

Ask HN: Foreign startup collecting payments from US companies? - tb

Hi hackers,<p>After years of lurking on HN I have my first serious startup idea, the big problem for me is that I am Australian. The target market is mobile and web game developers, most of whom are in the US, and I'm wondering how to set up payments. So there's really two questions:<p>1) If you're a US startup/developer, how would you prefer to pay a foreign partner - is PayPal appropriate for business-to-business transactions? Credit card? Bank transfer? Some other way?<p>2) If you're a foreign startup, how did you collect payments from US customers? Do I need to get an Australian merchant account to accept CC payments? Can I, as a non-US citizen, start an American company so that BrainTree can give me an American merchant account?<p>I'm not asking for legal advice here, just some indication of how others have solved this problem before me.
======
petercooper
I've used PayPal for over 10 years without any issues for payments between $12
and $5000. It's not the cheapest or least risky (we've all seen the horror
stories) route but it's certainly the easiest and, in my experience, very few
people _really_ give a crap about using it (I've lost perhaps a few hundred
dollars of business in that time due to PayPal no-goers).

(I don't know about Australia but in the UK we can use a "Payments Pro" system
with them that offers a more merchant account-like experience and it allows
you to hide PayPal from the customer.)

------
skowmunk
I am not sure if this is a direct answer, but I think it can be indicative of
possibilities. I worked with a contractor on Odesk, he was based in India.
This is what used to happen - I used to pay him through Odesk, he had a paypal
and XOOM account, and a bank account in an Indian bank in India.

He used to transfer money from his Odesk account to his Indian bank account
using Paypal and/or XOOM.

Btw, fyi, I am based in the US.

------
gallerytungsten
I have used Paypal, but one foreign vendor was also able to take a US bank
check. I was a bit surprised as I did not know this was possible. I'm sure it
varies by country, but if it's possible in your country, larger companies, in
particular, may prefer to pay by bank check.

