It’s an ill-fates story of passion and love. She came into my life with the promises of everything I’d wanted, and things I never knew I needed.

And then she gutted me.

I’ve come home expecting the usual but instead I’m still trying to comprehend what the &^%$ happened even months later.

Stripe is, hands down, the worst break up I’ve ever had. I find myself stuck in a bitter place where I’m angry and distraught over how I was treated while wanting them to take me back at the same time.

I’m angry and distraught over how I was treated while wanting them to take me back at the same time.

Let me backup… context is important.

If you’ve got a product or service, you can throw a rock in any direction online and hit a payment processor willing to help you launch your business. Every one of them uses flower copy designed to convert, emphasizing the benefits of teaming up with their platform.

The problem; for the tens of thousands of services there’s only a few real payment processors.

TSYS, Chase Paymentech, First Data, Vantiv/NPC, WorldPay, Heartland

The platforms and services we see, populating organic search results and pressing benefit statements through paid ads are ISO’s. They’re third party agents.

And there are a lot of them.

That made it difficult in the early days of launching myself as an entrepreneur and getting my first business rolling.

I ultimately chose Stripe because it stood out from the other TPA processors. It wasn’t just about who could offer the lowest per transaction fee or interchange pricing. What attracted me to Stripe was that it was building a developer-first product that made it easy for scrappy startups to jump in and launch.

Their startup story was impressive, and I loved the company culture.

It didn’t take long after integrating with Stripe for me to realize why so many were raving about it. Powerful hype-engine aside, Stripe legitimately worked to delight its customer base.

Other processors tend to get in the way of the experience taking place between a brand and a customer. Services like PayPal are larger platforms that will process for you but they also want to leverage that opportunity to create and build their own relationship with your customer.

Imagine trying to checkout at your local hardware store and while you catch up with the owner about how things have been the credit card terminal starts loudly interrupting to prompt you with personal questions and special offers.

Stripe didn’t do that. I loved that. I fell hard for a processor that let merchants retain control of customers and the experience.

Unfortunately, what I’ve been forced to remember in recent months, is that passion and loyalty don’t always go both ways and some brands — like Stripe — have no qualms about screwing you before leaving.

It’s not me, it’s you

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