scottallison

A better analog to Jobs than the ancient Greeks might Michelangelo, and we still talk about him, because what he did for that time was incredible. In fact it's still incredible. Jobs didn't just build amazing products for our time, but amazing products for the future as well. We didn't just fall in love with his products, we fell in love with him and Apple as well. [And FYI, I'm not a fanboy!]

This must be the first entrepreneur/capitalist/CEO that has been mourned on such a global scale, and that in itself is remarkable; there's no one who comes close. Maybe Warren Buffett, but outside of the US he's not that well-known. The only person I can think of from modern times might be Walt Disney, someone who was similarly creative, demanding, and left a cultural and commercial legacy behind.

Two reasons to come:

1. London loves YC!

2. It's the 3rd biggest startup ecosystem in the world

I remember reading the original blog about this, and just breathing a huge sigh of relief. That was around 3 years ago, and I've been sharing it with people since.

+1

You really need to put that on this page! http://chargify.com/payment-gateways/

So this is quite complex....

You need:

1. Merchant Account 2. Payment service provider 3. Billing software (your own or someone else)

Like you, we are UK based business, who wants to charge in dollars. Wanting the flexibility of having our own merchant account, the better rates that should give, and the portability of your customers (and their card details) I first of all spoke to the banks. But some won't deal with startups without 2 years trading history (HSBC and LTSB for example). Some don't charge in anything other than GBP yet (Clydesdale). And some, such as Barclays, although they will charge in both USD and GBP want to charge exorbitant rates for USD transactions. (2 or 3 times typical GBP rates).

You also need to make sure your merchant bank support recurring transactions; not all do!

Setting up a merchant account can take weeks and a lot of paperwork and hassle. In the end, for competitive multi currency rates and simplicity we opened an account with PayPal Website Payments Pro. This took around 48 hours!

It also killed the requirement for a payment gateway, which reduces the cost and complexity again. The downside with PayPal is, I believe, that if we wanted to move in the future, our customers would have to re-key their payment details with our new provider.

Regardless of whether you are with PayPal, or a bank+PSP the next step is the recurring billing.

Putting together these three separate providers together can be a bit of a nightmare. Although most banks support most payment gateways, most recurring billing providers only support a minimal number of gateways.

If you are in the UK and want to use Chargify you have no choice but to use DPS Payment Express (an Australian company) and they in turn only work with HSBC or Barclays.

Recurly support (for the UK) Cybersource, SagePay and PayPal Website Payments Pro.

Spreedly supports more, but for some reason that I now can't remember I counted them out.

The thing about billing is that it quickly becomes pretty complex and the smaller providers have all got limitations which could, depending on your business model, cause problems. You can imagine that with however many customers they all have, there will be a lot of requests to them along the lines of "can you just add this... that would be great". It must be hard for these guys to keep up with such requests.

When you look at the recurring billing providers you may also need to look at whether they support multi currencies, and VAT.

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

Teamly, London, UK. Lead Ruby Developer.

Teamly provides online teamwork software that helps ambitious people and businesses be more successful. Our ambition is to be the leading online provider world-wide of team management software to small and medium sized businesses.

More info: http://blog.teamly.com/jobs-and-careers-at-teamly

UK: Teamly is looking for a lead ruby developer to take our productivity and people management tool from beta to live commercial product. http://blog.teamly.com/jobs-and-careers-at-teamly

Start with the story... that's great advice

In the first full year after chip & pin became mandatory in the UK card fraud in stores dropped by 47%. While retailers can still accept signatures, if they do so they are not guaranteed the funds. Before the change, if the signature matched then they got the funds regardless. Now the only way to be sure you get paid is to accept PIN authorised transactions.

What this article doesn't say is that a lot of stores ask for ID when paying by card... something that always surprises me; this NEVER happens at home.

This is an amazing resource! Many thanks for putting it together.

Difficult to add anything to the superb advice already given but I want to endorse:

- overseas travel (go to a completely different culture than your own) - exercise (even just going for a walk round the local park while listening to some music) - de-clutter (this is really, really beneficial - I've just moved house and the feeling of throwing out years of accumulated crap was fantastic) - socialise with some new people

Finally, be wary of books and seminars, etc - sometimes I find if someone is so completely off the scale in terms of achievement rather than motivating me it has the opposite effect. Don't be afraid to stop reading/leave an event if you find you're not getting energised by it.

A good book that's easy to read is The Magic Of Thinking Big. Nice, simple advice and a good pick-me-up. It's full of common sense and useful steps you can take to get re-energised.

Finally, I just want to echo what others have said: there's no rush; don't pressure yourself. There's a great quote on PG's website... "Your twenties are always an apprenticeship, but you don’t always know what for."

Good luck.

Can you be more specific as to the types of legal restrictions you are concerned about? Or is this just a general question on what countries are more/less supportive of start-up businesses?