The origin of Stripe and Patrick Collison

In the vast universe of fintech, the story of Stripe and its co-founder Patrick Collison stands out for its clear vision, its focus on simplicity and its global impact. At 19, Patrick dropped out of MIT to solve one of the Internet's biggest problems: the complexity of online payments. While businesses were losing $40 billion a year to transaction failures and PayPal integration was taking a week and requiring a 100-page manual, Patrick saw an opportunity to make it "absurdly simple." With just seven lines of code - when PayPal required more than 500 - Stripe would allow any developer to accept payments in minutes.

An Irish prodigy

Patrick Collison won the Young Scientist of the Year competition in Ireland at the age of 16, which opened the doors to MIT, although he dropped out in 2009 after founding and selling Auctomatic for $5 million at the age of 19.

The shared vision

Together with his brother John - with whom he had been programming since the age of 10 - they focused on a single metric: developer happiness. Paul Graham of Y Combinator called their demo "suspiciously good" and Peter Thiel invested $2 million in the seed round.

The big problem of online payments

• Complex integration7 days and 100 pages of manual to integrate PayPal.

• Massive losses40 billion USD per year in defaulted payments.

• Frustrated developersThe learning curve and integration time slowed down innovation.

The solution: extreme simplicity

Stripe released an API with just seven lines of code that any developer could copy and paste to start charging online in minutes. When showing this prototype to PayPal, executives laughed: "It's impossible to make it that simple," they said. But the reality was different: the simplicity appealed to startups and large enterprises alike.

Explosive growth

Stripe launched to the public in 2011 at the perfect time:

• Shopify was taking off.

• App stores were multiplying.

• The model SaaS growth was unprecedented.
  The result was an incredible increase in processed volume:

• 2011: 1 M USD processed

• 2012: 100 M USD processed

• 2013: 1 B USD processed

• 2015: USD 20 B processed
  Traditional banks called this "beginner's luck"; it later became clear that it was pure product strategy.

Beyond payments

The mission to "grow Internet GDP" led Stripe to diversify:

• Atlasplatform to create companies in the U.S.A.

• RadarFraud prevention with machine learning.

• Issuingcorporate cards made to measure.
  Each new product simplified another major business challenge and strengthened Stripe's value proposition.

Valuation and lessons of success

In 2021 Stripe reached a valuation of USD 95 billion, more than giants such as Goldman Sachs or BMW, and placed Patrick, at just 32 years old, among the world's youngest billionaires.

Keys to the triumph

1. Simplicity always wins: eliminating complexity is a powerful differentiator.

2. Developer happiness firstA good product for developers attracts business.

3. Long-term visionThink in decades, not quarters.

4. Humility and perseveranceSuccess does not accelerate without daily work.

5. Solving real problemsfocus the product on tangible needs.

In Metamedia Cloud, we integrate Stripe as a payment method in all our e-commerce projects, guaranteeing the acceptance of credit and debit cards in the most efficient way. secure y simple for your customers. 🚀

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