Running Your Company

Stripe took nearly two years from its first line of code to public launch, partly because it needed banking partnerships. The Collison brothers installed the product with customers, watched how they used it, and followed up on errors and stalled signups. Collison says early teams can learn more by inspecting users’ behavior and feedback closely than by relying on metrics.

Collison says he and his brother John run Stripe together, with responsibilities that lean toward their strengths: John spends more time with users, while Patrick focuses more on product and engineering. Their CEO and president titles do not settle every disagreement; they also consider who feels more strongly about a decision. He advises co-founders to establish an efficient way to decide instead of relying on consensus or voting.

Collison says Stripe’s hiring of Billy Alvarado improved its bank partnerships, an area where the founders lacked experience. Looking back, he wishes they had mapped the market and built the go-to-market organization to reach more of it sooner. Before product-market fit, he recommends keeping the team small and tightening the feedback loop; adding people is useful when they help the company respond faster to what it learns.

Collison says Stripe relied too much on consensus as it grew, and that companies need clearer decision-making and communication as they reach roughly ten to fifteen people. He describes balancing top-down decisions for speed with enough autonomy for people to raise problems and propose ideas. Stripe’s annual process invites employees to submit ideas they think may be bad but could work; Stripe Atlas began this way.

Stripe moved from a largely San Francisco-based organization toward major product and engineering hubs in San Francisco, Seattle, Dublin, and Singapore. Collison says the strategy reflects more geographically dispersed talent and Stripe’s ambition to serve businesses worldwide. He describes the goal as making it easier to start companies and serve customers across borders.