We realized we needed to charge businesses a few hundred dollars a month instead of just $20-$30 to make our business model viable.

We sold our service to one company for $250 a month, even before we had any code developed.

We're now cash flow positive, which is great, and a lot of that success comes from significantly reducing server costs and continued growth in subscriptions.

In our second venture, Carrot 6, we improved the time from our first line of code to our first paying customer from infinity to six months, but realized our growth pace wasn't sufficient for a large, impactful company.

When we were low on funds, I wholesaled to a key account to generate cash flow, which ultimately saved the company from going under.

We decided to become a one-stop shop for accounting, taxes, and payroll, charging a few hundred dollars a month for our services.

Our business model generates revenue in three ways: per user signup fees, per payment fees, and a stable per user per month fee for different products.

It took me six months to hire the first two people at Stripe, and even after that, we hired only one person every three months for a while.

We currently have 20 paying customers and have generated about $200,000 in annual revenue, while raising a round of $1.5 million.