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Stripe Atlas (Pre-Launch) — A new way to start an internet business anywhere
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Bala S.
With Stripe Atlas, entrepreneurs can easily incorporate a U.S. company, set up a U.S. bank account, and start accepting payments with Stripe.
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@leanux_bala this is awesome - i know so many companies in the UK that wonder whether incorporating in the US will help them raise capital so this seems like this will help spur the startup industry in other places and help even out all the venture density from the US to other parts of the world! great going Stripe!
@leanux_bala This is pretty awesome. I run my company from Australia and as modern as our banking system is, there are some real challenges in being an AU company targeting US customers and suppliers:
- With this, I will no longer need to convert $US sales into $AU for my bank account before I put it back into $US to pay my suppliers
- With this, I won't get charged the extra 1.25% when a purchase is made using a non-Australian card (ie, 90% of my customers) - (Edit: Looks like I'll still be paying 2.9% + 30c per transaction. This is odd, as with Stripe AU it's 1.75% + 30c for domestic cards)
- With this, I could potentially run my next Kickstarter in USD rather than AUD (which is a real problem with our currency disparity)
These three things make a huge difference to my business. I've looked at registering a US entity before, but there's no turnkey way to do it.. until now.
@leanux_bala I cannot tell you how stocked I am, after reading about Stripe Atlas. It just might be the solution to every f***ing payment problem my team have been dealing with for past five years (being in a 3rd world country).
We are huge fans of Stripe! It's integration the user experience and overall simplicity.
@leanux_bala Tons of potential here for @stripe's growth and impact on entrepreneurs + startups worldwide.
We're looking forward to adding Atlas to our portfolio companies... and our own products too.
Keep up the great work @BestOfLuk and Stripe growth team!
Ross D. Blankenship
Angel Investor & Builder | http://angelkings.com
This looks awsome, but i have a question: I'm from Spain (terrible place for entrepreneurs, lot of taxes only for accept payments, make invoices etc), if I use Stripe Atlas, is this tax evasion? Thanks!
@ricardpanades Nope, you'll still need to pay taxes locally wherever applicable. I don't have much advice on the specifics for Spain, but we partnered with PwC who can assist from a U.S. perspective and introduce you to the cross-border tax considerations when setting up with Atlas. This should help make sure you stay compliant with local laws.
@ricardpanades While using Stripe Atlas to incorporate in the US isn't tax evasion, the company would still need to report to the tax authorities in Spain (and the US) and pay tax there. Failing to do so would be tax evasion.
While I understand this can be very useful to process payments, you need to understand the Pandora's box of international tax complexities you are opening by running a US incorporated entity from Spain (or any other country). After all, Stripe is already available in Spain, so why bother. You will not pay less tax (you might even pay more), but instead increase your cost of tax compliance by an order of magnitude. Not to mention all the extra work.
I'm not saying Atlas isn't suitable for anyone. For high-growth, VC-funded startups, having a US presence might make sense (investors like investing in Delaware C-corps). The same for someone from a third world country lacking access to decent payment processing, etc. But in the latter case it might be better to look at other jurisdictions than the US, for example Estonia.
But most small to decent-sized businesses in reasonably developed countries should think at least twice (i.e. talk it over with a qualified international tax professional in your home country) before signing up for Atlas or otherwise incorporating in the US. If you think your own tax code is bad/complex/insane, you haven't seen the US one.
This is hugely exciting. They're helping abstract the boring stuff. (Accounting, incorporation)
@blaurenceclark and I cofounded @linktexting and @growamp by using Stripe first. We bootstrapped to pay the incorporation fees and routed the initial cash into his bank account and tracked everything accordingly.
We bootstrapped from zero to x using Stripe first. Our major issue with silicon valley bank is that they pass plain text passwords in the forgot password user-flow.
We're huge fans of stripe and their integrations though. Check them out here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrat...
If you're using Stripe and doing SAAS, I highly recommend @profitwell.
We used @clerky to incorporate. While useful, I always feel I'm being stolen from in the C-corp incorporation timeline. Also 83B form filings are the worst, anachronistic. By US law most government organizations can accept digital forms, but many of them haven't adapted to this law. Not a lawyer, just pointing out the anachronism.
Thanks for the shoutout @datarade. We don't quite have the ProfitWell twitter handle, so find us at @priceintel.
Love what Stripe is doing here, continuing to be revolutionary in the world.
Damn I was waiting for stripe to launch in India and you guys made a way to use all the benefits that US startups use. Thanks :)
@h_halvi I am also from India. If you utilized Stripe Atlas and incorporate a U.S. Delaware company, do you need to pay taxes in both US and India?
Wow ! This seems awesome Thank you @sch @krithix @patrickc and the whole Stripe team behind this :) Now I have few questions?
1. I am from India, when are you planning to add India too in the payment system?
2. You say it's a "A new way to start an internet business anywhere" what if I am in a product business which need to ship real physical product to the market of US and other places. How can this benefits to me ? How can you be helpful to set up my Indian business there in US ?
PS: Thank you @dariuszdziuk for submitting this here :)
Cheers!
Nitesh Manav
hmmm this could be fairly damn big for startups... I love the idea of creating a company can now take just hours and anyone in the world can easily do it
@davidiwanow Yes! We're pretty excited to see what people build.
hey guys, i've applied to atlas but hasn't got any response yet... is there anyone who got accepted and started using the service? How good/bad is it?
@jason_likealike The day woke up and I received the email that my startup got accepted, I jumped from my bed and screamed yes 3 times. It was very good. As a non US founder, I was waiting 4 years for this full package solution. Stripe Atlas does it the right way.
@vietnguyen so are you in the program right now? i've applied but haven't got a response yet... our release date will be on the first week of september so i'd better get hurry... is there any fater way you think we'll get accepted other than getting a referral from their partners?
@jason_likealike I waited for months. I would not care about the incorporation date and release the product when I like. Having a referral is the best way, otherwise u would have to wait like me :(
@vietnguyen I guess I gotta do my best to get a referral then... thanks for your help, Viet! 👊 lemme know if there's anything i can help down the road if any... :)
@vietnguyen I'm about to get in the program - got an application link leading to the next step. How do you find the program so far?
It would be great to see some more details about this, I mean detailed tutorial how to deal with taxes. I'm from Europe
Whoa, this is incredibly good news. I couldn't find any info as to whether a valid US visa is required for non residents to apply?
In 2012, when Stripe was only available on the US and had no equivalent in Australia, at App.io we wanted to accept online payments. We either had to pay a $25,000 deposit and wait 3 months to open a merchant account with a bank, or pay $500 to incorporate a US company and spend $1500 to visit the US and open a bank account. Guess what option we chose? Love that s
Stripe is doing this. Truly awesome.
@edowling Stripe has always been great about servicing Australia. I remember when they came out here and only let you take payments in AUD, but they were driving the USD payments so hard - I'd sent an early e-mail inquiring about being able to take payments in USD and actually got a personal follow-up from someone when they released it into beta. Every interaction I've had with them has been great, even when the answer is "no, you can't do that".
I've just recently (last week) changed my payment gateway completely over from Paypal to Stripe. Really excited about the new opportunities that Stripe Atlas might bring me. Our banks here, while they do a great job, just don't have sensible products that cater to modern online businesses.
Quick UX feedback on your site-- Either add a more solid color to the CTAs or at least give them a new state on hover. Make it easier for users to click on them and you'll likely see better returns.
Everything about Stripe simply makes it, in my opinion, the absolute best tech startup, both in product and in business model, in a very, very long time. I don't think Unicorn quite fully describes it; it's more or less becoming a foundational utility for business online. Stripe Atlas really helps to solidify this. It's going to level the playing field for bright minds and talent all around the world to take part in the US's unparalleled climate for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Always a pain point on new business entities. And most of the "we set up a corporation for you" people were pretty shady. I'm interested in how this'll fit in the US "know your customer" rules though for folks out of the country.
I'll be interested in seeing where this goes. Other corporate forms, other countries.
While large corporations are using tax inversions to lower their tax bills, Atlas is making it easier for small international businesses to incorporate and do business in the US. Interesting world!
So many businesses need this type of deployment/turnkey/onboarding to the startup scene... this is a huge enablement tool and I'm happy to see it here. We're about to see an even bigger explosion of startups with resources like this under one seamless roof. Thanks for putting this together.
We've made a bunch of updates to Stripe Atlas to make it even easier to start an internet business: faster access to your bank account, more ways to get invited, open to U.S. entrepreneurs, and a forum for founders. Check out our new post at https://www.producthunt.com/post...
This is an incredible service to offer-well thought out end-to-end, giving entrepreneurs a real head start on getting their ducks in a row
Sweet - I applied - will you limit this offer to incorporate in USA or also offer this service to do it in France, Hong-Kong ...
@steveraffner We're starting with incorporating in the US, and are working on expanding Atlas globally.
@sch How soon before other structures are offered like LLC. The only point of friction I see in adopting this for a newly formed startup is the tax and legal obligations related to C-Corp
@otymartin We don't have an ETA just yet on that one, but it's something we're looking into! I'm sure we'll learn a lot from the beta, and that'll help inform what we do next.