Freshdesk's company blog, covering startup lessons, fundraising, scaling the product, and the founder's story of launching after an HN comment.
HN links it for the guide to incorporating a US company from abroad and for the founder's story of starting Freshdesk after a Hacker News comment.
http://blog.freshdesk.com/how-to-incorporate-a-us-corporation-from-outs/
More on payment processing options if you decide to do it from India till you build traction:
http://blog.chargebee.com/payment-integration-options-for-startups-in-i
Disclaimer: I am one of the founders of ChargeBee.
There are pros & cons of running company in two countries with administration & documentation being a big overhead. And initial cost runs to $1.5 or 2k with dual setup etc.,
Instead you can focus on getting product right get started with a gateway that works (unless monthly variable billing is non-negotiable to your business model).
One of the use cases we are trying to address is this using partnership with 2Checkout (2CO). 2CO has its limitations and we have built a beautiful wrapper on top to address most scenarios in recurring billing.
You may check our API documentation here: https://apidocs.chargebee.com/docs/api
(inspired by docco used by Stripe. We built ours ground up as auto-generated documentation with the notes doubling up documentation for our code).
As you build traction for your product you can setup company in US and we can help you switch over to any US payment gateway seamlessly with multiple gateway support (we are adding more gateways globally).
BTW, we are on boarding beta customers and would love to chat if you have more questions. My id in profile.
Hi guys, slightly off topic, but please help:
Two months ago I incorporated a C-Corp in Delaware, and registered a "virtual office" in the same state, remotely from my country of residence in SE Asia. Mr Ryan Roberts[1] helped with the incorporation, but I still need a US bank account to create an account in Stripe. I need it for my upcoming SaaS.
About a week ago I contacted Silicon Valley Bank to open an account (I can't remember who suggested it, I think Mr Ryan as well), and they sent me a questionnaire which I already filled out and sent back. But I haven't heard from them again. Since there's a story about Stripe in the front page[3], I'm wondering if someone can give me suggestion as how to proceed (e.g. maybe go to another bank).
I've never been to US, and I hope I don't have to go there just to open a bank account.
In case you're wondering, I was inspired by a blog post from Freshdesk[3].
[1] http://startuplawyer.com/about
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6319512
[3] http://blog.freshdesk.com/how-to-incorporate-a-us-corporation-from-outs/
I didn't know much about how Freshdesk was founded, but this post is interesting: http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-comment-on-h-0/
From that HN thread:
> Whenever I read something like this I can't help but think "Here's a potential customer to whomever can get this right and at the right price". It seems like there's still a huge opening in this market for someone to come in and take all of ZenDesk and eSupport's customers.
> Do you really think so? It always struck me that there was 1001 support desk providers out there... is there really that much space? (cos if so it's going on my list of maybe projects :))
> There's always space for someone who does it better and/or cheaper than the competition.
Related to how Hacker News changes lives:
How a simple comment on Hacker News motivated me to resign from my comfortable well paying job and launch my own startup
http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-comment-on-h-0/
The rest of our discussion on Hacker News/startup lessons here: http://hackerne.ws/item?id=4426093 (An interesting take on addressing the pain points of customers).
What a lovely story. Not specifically the credit card stuff but the hackernews inspired startup story...
http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple-comment-on-h-0
I find the 'just make the core features work' part interesting. Make my core business processes work with no glitches at a 'reasonable' cost.
I would be interested in a freshdesk tech stack blog entry?
Beautiful story. The way you listed to the market, built the right product in the right moment - just perfect.
One think caught my eye: $160 for your office space?? From what I've seen on http://blog.freshdesk.com/freshdesk-gets-a-fresh-office it looks very decent. Your burn rate is also quite good.
How easy is it for a non indian to start a company in India?