I’m joining Stripe

Today I’m excited to be joining the team at Stripe, helping reinvent payments on the internet globally.

After spending the next few weeks with the team in San Francisco I’ll be back to continue calling London my home, focusing on Stripe’s expansion into the UK and beyond.

My current startup GroupSpaces is operating nicely as a sustainable small business, doing that old-fashioned thing of making more money than it spends, and continuing to grow usage and revenue. A fascinating diversity of organisations use GroupSpaces to ease management of their membership, communications and activities — from professional associations to sports clubs, local hobby groups to prominent international campaigning organisations, campus-based student societies to community groups and charities. I’m hugely proud of the contribution and impact we’ve made, and I remain committed to seeing GroupSpaces continue to thrive and achieve it’s best.

With GroupSpaces we had the ambition to build a global internet-scale company, and it’s in this light that it’s now time for me to move on to tackle my next challenge. I’ll continue to be involved in supporting the business, which — although disappointing that growth has been slower than we hoped in financial returns — has come a long way in the last year. In many ways it feels like a newborn year-old startup. My departure from the day-to-day makes room for fresh blood to drive it forward in new ways, and I look forward to seeing GroupSpaces continue to grow, either standalone or in time with an appropriate partner.

Even to me my move to Stripe comes as rather unexpected — being most definitely an entrepreneur at heart, I certainly wasn’t looking to take a new job. But after meeting with and talking to the Stripe folks over the last few weeks, the key ingredients all dropped into place:

- Firstly, online payments is something I’m strongly passionate about. I’ve become only too well acquainted with the difficulties, frustrations and red tape associated with getting set up to accept money online, not to mention the numerous tales of woe from friends battling the same issues in other startups. If I can only make a meaningful difference for many friends then it’ll be a job well done.

- Secondly, the team at Stripe are — in my experience — second to none. It’s simultaneously inspiring and scary to be joining such a group of diverse, energetic and talented people. It stands out how many of the team have previously founded companies or achieved other impressive feats. I fully expect them to push me to deliver my best.

- Finally, the challenge I’m taking on at Stripe is in many ways a startup within a startup. Expanding a company internationally is a tough call at the best of times, and I’m acutely conscious of how critical it will be to help preserve everything that makes Stripe special within our operations and culture in London. It’s still very early days for a startup that’s barely 2 years old — particularly for one with a vision reaching a decade and beyond. Payments are broken — the upside is there for the taking.

Initially I’ll be helping develop and expand Stripe’s product, service and presence in the UK, returning to London in time for the Silicon Milkroundabout startup job fair on 12th May — if you’re interested in re-imagining payments, check out the positions we’re currently hiring for in London or come chat to Diede and myself on the day. And if you’re a UK business or startup that likes money, ay@stripe.com is shiny new and currently at inbox zero..

Separately, I’ve written a post looking back at my 7 years working on GroupSpaces, some of the mistakes we made and my vision for what it can do in the future. I hope to write more about my learnings as time allows, but for now it just remains for me to restate my heartfelt thanks to our mentors, advisors, investors and all who’ve supported us in the journey with GroupSpaces, and look forward to what the future holds for both GroupSpaces and Stripe.