# Legend of the Stripe
In 2010, this Irish kid started the biggest upset in Silicon Valley history.
He emailed Paul Graham for advice.
Then Paul gave him ONE hack that made him a billionaire and crushed Elon's PayPal 20-year monopoly.
Here's the crazy story:
The story actually starts earlier.
At 16, Patrick Collison and his brother John coded from their parents' house in rural Ireland.
While most teenagers played video games, they built software for eBay sellers.
But in 2009, he was just a frustrated developer trying to accept payments online.
PayPal's system was a nightmare. Every developer he knew hated it.
By 19, they'd sold that company for $5M.
Harvard and MIT fought to recruit them.
But something bigger was brewing...
They saw a massive problem in the payment industry that no one was solving.
During a walk home from a Y Combinator event, they had an idea:
What if accepting payments online was as simple as a few lines of code?
Most people would call this impossible. PayPal had a 20-year head start...
But Patrick and John weren't most people.
They'd already proven they could build and sell a company.
Now they were about to send the email that would change fintech forever.
The email to Paul Graham was so simple it almost went to spam.
The pitch? "Two Irish kids who want to fix online payments"
No warm intro.
No fancy pitch deck.
No Silicon Valley network.
Just raw ambition and a clear vision.
Paul Graham's response shocked everyone:
Instead of dismissing them, he saw something special.
They understood the pain firsthand.
These weren't just founders with an idea.
They were developers solving their own problem.
Graham's advice changed everything:
- Don't just demo the product.
- Physically set it up for customers.
- Show them the magic in person.
This growth hack is now known as the "Collison installation" – their secret weapon for early growth.
Instead of mass marketing, they went door to door.
Literally sat with developers.
Showed them how simple payments could be.
The developer community fell in love.
For anyone asking, here's how Stripe make money:
The results?
• Developers became evangelists
• Startups could accept payments in minutes
• Even Elon Musk and Peter Thiel invested
The payment revolution had begun.
By 2014, Stripe was worth $1.75B.
Today? $95B and processing more payments than the entire European banking system.
All because two Irish kids dared to challenge PayPal's monopoly.
The craziest part?
Only 12% of global commerce happens online.
Stripe isn't just disrupting PayPal anymore.
They're rebuilding the entire financial infrastructure of the internet.
But here's what most people miss about this story:
It wasn't the product.
It wasn't about the timing.
It wasn't even about the market.
Stripe's success came from the power of one perfect cold email.
If you're in any sales or marketing position, you know:
The right message to the right person at the right time can change everything.
One cold email made two billionaires.
One DM could change your life.
That sounds cliché, but it's true.
With over 10+ years of outreach expertise, I've helped 100+ creators scale to 6-7 figures from DMs.
My team has generated over $20M for clients exclusively through DMs, with no sales calls.
But most people get "outreach" completely wrong:
They message anyone.
They focus on volume over value.
They copy/paste generic templates.
The key is quite the opposite.
So do you want to master the art of outreach that converts?
Join the pros getting my weekly DM Edge newsletter, and as a bonus you can get the exact DM Sales Flow my team uses to close $3-7k+ deals DAILY.
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Thanks dude :)
You got it my man :)
Love this
100% dude :)
Dm me with more info