Stripe is so popular with developers because they are laser-focused on providing an excellent experience for the developers. This includes personally responding to every single HN post about Stripe I've ever seen.
It truly is mind-boggling there aren't more companies doing that. Having even one employee dedicated to answering questions for an hour when a thread pops up in a remotely popular place is so beneficial:
- It is directly helpful to users and casts a good light on your company
- It makes the company look more human and composed of actual people, rather than automatons (think Google)
- It provides a way to clear up potential PR disasters, misunderstandings etc when the eventual user comes up with whatever conspiracy theory is en vogue that day (there's always one)
"personally responding to every single HN post about Stripe I've ever seen."
They haven't responded to any of my questions posted here. My email question was left unanswered as well.
I guess if you are building a service catered to customers from a very small asian country and currency which they say they support/accept, you are SOL.
I love Stripe's design and ease of API implementation but when they don't answer a simple question about a foreign exchange fee, I have no choice but to go with a local company who replies and even calls you to help you with setup and answering questions.