Stripe is a tech firm that allows just about anyone to collect payments digitally. It has been very successful, valued at $50 billion and on track to process $1 trillion in payments. It has also launched a book publishing arm, Stripe Press, in a space where the big five publishing houses collectively have 80% market share and independent publishers have regularly entered and regularly folded. Tyler Lasicki has asked, and answered, why an online payments company would think it could do better than real book nerds?
Stripe Press isn't publishing just any books.
Publishing content about technological and economic advancement is one way, albeit probably not the most capital efficient way, of helping entrepreneurs build and start businesses (which eventually may help grow the GDP of the internet).
They also publish physical rather than digital books aimed at potential entrepreneurs who may be eCommerce shy. Many of these new small scale internet entrepreneurs will end up using Stripe's payment services. Stripe Press in the publishing business with razor-thin margins is a complement to Stripe services in the hugely profitable online payments business. So Stripe Press doesn't have to do better than real book nerds. Heck, it can even sustain losses, so long as the books create enough Stripe using entrepreneurs.
Stripe Press is not much different than the bar offering free peanuts to sell more beer.
HT: Marginal Revolution
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