I bootstrapped a marketplace to 6M+ users. It’s startups on hard mode. We focused on sellers first but the hard part is no matter what side you choose, you have to artificially inflate the other side. That costs money, time, and a sick amount of faith it will all work out.

Two years ago, @stripe acquired @lemonsqueezy. It’s still a strange sentence to write for me. I’ve been thinking about what to say today, and I’m not sure there’s a clean way to sum up what the last few years have meant to me. Lemon Squeezy started with a small team and a pretty simple idea: selling software globally should be easier. We bootstrapped it, kept the team small, and just kept building. Honestly, we worked our asses off to build a brand we were proud of. People saw the lemon drops, the growth, and eventually the acquisition. They didn’t see the second-guessing. The pressure. The missed time with family. Or how lonely it can feel as the CEO when you’re responsible for nearly everything, and everyone is looking to you for answers. I always thought getting acquired would feel like the finish line. And I guess, for a minute, it did. There was relief. Pride. A little disbelief. Mostly just gratitude that we had actually made it there. But life goes on, and a completely different chapter starts. I went from building with a small team where we could make a decision and ship it that day to figuring out how to build products at one of the most ambitious companies in the world. That transition has been harder than I expected in some ways. It’s also taught me more than I expected. Over the last two years, we took a lot of what we learned building Lemon Squeezy and helped turn it into Stripe Managed Payments. Getting to see the problem we cared about for years being solved at this scale has been pretty surreal. I’ve traveled with the team, spoke all over the world, met founders and customers, and had a front-row seat to what it takes to build products that operate at a completely different level. Now I’m moving into another chapter at Stripe, focused on what happens after a business gets paid. I am helping founders and startups move and manage their money in entirely new ways with Stripe Treasury. I pinch myself daily. I don’t know. Two years later, I think the main thing I feel is grateful. Grateful for the Lemon Squeezy team. Grateful for the customers who trusted us. Grateful for the people at Stripe who welcomed us and gave us the chance to keep building. And especially grateful for my family, who carried a lot more of this journey than most people will ever know. Proud of what we built. Still amazed it all happened. Turns out, the lemonade stand was just the beginning. 🍋 (here's some pics of my fav moments 👇)

In Barcelona at the Unity Unite conference