We’re delighted to announce that Webstock 16 sponsor, Stripe, is now open in private beta for New Zealand businesses. We talked with Susan Wu, Market Lead for Stripe Australia and New Zealand, about this.

Webstock: So, give us the quick overview of what Stripe is, what you do, and the changes you’re making.

Stripe: Stripe is a set of tools for building and running an internet business. We help businesses accept payments from anyone, anywhere, and build new kinds of companies like Kickstarter or Lyft.

From marketplaces and mobile apps to online storefronts and subscription services, Stripe simplifies complex financial flows. Beyond just processing a payment, our growing stack helps businesses with everything from accounting, billing and paying out to third parties, to fraud protection and optimising for mobile. The Stripe dashboard helps users manage their businesses in real time.

Part of the promise of the internet is that physical location should be largely irrelevant. When it comes to buying or selling online today, we’re still a long way from realising this. Stripe aims to make that happen. By reducing the barriers to starting and operating a business regardless of location or means, Stripe hopes to bring more would-be companies online and accelerate the internet economy. Internally we say our goal is to increase the GDP of the internet.

Webstock: One thing a lot of people love about Stripe is the ease of use. Compared to, well, just about anything else to do with credit cards transactions. Was that a conscious point of differentiation right from the start?

Stripe: Absolutely! Having built and launched software on the internet for years, our founders — Patrick and John — experienced the difficulty of accepting online payments first-hand. They often opted to give the product away for free, rather than go through the time and pain of setting up a merchant account and gateway online.

On almost every front, it was becoming easier to build and launch an online business. Payments, however, remained dominated by clunky legacy players. It seemed clear that there should be a developer-focused, instant-setup payment platform that would scale to any size. That’s really where it all began.

Webstock: The big news for Webstock is that Stripe has just opened a private beta for New Zealand customers! Firstly, what took you so long getting here? 😉 Secondly, what does this mean from NZ businesses and how do they become part of this?

Stripe: Sorry we kept you waiting! 🙂 We try to be pretty thoughtful in our approach to new markets we enter, and that often means that things may take a little longer than we’d like. That said, we’re really excited to announce that we are now in private beta in NZ!

Any NZ business can now sign up to our waiting list on stripe.com/global. We’ll be issuing local invites and accepting merchants over the course of the coming weeks and months. Once we’re fully launched, any business will be able to sign up for Stripe and begin accepting money in just a few minutes. We’d love to hear from any NZ businesses that are keen to learn more, so feel free to say hi to the Stripe team at Webstock or drop us a line on [email protected] with any questions!

Webstock: We’re delighted to have Stripe as a sponsor for Webstock! How did you hear about Webstock and tell us a little about why you’re supporting it.

Stripe: Webstock’s reputation as one of the coolest events in the tech industry has spread far and wide. We’re unapologetic in believing the internet matters and share Webstock’s appreciation for the web and those who craft it.

We fundamentally believe that developers are changing the world and that’s why we’ve always put them first. Endless new kinds of businesses, services, and creative undertakings are now possible — however, 20 years into the web, we’ve still explored only a small fraction of the web’s potential. Like Webstock, we’re focused on advancing the internet and making it a more inclusive place for everyone. We’re genuinely thrilled to support Webstock (especially as you reach your 10th birthday!) and are really looking forward to supporting the local NZ tech community.

Webstock: Another item in the “pretty exciting news” category, is the just announced partnership with Xero. Can you tell us a little about how that came about and what it means?

Stripe: Yes! Pretty exciting indeed 🙂 After many requests from both Stripe and Xero users, we’ve teamed up to make it even easier for Xero users to accept credit and debit card payments from their customers. Now, whenever someone signs up for Xero, they can be automatically provided with a Stripe account. By enabling their Stripe account, Xero users will be able to attach a “Pay with Credit Card” button to any invoice and seamlessly receive payment from their customers no matter where they are in the world. We’re really happy to announce the partnership and look forward to developing some cool new integrations in the not-so-distant future. You can read more about it here.

Thanks Susan! Great to have Stripe as part of Webstock 16.