We've technically speaking got a lot of US startups on Atlas, but we're happy to have more. Today's announcement also includes a number of other improvements we've made the last few months.
We're happy Stripe customers, but our Stripe account is based in an EU country, and our entire volume is in USD. For some Stripe policy reason, we can't transfer USD from Stripe to our EU bank account, it's not allowed. You can only transfer USD to US or Canadian bank accounts.
We've been in contact with Stripe support over this, and their recommended solution was to use Atlas and setup a US company and bank account, but that's the wrong solution for us. We already have a company which we're happy about, we don't want to become a multi-national entity with all the liability that follows.
So, question: Are you actively going to push Atlas as the solution to our problem as well? It seems completely misguided to me, we just want to be able to transfer the USD held in our Stripe account to our EU-based USD bank account, and not do any currency conversions at all.
It's an European company and it's the main competitor to Stripe on our continent. They are actually a bit older and ten times bigger than Stripe, however they don't advertise much.
Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with any of these providers.
"Adyen being a European based acquirer has set the requirement of at least 50% of the transaction volume to be European based."
"This is a rule set forth in order to comply with card schemes such as Visa and MasterCard."
From their sales.
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Honestly, talking to their sales was like pulling teeth.
I couldn't get anyone on the phone and neither would they call me. What would have taken a 5 minute call to go through the details. Turned out to be an all day event through email. /facepalm.
We used Adyen for a German-based startup about five years ago. I don't remember it being that difficult back then, but I just handled code. Our biz guys handled the account stuff. For what it's worth, they were both a little profligate and good at telling a big tale, so it may not have been an affordable or easy option back then either.
I'm going to look into this for you and will follow up by email. (If I find something which is useful for similarly situated companies, I will post what I learn here.)
I actually got a great response from the Stripe customer support team today where they said that it's not possible today because of your banking partner in Europe, but that you're working on it, and hope to have it done later this year.
What you're describing isn't unique to Stripe. Pretty much every payment processor works this way. I've looked into a lot of them have yet to find a mainstream one that will deposit USD to a USD account in Europe, HK, SG, etc. (If Adyen does specifically that without big fees then great, but it's news to me.)
What Stripe support is really telling you is that you need a US bank account to avoid the exchange fees. This is more or less correct. As you say, though, they're misguided is in pushing Atlas. It's probably the simplest way for you to get a US bank account, but in many ways it's the worst long-term option. That's because Stripe Atlas creates a C-Corp, which is liable for US corporation taxes and has to file them every year.
You have two other options:
1) Get a US Bank account for your foreign company directly. This is not easy, many banks won't do it, but some will. E.g. I have a SVB account for a foreign corporation (with an EIN) so I can use Stripe in the US for my subscription app.
2) Form a US LLC that's fully owned by your EU corp. A single member LLC can elect to be tax transparent in the US. That means you don't have to pay US corporate taxes as long as you don't have business operations (employees, basically) in the US. With a US LLC it's relatively easy to open a US bank account, though you may need to travel to the US. If you want some expert tax advice for the US component of this setup here's a good guy to ask: http://ustax.bz/
Once you have a US bank account sorted you may need to migrate your Stripe subscriptions. This is not something that Stripe officially supports or will do for you, but after lots of digging with their support I was told that it's possible to do without requiring any re-opt-in from your subscribers. It's just that you need to do the migration yourself by transferring the subscription data. (Details escape me. Please confirm this with them yourself.)
What's the benefit of all this, other than adding a few percent to your gross profits? Well, the market for online business buyers is much stronger in the US than anywhere else. I'm betting on the fact that it'll be significantly easier to sell a business with a US Stripe account than a business with a German / Irish / Hong Kong / Singapore / whatever stripe account.
Of course we're talking a few percent here and a few percent here. Before diving into this rabbit hole I would ask yourself if marketing & sales for a few percent increase might not be less effort than all of the above.
Right, that was a bit long-winded. I don't monitor my replies here much, but feel free to ping me if you have questions.
Thanks for the writeup, but we think that any US presence for the company presents unknown liabilities that simply aren't worth it at our size. The risk simply does not outweigh the potential savings of the few percent we lose in exchange fees.
I know other payment processors don't do this either, and I remember the bad old days when you had to have your own merchant account and separate agreements with the card companies, and I wouldn't have expected this flexibility back then.
But, the way Stripe presents itself to its customers is that payments are made in whatever currency of the user, and it all drops in a bucket over at Stripe. You can accept payments before you've setup a bank account with Stripe. After that, and unrelated to whatever currencies users paid in, you can then transfer your Stripe balance to your bank account, in a few select major currencies. It looks like those two activities are completely separate, and one would assume the normal rules for transfers from one bank account to another would apply, i.e. it can be done in any currency regardless of the nationality of the bank accounts. But apparently that's not the case.
Yep. The Stripe account isn't the hard part. All you need is a US Address (sorta) and an EIN (I think). You can go for a while without adding either to your account. The US bank account is the hard part, because they have some serious KYC checks, and most banks simply don't do it at all.
I managed to get it via SVB - just applied on their website. I originally spoke to them with the intention of doing it for a US LLC as described above.
It turns out that they were happy to open an account for the foreign corp directly without a US entity underneath. To qualify I had to demonstrate that we were potentially high growth and would be seeking accelerator / angel / VC investment at some point. (Would they fire you if you didn't end up doing that? Perhaps not.)
The monthly fees for this arrangement jump to a couple hundred $ per month maintenance after 2 years. Not sure if their deal with Atlas is different on that front.
From the looks of these most recent updates, and reading over this blog post, it seems as though Atlas is positioning itself to be an accelerator in its own right. Offering connections, assistance, setup help, guidance, and even access to investors. It seems like Atlas/Stripe is only missing a funding portion and perhaps access to a highly covered "demo day." Are those in the pipeline as well? If not, can you elaborate on what the end goal is here besides simply altruism? Is it just to get new companies in the Stripe pipeline faster?
Stripe's goal is to increase the GDP of the Internet. We're doing Atlas because we think it is instrumentally useful to achieving that. This isn't purely altruistic; we're increasing the GDP of the Internet both because it is a good thing to do and because we intend to capture a sliver of the value unlocked during this economic transformation.
In terms of what we'll build into Atlas: absolutely anything that is needed by ambitious technically-oriented companies, with a particular focus on things that we feel we have a comparative advantage in shipping. Sometimes we'll be building things ourselves, sometimes we'll be partnering with folks who have part of the puzzle already.
I appreciate how honest your reply was and how pure Atlas is in spirit. I am grateful I am part of the Beta because my personal GDP is too low to afford all the services provided by Atlas.
Do you have some sort of guide or FAQ which can give potential clients a guide as to the possible extra costs involved for internationals, like typical accountants and lawyers fees?
I've been interested in Atlas in the past, but the potential financial unknowns can be... intimidating.
For instance, how would this compare to opening a company in Hong Kong?
The TCO of a company depends heavily on your situation, which is one reason we find it difficult to have an official answer on that.
As a single data point, my personal tax situation involved US LLCs last year, as an American living in Japan. I spent about ~$10k on accountants to file taxes in both countries plus bookkeeping services. That's towards the high end among my friends; that's nowhere near the high end for "total amount spent on accountants in a year." For comparison, Atlas would have introduced me to an accounting firm offering the US side of that for ~20% of what I ended up spending on it. (This is difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison even in this case, because C Corp vs LLC, but trust me when I say "I was pleasantly surprised where we got the numbers to.")
We're working on having an even better offering here for next year. We'll have more to say that closer to tax season 2017.
Where are you from? Have you answered the following questions?
a) What is my foreign affiliate reporting requirements?
For a Canadian, you must file a T1134 annually. The T1134 for a controlled foreign affiliate (where you exercise control) is very onerous. It is not that bad for a non-controlled foreign affiliate.
b) What is my foreign affiliate taxation requirements, in that foreign jurisdiction?
This is an answer that must come from Atlas I guess. But for a foreigner owning a US LLC, where the US LLC will be controlled from a country with which the US has a tax treaty, we get into many complexities.
c) Will I have an income pickup from active business income from owning a foreign affiliate?
For Canada, this is a "no."
d) Will I have an income pickup from passive income earned in a foreign affiliate?
For Canada, this is a "yes." Canadians should never earn rental income, royalty income, or other such passive income in a US LLC, for example.
e) How will I deal with the "place of central management and control?" Many countries deem a corporation to be resident in that country if you habitually exercise management and control from that country. For example, a Canadian that owns a US LLC will result in the following:
- US LLC is a tax resident of the US by virtue of incorporation, and must file a tax return to report earnings from the USA (no flow through). As the LLC will be a resident of Canada as well (see below), branch profits tax of 30% may apply (IRS 884).
- US LLC is a tax resident of Canada by virtue of being controlled, "mind and management," from Canada by a Canadian, and must therefore file a Canadian corporate tax return.
The situation is different for Canadians owning "C" corporations. However, it brings its own complexities and nuances. The reporting requirements are challenging.
For those seeking to own a foreign company, research your own reporting and disclosure requirements carefully.
That would be very interesting because it would remove all risk for the founders of being considered "US persons", which has unexpected and unpleasant consequences such as not being accepted as a client by many non-US banks or financial services.
It is not clear to me at the moment if incorporating currently through Atlas makes a foreign, non-US resident founder into a US person, or not.
KYC rules require you appear in front of the bank officer to open a bank account. If you are going to spend money on opening a company, and are prepared to pay the annual maintenance costs going along with financial statements, tax returns, and other reporting, you should be prepared to travel somewhere and open a bank account. Running a company is NOT cheap.
We ship first and then announce dates because down the other path lies disaster, but LLCs are a great way to incorporate many tech businesses, and Atlas aims to incorporate most tech businesses.
Does this mean you're also hoping to expand into Delaware PBCs, too? Lots of open source projects are considering this approach due to a combination of poor response to open source nonprofits from the IRS and flexibility in figuring out their funding sources. There's only trivial differences to a C Corp in terms of filing.
I'd been planning to reach out to Stripe about this when it made sense; I probably should've just emailed you! We're advising folks we're bringing onto our Stripe Connect platform as managed accounts to go use Stripe Atlas where possible, but plenty have voiced support for having B Corps be part of that happy path.
Honestly, I might even just pay a lawyer at some point to open up some standardized set of docs for this.
Do you hope to have any way for Connect platforms with managed accounts to more directly refer people into Atlas? Having an API for the application process would be amazing.
No offense but outside of our little HN/YC bubble I think it's the other way around. LLCs seem far more common than Delaware based C Corps for tech companies. For tech startups looking to raise venture capital (a subset of tech companies) a Delaware C Corp is far more common though.
I have a California LLC (sole prop) which is a disregarded entity for tax purposes. LLC is perfect if:
a) you don't plan on raising investor capital
b) are a single founder, who just wants liability and corporate benefits and protections
c) want to easily pass money from the business to personal
Do be aware there is a flat $800 a year California LLC fee even if you don't make a cent (which is unfair and anti-small business), but is what it is.
FYI the $800 fee is forfeited during the LLC's first year of operation. BUT it's based on calendar year IIRC, so if you're penny-pinching, it may be worth waiting until January to file the paperwork. That way you get all 12 months' worth!
Aren't LLC's problematic for offering employee equity options?
I've done lots of startups, and you want a structure that makes it easy to put together employee pools, easy to raise funding with, and easy to sell/merge.
LLCs are easy to setup, but if they create lots of problems down the road it's not a structure you want.
LLCs are a swim army knife. You can basically do anything, with way less rules and fees.
LLCs can totally offer equity. LLC's are easier to sell than a C corp. Plenty of pluses. If you don't want to get VC funded, you should default to LLC.
Of course LLCs can offer employees equity. But it's not simple, and it's not easy.
And its not just VC funding, you should be wary of LLCs if you think it's likely you will need any kind of investors, as typically investors prefer not want to deal with partnership K1s.
If your startup is intended to be profitable quickly, and plans to distribute those profits to the founders, an LLC offers significant tax advantages. If you want to build a big business, it can offer some significant limitations.
Again, LLC is a great fit if you have a profitable business and want profits can be paid as tax efficiently as possible to you and your other founders. You'll never need investors, you'll be able to borrow money because of your great cash flows, etc. And once in a while one grows to the moon while staying private and never go public.
But for most startups, you can't know if you'll need to raise funding. And funding isn't just VCs. It's angels. It's friends and family. It's even crowd-funding now that you can crowdfund equity. And maybe you even get the opportunity to go public and want to be the most public market friendly cap structure.
I have a friend whose e-commerce startup just broke over $100k per month in revenue. He's an LLC, but he's starting to realize that he doesn't have enough positive cash flow to pay for the equipment needed to lower his product costs, so now he's thinking of finding investors. And he needs a simple, easy to create equity program with vesting for key employees. And since he has no plans to be profitable soon, he's moving to a C corp.
A C-Corp is $500. It's not expensive and is the most flexible foundation to build a startup business on.
I'm also biased against LLCs because a problem endemic with LLCs which isn't necessary a fault of LLCs is that it's so easy to just start and go. I see founders who never consider vesting as a requirement. Four founders start an LLC and agree to each getting 25% equity split. Then one quits after a month and the remaining three have a big liability issue if they try to squeeze the quitter out.
A C corp usually leads to a professional cap structure where founders are forced to think through these issues a little better.
The biggest problems I've seen for a startup going the LLCs route is negative tax consequences of reinvesting profits, and missing out on the first $10 million of Federal tax-free capital gains.
The fact that LLCs are indeed a 'swiss army knife' IMO also works against them. The LLC agreements tend to be bespoke documents which are far too "crafty" for my liking. I like straightforward cap tables with clearly defined rights and preferences and ISO options, whereas LLCs tend to reinvent the wheel and end up with opaque capital structures which require costly legal work to implement.
I setup my company through Atlas, and overall I really liked the process.
My only pain point was, "why silicon valley bank"? They have high fees, is a pain to set up and manage, and it's basically the opposite of what I think of as a good experience.
As some people said in another comment thread, Capital One Spark is great. I'm actually going to switch to them as soon as I have time.
I do work for Capital One in my day job (for now), so if you want / need a contact I can provide one. I do realize they don't support foreign teams, but honestly anything is better than SVB.
Silicon Valley bank is frankly awful. I used them for three years but just recently switched over to Capital One Spark Business Checking[1] and love it. Spark is all online, has zero fees unlike SVB (I used to pay $15/mo), and has solid technology again unlike SVB. The account gets setup instantly and your debit card and checks arrive about a week after opening. The Spark iOS mobile app is really solid and allows for check deposits. I highly recommend Spark business checking over SVB.
EDIT: Also want to mention, I have two software products and was able to create two bank accounts under the same corporate tax id with Spark, which I was unable to do at SVB. This allows me to isolate income and expenses for each product as each has their own Spark checking account number and transactions under a single unified login.
SVB's biggest value is in more complicated financial products for startups when traditional banks may not want to work with startups. I've worked with SVB in the past for an AR line that almost no bank would have given us.
If you just need a checking account, then there are lots of cheaper banks with better UIs.
For AR, cash management facilities and even backing a bond for a long-term commercial lease, they are pretty startup friendly -- at the beginning. I had a company in the 90s that got caught in a couple of unexpected ripples (unrelated to our core business), and a couple of unexpected contracts that failed to close at the same time (completely related to our business), a cancelled IPO (because, Y2000's NASDAQ plunge) and then the private equity guys hiding under their desks, and ... yet more nonsense that ended up hitting a wall that had materialized out of nothing faster than we had planned for. Whatever - it happens. We found two buyers that, between them, would pick up >95% of our employees and get the investors 85% back on their ~$100m invested. Not great - but it sure beats a sharp stick in the eye. Silicon Valley would not budge on their first leinholder position on some cash we wanted to move to get liquidated to get everyone (including them!) paid. I think they held up an $85M million transaction over a $2M deposit we had in their bank (but they froze) for almost 3 weeks. Almost queered the deal twice over. At this point I don't remember the details, but I remember being frustrated (and very very surprised!) that they had changed from friendly/flexible to "nope! not gonna do it!" in a heart beat, and they almost lost out on getting paid their piece (which was bigger than the $2M note they were holding us up over). Weird.
You have to acknowledge a bank named Silicon Valley and having absolutely terrible technology and only recently a mobile app that is not even native is somewhat of an oxymoron. They also nickel and dime fees.
While I am sure SVB does assist with loans, investors, legal, most small businesses and startups just need a checking account and going with SVB is a mistake.
VC's and tech financing really have awful technology in and of themselves. You can think of it as the cobbler's kids having no shoes or you can think of it as really technically competent folks only really being attracted to VC to get conventional VC money and not ever as customers, but they often just run on excel and such.
I wouldn't be surprised if being burned by one of their investments going under has made them wary of jumping headfirst into trends. Maybe avoiding bias plays into it too.
Agreed. When I needed a letter of credit BofA refused to issue one to a new company, despite us having ample cash to cover our commercial lease. We switched to SVB, they issued one quickly, and we've been happy ever since. Their technology stack may be a little antiquated, but they are very startup-friendly in their policies. They offer lots, especially to well-funded startups, that you just won't find elsewhere.
I used Silicon Valley Bank for a year or two. I thought I'd be running a startup, but ended up with a small business. SVB was not a great small business bank, but I can see how they'd be an awesome partner if I was running a funded startup.
One specific example is venture debt. If you raise a bunch of money from a whitelisted VC, SVB will lend you money on top of that. Maybe you raise $9 million from Accel Partners in a series B, and SVB lends you another $3 million. You get cash now without much additional due diligence, pay it back, over a few years, and keep more of the equity.
Another nice perk is working a banker you can call who understands the cash needs of startups. You can speak to a person in plain English about how your whacky business model needs to work. They see all sorts of new weird stuff, and they are conditioned to want to help you. The value of having someone understand the highs and lows of startup life, and who will go the extra mile to resolve any hiccups is subtle, but nice. Basically, a startup banker for startups is nice in the same way a farming banker is nice for farmers.
They can also help introduce you to investors. Having a banker on your side when you're raising capital is not trivial.
They're not. They do have lots of experience with VC-backed startup but the majors do too and they will all have great personal service if you have the that kind of VC (a few million+) in the bank.
I've always been pleased with Charles Schwab, they've been pro-customer since before it was cool. No fees, even rebate foreign ATM fees, helpful customer service, mobile camera deposit, etc.
Does Schwab have business checking accounts? Their page at http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_produ... lists brokerage accounts but nothing about checking accounts. I use Schwab for my primary personal checking account but it seems to me that they don't offer that service to businesses.
Yes, in the backwater known as the USA you will often still encounter paper checks. However, mobile apps allow you to enter a deposit using a photo of them. Still lame, but at least you don't have to drive to the bank.
Wires from (most) SVB accounts are free so, that's factually inaccurate. If you had an account that didn't have free wires you had the wrong kind of account.
Not sure what kind of contract you have but outside of a discount on the first N wires, all the accounts have fees for wires, both domestic and international. Were you transferring directly to another SVB account?
Nope! But this is a regular SVB checking account not one through Atlas so I'm not sure what the differences are. My comment is defending SVB the bank, not necessarily the Atlas account which I have less knowledge of.
Wires were not free for me. I received a few wires from Sweden and recall paying a fee for each. Additionally there is an account service fee ($15) each month.
Having worked at Capital One, and having both a SVB and Spark bank account. I totally agree.
Spark is similar to Capital One 360 which let's you generate an account with a few clicks. Having multiple websites and products this makes it stupid easy
"Does Capital One work with foreign startups? That's really the main question here."
Since when is that the main question? The title of the post is Atlas opens to US-based startups. Give Spark business checking a call and ask about foreign accounts 1-844-88-SPARK
Info I would find useful in deciding to proceed with Atlas:
1. What are the ongoing costs for a company which, worse case scenario, makes little or no money?
2. What are the costs to close such a company, fulfilling the likely tax and regulatory requirements?
I do understand that Stripe is not a law firm or an accounting firm, and I have read through the publicly available documentation. Even so, I find myself uneasy about the possible downsides of getting tangled up with the US system.
Obviously, if everything goes well nothing will be a real problem: the money coming in can cover all sorts of ridiculous fees, tax demands and ridiculous bank charges. I am sure, however, that many potential owners are, like me, more focused upon the possibility that they might find themselves in a financial and paperwork blizzard that will drag on for years.
I am grateful that Atlas makes it easy to jump in, but how difficult will it be to jump out if necessary?
Related: I get that making the entire Atlas Forum members-only adds to the perceived value of membership, but it is frustrating for potential applicants who are hungry to hear about the experiences of others. Having just one open section would almost certainly encourage more people to go ahead and sign up.
As a foreigner that used Atlas to incorporate my consulting business, I can certainly vouch for it. It is an excellent example of "one stop shop" philosophy.
As a foreign developer with a small startup I'm pretty lost with the guides Atlas provides. Is it actually possible to run an Atlas company without ever going to the US and without hiring an US accountant (or PwC, as recommended by Atlas somewhere)?
Also, nowhere in the FAQ it is mentioned if it is possible to close the company and how would that work.
The SVB terms are also scary to me: "SVB will share more details on its pricing once you have an account". What? What if they're charging me a million dollars? I'll only know after the fact?
Long time SVB customer here. Their international wire is rather expensive. I think they charge $40 per wire, then they deduct $20 from the amount to cover their own correspondent banking fees so you have to always keep the $20 in mind which is painful. On top of that - monthly analysis fees. So... you raised a good question. Make sure you get answers from the program managers.
Contact patio11 directly by email (it's in his HN bio) and ask for an invite. I remember him making an open offer to all HNers who don't have an Atlas invite but need one.
Why would anyone invite you without knowing what they're recommending?
For that matter, it sounds like the founder or someone who works there is in this thread, but even if you were going to appeal to them, the information you could give them would likely just be the same information that the (linked in the post) signup/product pitch page's application form would ask for.
And fundamentally, why would someone want to work with someone who wasn't proactive in figuring this out? I'm sure as Atlas grows they'll be happy to take your money regardless, but right now they obviously wish to filter out the noise as they likely have a vested interest in starting with the most success-oriented founders.
I can't imagine someone who didn't take the 2 minutes to figure out that they have a non-invite-requiring route, and that that's likely because they don't want to shut the door on anons like yourself asking for an in but don't want their existing members having to recommend people they don't know.
I'm a fan of Stripe generally and loved the concept of Atlas when I first heard about it.
I'd be slightly concerned about the commitment bias that might creep in though for startups who rely on Atlas for all their incorporation and financial needs.
As a future gatekeeper for some pretty crucial operational issues, do you see any risk in Stripe eventually becoming a dependency for startups?
I'd compare it slightly to the App Store where Apple made it simpler for developers to submit, launch and market their apps. As the gatekeeper they then kept increasing their portion of in-app charges. Reduced friction at the start for developers resulted in a sort of sunk cost problem at a later stage.
As Da Vinci said "it's easier to resist at the beginning then it is at the end".
We incorporate real companies for real businesses. If one ever wants to e.g. get legal advice from a professional other than ones Atlas recommends, we’re more than happy for our companies to do that. (Many of them do, already.)
We see ourselves more as a builder of doors than a keeper of gates. There is a formidable wall of operational nonsense which separates entrepreneurs from building things and selling them to people. We want to get them through that as quickly as possible, rather than creating additional hurdles.
For similar reasons, Atlas is more than happy to help folks take payments with Stripe, but that’s not required or exclusive in any way. If your company thinks Paypal or Apple is a better way to get money from your customers, awesome; your company is no less able to transact with them than any other company. (We literally help people on our forums get set up with DUNS numbers to get on the App Store, for example.)
One of the benefits of Atlas is the AWS credit, which has been useful for us. We would have much preferred to be on Google's cloud, though, and Google's startup program offers a lot more credit.
Is there any plan for Atlas companies to become eligible for that?
Is it possible to start an S corporation instead? Part of the appeal of Delaware is that transitioning from S->C is a well defined process, and a C corp seems a bit silly for many businesses.
Appreciate your response, Patrick. Quick question - is it necessary for a start-up to have payment side to apply for the program? What about a start-up that is pre-revenue?
We have many companies that are pre-revenue before they incorporate. We'll ask for some detail on what the general plan is for making money, so that we (and our banking partner) know, but we don't quite need the same level of detail that e.g. an investor would need.
I've got an invite with just a one-paragraph description of my business and a landing page. But later I started to think that if don't know yet if I will be able to turn a profit from this business then I shouldn't commit myself to incorporating a business in US.
To be frank, I was under the illusion that Stripe Atlas would facilitate things much more than they do. There's too much bureaucracy to be faced even after Atlas.
Is there a roadmap for Stripe supporting more countries? I'm working on an on-demand/marketplace app where buyers and vendors could be anywhere, particularly the Middle East at the outset. The alternatives, Paypal and Payoneer, don't really look too appealing.
They probably use the AWS Activate program (which my main startup is part of). It basically gives you a set amount of "credit" with AWS. We got ours almost a year ago and it just ran out this month. It allowed us to run key workloads on AWS for a year at zero out of pocket cost.
Of course Amazon does this, in part, because once you have built a functional business on their platform(s) you are more likely to stay there and to continue paying them long-term.
If you're looking for a guide/checklist before going through the "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix"[1] involved in setting-up a startup, I found this one particularly helpful: https://github.com/leonar15/startup-checklist
Contact patio11 directly by email (it's in his HN bio) and ask for an invite. I remember him making an open offer to all HNers who don't have an Atlas invite but need one.
I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has them.