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Most product teams think of their users in aggregate — MAUs, conversion rates, funnel drop-off. Stripe co-founder John Collison believes this mindset is not just limiting, it’s actively disrespectful. His alternative principle, one he works hard to embed into Stripe’s culture, is called “talking up to the user” — and it starts with a fundamentally different assumption about who’s on the other end of your product.
For founders building inside the startup ecosystem in Canada, where early users are often the most important source of product direction, Collison’s approach is a useful challenge to how most teams think about their relationship with their customers.
The Problem with Conventional Product Thinking
Collison is pointed in his critique of how most consumer product teams operate:
“You have users by the wheelbarrow. You treat them in aggregate. You talk about MAUs. Everything is statistical and everything – like LinkedIn with the dark patterns and complete your profile – is nudging you towards some business outcome.”
This is the dominant model: large user bases managed statistically, with product decisions driven by metrics and behavioral nudges designed to move people toward outcomes the company has pre-decided matter. The user becomes an input to optimize rather than a person to serve.
“Talking Up to the User”
Stripe’s alternative starts with a different premise about who their users actually are:
“What we really try to clobber people over the head with at Stripe is that [our users] are people starting a business who are generally really talented… And you can just see it if you go talk to any of them. And so we have another value at Stripe that we try to really inculcate, which is talking up to the user.”
For Stripe, users aren’t a statistical mass — they’re startup founders and entrepreneurs building real businesses with serious ambitions. Treating them as anything less than capable, intelligent adults isn’t just a cultural choice; it’s a product failure. The implication is that if your product feels like it’s managing users rather than serving them, you’ve already lost something important.
How Stripe Keeps This Principle Alive
Collison is aware that cultural values are easy to declare and hard to maintain as a company grows. Stripe builds a deliberate ritual into their operating cadence to prevent it from becoming hollow:
Every week, Stripe invites one user to their internal fireside chat. That user speaks directly about how they use the product and what they’d like to see improved. The conversation is open, human, and direct — a structural counterweight to the abstraction that naturally creeps in as teams scale.
“I think it’s important to stay connected to this because I think the classic technology product management domain – it’s a bit, I would say, not respectful enough of who the users actually are and how capable they are.”
What This Means for Startup Founders in Canada
For founders building early products inside the startup community in Toronto and across the country, this principle is especially actionable at the stage when your user base is still small enough to know personally:
- Talk to individual users, not just the data. Metrics tell you what happened; conversations tell you why. Both matter, but only one of them keeps you honest about who you’re actually building for.
- Assume your users are smart. Products designed for the lowest common denominator often end up serving nobody particularly well. Designing for capable, ambitious users sets a higher bar — and usually produces a better product.
- Build in rituals to stay connected. As teams grow, the distance between builders and users widens naturally. Deliberate practices — a weekly user call, a rotating customer spotlight, a shared Slack channel — counteract that drift.
- Resist the nudge. Dark patterns and behavioral tricks can move metrics in the short term. They erode the relationship with users over time. Founders who treat users as partners rather than conversion targets tend to build more durable businesses.
- Connect with the right support network. Entrepreneur support Canada programs and founder networks can help early-stage teams stay grounded in user feedback even when internal pressure to scale starts to pull in the opposite direction.
Why This Matters for the Startup Ecosystem in Canada 🇨🇴
The startup ecosystem in Canada is growing quickly, with more tools, capital, and entrepreneur support available to founders than ever before. But the companies most likely to build lasting products are the ones that treat their users as the most important stakeholders from day one — not as a metric to move.
Collison’s principle is a reminder that talking up to your user isn’t just a values statement. It’s a product strategy, a retention strategy, and a long-term competitive advantage — one that’s easiest to build when a company is still small enough for it to feel natural.
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