Recently, I decided to join Stripe full-time to help shape and hack on the support team. I’ve actually been working with Stripe since February doing part-time support in the Campfire chat, and even before then in a completely unofficial role as a user and community advocate.

As I also have meld with my mom, I’ve historically been against the thought of joining another company in a full-time capacity, even if I got to continue working on meld. But there’s something really special about Stripe, and I felt it from the moment I first got my beta invite.

When I started using Stripe, my mom and I were just launching an entirely rethought version of meld (then, QR Card Us). Everything was going smoothly (especially when you factor in no sleep for 48 hours–but that’s a post for a different time), but a larger client found our site and was interested for the whole company. There was only one problem: the form wouldn’t generate his card token.

Okay, there were actually two problems: the form wouldn’t generate his card token and I couldn’t reproduce. He was extremely patient (you know who you are–thanks!), but I had to get this fixed. Not knowing what else to do, I blindly emailed support@stripe.com with the customer’s IP address in hopes that they could help pinpoint the problem by verifying whether or not they were receiving his create token request.

What I got back was so much more. Greg Brockman promptly wrote me, not only giving insight into their logs, but actually going to my website, sifting through JavaScript that was completely separate from their end, and helping to point out potential problem areas.

Thanks to Stripe, I was able to find the issue and get the client promptly signed up.

This is not an isolated incident, nor just a matter of Greg being an exception to the rule. Continuing to ask Stripe for pointers along the way, I found myself witnessing a recurring theme: they were, quite simply put, fantastic people.

Thanks to Stripe, I quickly found myself with a whole team of people behind what was really just a 2-person startup.

Many companies claim they care about their customers, but are prompt to levy heavy taxes and curt responses instead. Stripe was different. They surpassed what I had ever expected from a team; even as a total stranger, they actually cared about what was best for me.

In a situation like this, there’s really only one good way to respond: I started hanging around the Campfire room to pay it forward when possible, and I took to the tubes of the Internets to defend Stripe and raise my flag in favor of them. Stripe was not just a product I wanted to recommend, but a group of people I wanted to introduce.

So when Stripe and I started talking about making my role more official, and I gave it some thought, I realized how much of a no brainer it really was. There is no other company that I’d have even considered this for, but Stripe was and is clearly a creative, morals-driven team that truly cares more about the person than the bottom line.

Now that I’m at Stripe, I’m going to work hard to continue this even as we keep growing and becoming synonymous with accepting payments online. If you even just want to say hi, email us at support@stripe.com or come hang out with us on Campfire.

I hope this is never the case, but if you ever feel that we’re not meeting this, please know that you are welcome to email me directly at m@mschade.me. I also wouldn’t mind hearing from you for any other reason, too :-)

The people behind Stripe are as crazy as you’d expect from a group choosing to turn the entire concept of accepting payments online on its head by actually making it simple and really caring about the customer. If you think you’re just as crazy, come change how payments are done with us.