretty sure
the feeling doesn't go away -- no matter what's achieved.

I think looking at others can be a useful gut check: am I working as hard as I
could? Am I as focused as I'd like to be? But given that there's so much
randomness and circumstance there too, it's a bad _benchmark_ for anything.

(For what it's worth, the check I use personally is: "is there a difference
between how those who know me best would describe me, and how I'd like to be?"
Most of the time, I just try to fix those gaps.)

Good luck!

~~~
clicks
So, if you don't mind me asking, do speak about your (and your brother's)
upbringing.

What was your childhood like? Did you parents teach you programming? Did you
play with legos a lot?

Write as if you were giving advice to future-fathers.

~~~
davidkatz
Please, let's all stop this cult of parenting, and cult of personality. Let's
assume that Patrick and John had played with legos, and that their parents
taught them programming. What would that teach us? That we should teach our
kids Programming and let them play with legos? Certainly not.

Much respect to John and Patrick, I hope that they continue to do impressive
things and that a few years down the road they'll look at the things they did
in their 20s as 'merely setting the stage' for whatever else they'll be doing
then.

~~~
jacquesm
Yep. Cargo-cult parenting, that's got to be a new one. I'm quite surprised at
how people will latch on to the parenting as something to imitate. I'm sure it
can be a factor but you can't assume that you will get identical results by
cloning the procedure. Nothing good can come of that.

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sudhirj
What's also impressive is the choice of project: pg has written about this
(think he calls it the schelp filter or something). Payments is one of the
most difficult, red-tape entangled, regulation-choked domains to start a
company in. Not to mention the extreme security requirements and general
unsexiness of it all.

Think they've managed to do an awesome through all the hurdles - if I ever
decide to follow their example and start a payments company in India it will
simply be "Stripe-API compliant". That's pretty much all the marketing /
features it will need.

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wiradikusuma
Loosely related with the article, do you need to give significant share to
"locals" if you're starting a company in the US? For example, in Malaysia and
Singapore (CMIIW), unless you put huge amount of money up front, foreigners
are required to partner with locals and give >50% share to them. I.e.
foreigners cannot have majority share if they start a "normal" company (not
big).

~~~
ngsayjoe
No way what you're saying is true for both Singapore and Malaysia. Some shares
need to be allocated to locals though if you IPO in the country.

~~~
wiradikusuma
[http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/starting-a-
business/settin...](http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/starting-a-
business/setting-up-a-business-in-malaysia-for-foreigners/)

and read the first comment (by Denis)

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vecinu
It's interesting to see people put their studies on hold to pursue something
they loved.

I don't quite understand why they moved to San Francisco; the article didn't
really make that clear.

I'd love to have a cup of coffee with either of them though. Great people!

~~~
lynchdt
Patrick writes about this extensively here
<http://patrickcollison.com/post/stripe-ireland>

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safetyscissors
Really amazing guy. Kinda makes me feel inadequate all of a sudden :(

~~~
jacquesm
I wouldn't worry about it, just try a little harder. In the long run it
doesn't really matter what your situation is today, what matters more is how
you allocate your future time and how you will deal with the opportunities
that come your way.

The luck element is out of control for everybody, timing you only control so
much, execution and attitude you control 100%.

------
MojoJolo
This guy inspired me. I'm just reading about Stripe a while ago and I don't
know the founder is just 22!

I'm 20, and I think I need to rush some things. I don't want to be late.

~~~
biot
It sure would be a shame if you end up being a sluggard like Jeff Bezos who
started Amazon at the ripe old age of 30. :)

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bimozx
The experience of reading young success stories is both exhilarating and
depressing to me. On one hand it expands my vision of what is really possible
at such young age, on the other I realize that I am at the point in my youth
where people like Patrick and John have achieved so much. It shows a little
ingenuity and complete persistence can make you go real far.

Kudos to both of them, and godspeed on their current endeavor.

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kyro
That's it. I'm doing a startup after med school.

...so what's the policy on using investment money to pay back loans?

~~~
jacquesm
> ...so what's the policy on using investment money to pay back loans?

It's a no-no unless you negotiate that up front. And likely you'll get a bunch
of rejections as a result unless you can come up with a really good reason for
that (I can think of a few).

~~~
kyro
I'm all ears, Jacques!

~~~
jacquesm
In your inbox. hth :)

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antihero
For the hiring/visa issue, would a solution, say if two of their hires were
from the EU, start a company in an EU country, employ them with said company,
and then have the US company "contract" the EU company for their part of the
work?

~~~
jacquesm
I've done the opposite: Launch a Canadian subsidiary from Europe, then employ
myself at the subsidiary. That worked but it is a pretty roundabout way.

If you can qualify under some program that is less difficult then I would
definitely not advise this route.

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rsmaniak
Amazing guy, inspiring and at the same time, depressing...

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madaxe
Ok, stripe's wonderful, but... why is stripe wonderful?

It's a payment service provider. An expensive payment service provider. They
have an API. It's nicely written - but a nicely written API doesn't make a
product. They're available in the US and Canada. OK, but there's a whole
planet out there.

So, yeah. What exactly is it that's so amazing about stripe?

I work in eCommerce, run and developed a little platform that does a few £bn a
year through it, so know my PSPs, and fail to see the differentiation.

~~~
olalonde
> It's nicely written - but a nicely written API doesn't make a product.

I believe you should revisit that assumption. Stripe is successful because of
its API and UI. Likewise, Facebook and the iPhone largely succeeded because of
their UI and API.

~~~
yesimahuman
The Stripe API is really good...but it's not perfect. It still requires a huge
amount of manual development that services like Recur.ly and Spreedly already
implement.

Having implemented several Stripe sites, I found I preferred more of an
automated recurring subscription management service, and then Stripe is just a
gateway at that point.

That being said, I use Stripe extensively and love it.

