Lessons Learned Building a SaaS App for Stripe Users | Hacker News Reader

Lessons Learned Building a SaaS App for Stripe Users

baremetrics.io

68 pointsShpigford8 comments

As the article says, Stripe's API docs are incredible. The article links directly to the API docs and the rest of their documentation is equally great[1]. There are a few weak spots, though, in particular around webhooks. I put together a little guide[2] a few months ago that describes what hooks fire, in what order, and under what conditions.

[1]: https://stripe.com/docs

[2]: https://www.petekeen.net/stripe-webhook-event-cheatsheet

When I said thanks but no thanks to an invitation to apply at Stripe (not because of them, I didn't think I was of the caliber needed to work there), I specifically mentioned one of the reasons for loving them was their beautiful/elegant API.

As Da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication".

Hey Josh, congratulations on baremetrics.

I remember commenting on your Temper.io introduction on reddit a few months back. Both these solutions look very professional and have compelling business cases. I'd love to hear more about your process. Are you in front of a team? Do you outsource a lot? Or sleep little? Cheers!

Thanks! I'm a one-man show on Baremetrics (no team or outsourcing) and I get a relatively decent amount of sleep. :)

I put a big emphasis on shipping fast and frequently.

So, push small bits of larger things out the door. Incremental progress over huge features. That sort of thing.

"Shipped" is better than "perfect" for me and is the measure for progress. I ship something as quickly as possible, then iterate on top of that after it's in the wild and being used by paying customers.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

All of the communication methods mentioned in the 'tips' section have proved invaluable for me personally, and really set Stripe apart from many companies. They're fantastically accessible. Need a quick response? Ask on the IRC chat. Think the API isn't right? Have a discussion. Library missing something? Fork it and maybe submit a pull request.

The one thing that makes me consider switching is the lack of bank transfers in the UK (which isn't a problem unique to Stripe).

I see baremetrics user testimonials are all from white men in their 30s.

What a great product idea, and executed very nicely. Congrats.

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