Y Combinator - The to Do List Destroyer

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Stripe was in a cohort with peers we could sell to, but there were three or four payments companies in Y Combinator around the same time that all started to do the same thing. One of the friction that we had was that that same referral network that was so beneficial to us, started to be a hindrance where Stripe was clear in a way more successful, bigger payments company of the batch. There were a bunch of things that just ease the path for any new YC company to start using Stripe from day one.

Today we speak with Jareau Wadé - currently the founder of Batch Processing, previously the co-founder of Balanced (acquired by Stripe), head of growth at Tilt Pro (acquired by Airbnb), and Chief Growth Officer at Finix.

We spoke with Jareau about the early days of Balanced - how they prioritized, gained trust with initial customers, and competed with companies like Stripe and PayPal. Jareau talks through a bunch of different heuristics and models he uses to evaluate risk (stack it early), tackle the cold start problem, synthesize feedback, figure out the technical side of your business early on, and manage the mental side of starting a business.

It's an awesome conversation and you'll take tactics and methods away from it.