I really can't bring myself to put myself behind stripe. Maybe it's because of how the Paypal people turned out. Maybe it is just a dirty business to be in.
Clerky is great, Stripe is really buying all of the great product companies. I feel like with Clerky and Stripe Atlas they, Stripe now controls all of the early incorporation infrastructure now. This feels deeply problematic.
A C corporation can still make a lot of sense for a small business depending on the nature of the business and the interests and needs of the owners.
C corps can offer a lot of advantages in terms of shareholder and employee benefits, particularly around healthcare, and QSBS is a huge benefit for qualified businesses and owners who might one day sell the business.
I've used https://delawareinc.com/ to incorporate several companies over the years, and always had a good experience. Their website looks pretty old-school but it works well and their service is very prompt.
So I wouldn't Stripe controls all of the early incorporation infrastructure – just the flashy stuff (which I'm sure is great too).
Yeah, it's not even close. Stripe Atlas is a very small part of the market. It doesn't mean the product isn't good but every year, over a million new businesses that are formed and of those that are incorporated, I'd guess that a very small fragment are incorporated through Stripe Atlas.
Most businesses in the state I live in, as well as the states around me (what someone in SF or NY would call flyover) are handled by a registered agent (trivial, not even in a fee to become an agent in most states, just a valid local address) or the owner.
tbh I still don't understand why anyone bothers paying anyone or anything to do the paperwork, it's not like Federal taxes
My comment was poorly worded, what I meant was they have both lifetime and recurring customers. Their team is insanely good, specially their email support.
I tried establishing my startup with Stripe Atlas in 2020 and it was a total trainwreck. Nothing worked right, nobody had a fucking clue what was going on, dead ends everywhere.
I gave up and went with Clerky, paid them $800 lifetime fee, and had things done the same day. A few years later I needed to change the name of my corporation and their support made it an absolute painless breeze.
So, I understand things change over 6 years, but Stripe Atlas was vaporware garbage when I attempted to use it.
Oh awesome! I love Stripe Atlas overall for the fast/excellent UX, but Clerky supports PBCs and a higher degree of customization (eg useful for incorporating for https://manifest.is since we had previously agreed on an informal equity split with a bunch of people).
Hoping that now they'll have the best of both worlds!
Huge congrats to Clerky. They've been doing thins for a very long time, and have awesome support + a solid product (that just... does what it's supposed to do). Congrats Darby and team!
Doing just payments is a really low margin industry, and the larger the contract you are after, the lower the margins. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to try to sign up startups, as their growth is your growth. And to win in the startup market, you don't win by lowest costs, but by how much generic work you can save them. Cut their headaches, and they'll be happy giving you a wider cut.
Thus, a million little acquisitions to make the possible Stripe bundle for small companies stronger, as they become the moat. The opposite of, say, the Adyen play, when you want to lower your own costs, and make money on tiny margins to do processing for really large companies.
AI is making it a low-moat industry too. It's a lot quicker to build some API docs, a behavior tracking JavaScript library, and some fraud detection, with LLMs.
Fraud detection is really, really, really, really hard so I would probably stick with someone like Stripe for this, as they have so much data that they can do a really good job.
And fundamentally, the moat for Stripe isn't just the front-end APIs, it's all the work that they do (and there's a lot) in connecting together financial infrastructure. Even if you could wave a magic wand and generate all the code Stripe has (which you can't, currently) then you'd still need to build out all the partnerships, which is a lot of work.
Disclaimer: former Stripe (though only a tourist), still hold some of their shares.
My analysis is that Stripe wants to own the costs of running a startup. They would get a complete picture of both sides of the business: what money comes in and where it goes.
There are also a couple of advantages. They can take money directly from revenue before it leaves Stripes and without any processing costs. They can also invest into startups through credits and financing. And finally, their exposure to bankruptcy risk can drop as well.
I think about their IPO and what seems and likely still is a promising offering seems a little less so with AI offerings. I also wonder if these businesses, suffering from the same AI uncertainties are a good value?
I think Stripe is looking at companies using their services and identifying companies to acquire. This reminds me of Facebook looking at data from pixel data to identify apps with heavy usage they could acquire.
Clerky: We help startups and attorneys get legal paperwork done.
I wish all smaller startup that is being acquired by big fish would start their blog by stating what they do first. So that hopefully we get a little bit of context of what is being sold and what it might add in the future.
Every single time I had to click around and look at what they do and what are their competitors to help understand the company.
The paragraphs descend below the page fold. The paragraphs in view have 10 lines of height and a hero image takes up the first half. It's a bad shape.
The one question I want answered is "what is Stripe buying?" I know the prose is typical acquisition copy. I can figure out the strategy myself once I know what was bought.
I've used clerky to incorporate a company, and I *loved* it, and I've recommended them to many people.
That said, I wonder if this reflects how much people are using LLMs for generating legal boilerplate, rather than using lawyer-generated boilerplate (i.e. clerky). As in, this is another version of Stack Overflow losing traffic.
Clerky is great. I used it a few years ago and not only was the web product as advertised, they were quick to answer questions and give advice where they could for years after. I hope they keep doing well within Stripe.
I feel like I am repeating myself a lot lately, but I think that the "middle class" of software/tech companies is being eroded as fast as the middle classes of North American societies. The oligarchs just buy everything since they can no longer innovate.
Clerky when I last used it nearly a decade ago was lead generation for Delaware's business franchise tax.
Nothing ever came of my incorporated business (no spend, no revenue) and I received extremely menacing "collections" physical mail over many months about delinquent business incorporation franchise tax payments and escalating fees + fines (which I never paid).
The experience left me a very negative opinion of Clerky (and Delaware).
Clerky is an absolutely amazing product and the team there are equally as amazing.
You don't need to rely on Stripe to do anything. There are other payment gateways, and you can file things yourself (or hire someone).
Do they make things very easy and accessible for a smaller fee than doing it yourself, yes.
C corps can offer a lot of advantages in terms of shareholder and employee benefits, particularly around healthcare, and QSBS is a huge benefit for qualified businesses and owners who might one day sell the business.
Unsure how much I trust my searches for this kind of stuff on the web lately
Lol, no.
Firstbase, Doola, Capbase. Not to mention all the old school cos that will help you incorporate in their state.
So I wouldn't Stripe controls all of the early incorporation infrastructure – just the flashy stuff (which I'm sure is great too).
(disclaimer: former Stripe employee)
tbh I still don't understand why anyone bothers paying anyone or anything to do the paperwork, it's not like Federal taxes
What does Clerky do that Atlas doesn’t to justify the acquisition?
Seems like the easiest way to grow Atlas.
I gave up and went with Clerky, paid them $800 lifetime fee, and had things done the same day. A few years later I needed to change the name of my corporation and their support made it an absolute painless breeze.
So, I understand things change over 6 years, but Stripe Atlas was vaporware garbage when I attempted to use it.
Hoping that now they'll have the best of both worlds!
Thus, a million little acquisitions to make the possible Stripe bundle for small companies stronger, as they become the moat. The opposite of, say, the Adyen play, when you want to lower your own costs, and make money on tiny margins to do processing for really large companies.
Fraud detection is really, really, really, really hard so I would probably stick with someone like Stripe for this, as they have so much data that they can do a really good job.
And fundamentally, the moat for Stripe isn't just the front-end APIs, it's all the work that they do (and there's a lot) in connecting together financial infrastructure. Even if you could wave a magic wand and generate all the code Stripe has (which you can't, currently) then you'd still need to build out all the partnerships, which is a lot of work.
Disclaimer: former Stripe (though only a tourist), still hold some of their shares.
There are also a couple of advantages. They can take money directly from revenue before it leaves Stripes and without any processing costs. They can also invest into startups through credits and financing. And finally, their exposure to bankruptcy risk can drop as well.
If you don't like a government regulating a market then you haven't seen a company do it.
But thanks for wording the press release as "company X acquired company Y", and not some weasely lingo line like "Y is joining the X family".
I wish all smaller startup that is being acquired by big fish would start their blog by stating what they do first. So that hopefully we get a little bit of context of what is being sold and what it might add in the future.
Every single time I had to click around and look at what they do and what are their competitors to help understand the company.
I've been bitten far too many times by low info density wall of text.
I think this is many people's algorithm.
wall? it is less than 400 words, separated over 5 paragraphs. is that what counts as a "wall" now?
your comment is longer (49 words) than it takes to get to the answer of what clerky does (45 words).
The one question I want answered is "what is Stripe buying?" I know the prose is typical acquisition copy. I can figure out the strategy myself once I know what was bought.
for someone who goes on about how busy and valuable your time is, you are making some interesting decisions
Maybe I'm wasting your time now.
It seems to be, yes. The Twitterization of discourse.
That said, I wonder if this reflects how much people are using LLMs for generating legal boilerplate, rather than using lawyer-generated boilerplate (i.e. clerky). As in, this is another version of Stack Overflow losing traffic.
Imagine how much capital and work hours society would be saving.
Nothing ever came of my incorporated business (no spend, no revenue) and I received extremely menacing "collections" physical mail over many months about delinquent business incorporation franchise tax payments and escalating fees + fines (which I never paid).
The experience left me a very negative opinion of Clerky (and Delaware).