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👋 In February, @stripe approached my client and had asked if we were interested in building for Stripe what we had built on Slack’s platform. 1/20
@stripe I wanted to toot a little about the experience of working with the Stripe Apps team over the past few months. I figured I am one of only a handful of developers who had this experience and I can now talk about it.
@stripe They had been working on the SDK, the framework, and their famous Stripe documentation over the past year. They wanted to get developers working on apps and have them build real-world apps for two reasons.
@stripe One reason was to have apps ready for the launch announcement. Two, which seemed more important, was to give them feedback on the development process and SDK so it could be ready for even more developers after launch. The timeline was set. 4/20
@stripe We got access to their SDK via a private NPM package, access to their unreleased documentation via our Stripe accounts, access to a Figma library for the components, access to their private GitHub repository, and access to a private channel on their Discord server.
@stripe The SDK had a small footprint, which was easy to grok. It is built on a subset of React with only 6 components or so at the time and well-defined attributes.
@stripe If you know React, it was very easy to get started. They basically had 3 different views which were surfaces you could use in different scenarios and about 6 components at that time.
@stripe The styling architecture is small since it is supposed to be defined so every app can look/feel native within the dashboard. This kept the styling attributes very easy to work with. 8/20
@stripe Every week Stripe would deliver an email that was always waiting in your inbox on Monday. The email would highlight changes they made to the SDK, including new components or changes to existing components.
@stripe Every change was very well documented and even had documentation ready for their new components, even if the component was not finished.
@stripe The email highlighted bug fixes that were issued by developers with links to those GitHub issues. It also mentioned what was new or changed with the platform such as how installation would look like and what new web hooks would be available.
@stripe The email signed off with the “pet of the week” that they would highlight from within the Stripe Apps community they had built. It was a treat. 12/20
@stripe Stripe had weekly office hours that you could sign up for each week to get Stripe Apps team developers to help you. They triaged every GitHub issue within 4 hours of it being issued.
@stripe They depreciated attributes on components in a controlled manner, even in the condensed timeframe. Stripe employees would answer all the questions in the Discord.
@stripe But perhaps the biggest highlight I found in this experience of working with Stripe vs my experience in working with Slack is that they were very interested in your personal success. They knew that if they could help you succeed, that they would succeed as well.
@stripe It was very refreshing to see that much effort put into “the little guy”. They did not care that we were not Google. 16/20
@stripe As an example, there was a little scary situation towards the end were they did not know if we would be able to launch with the Sessions annoucement due to some bugs. They worked hand-in-hand with us right up until yesterday to ensure that we would be a part of the announcement.
@stripe Everything impressive you see about Stripe from the outside is how it operates from what I have seen on the inside.
@stripe Everyone seems to have maximum amount of autonomy and the way that they can all work (hundreds of people) together to deliver and pull off a huge new platform feature in 4 months.
@stripe It was extraordinary to watch the coordination and the seemingly easy way it was implemented with so much calm and empathy. I loved everything about working with Stripe over the last 3 months to pull this off. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the experience ❤️.
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@stripe You can see our app that we made within the Stripe App marketplace here: marketplace.stripe.com/apps/kyber
You will be able to install apps in June.
You will be able to install apps in June.
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Nathan Barry @nathanbarry
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May 24, 2022
What a great thread! Thanks for sharing.