[Journey]Building my own SaaS business from zero

Hi BHW,

Stablecoins have become a hot topic in 2025. We saw this as a great opportunity and would like to explore how it works in cross-border e-commerce.
We’re a very small team, starting off with just 3 members. One is a Web3 expert, who’s in charge of the Web3 business blueprint; another is a BD guy, mainly focused on talking to merchants and onboarding them. And I take charge of product work and leverage AI as much as possible.

---

Phase 1: The "Why" (Summer 2025)​

We started to explore why merchants need cryptocurrency payments, what the key issues are with traditional payment methods, which industries have such demands, and whether this business logic is viable.
After digging into the research and talking to a few merchants, it makes sense that this business concept is feasible. By the end of summer, we had our brand, logo, and a solid roadmap.

Phase 2: The Product demo (Autumn 2025)​

We worked with the technical team we’d worked with before to develop a demo of the cryptocurrency payment plugin for Shopify.
Thanks to our partner’s web3 experience, we got approved by a major exchange much faster than we expected.

Phase 3: Shopify headaches, BD moving forward (Winter 2025 - Spring 2026)​

On one hand, Shopify’s strict restrictions are such a huge hassle. It’s practically impossible to get our plugin publicly listed on their platform, and we’re still figuring out a solution.
We’re looking for alternatives and have started developing support for WooCommerce and API integration first.

On the other hand, our BD guy has stepped up efforts and got several potential clients.
They’re highly interested in integrating our services, as they’ve been plagued by endless issues with PayPal and Stripe—such as frequent account freezes, overly long settlement cycles, and fraudulent payments.

Recently, I came across Blackhatworld, and I have to say it’s a total gem. Not only is there a friendly atmosphere for SEO discussions, but I’ve also uncovered many more user pain points here.
This is the first time I’ve learned that niches like IPTV and SMM are held back by traditional payment methods.

We’ve recently built our company website, created YouTube videos, and put together various other business promotion materials.
AI has been a massive help—Vibe Coding lets me build awesome websites on my own, and create all kinds of videos with ease.

Next Phase: Ready to Launch​

In March, we plan to wrap up most of the development and testing work and launch our official market promotion.
For online promotion, I believe AI agents can help me handle a lot of tasks, and I’m currently experimenting with them.
So far, I’ve implemented automated market research using Openclaw.

---

Lastly, wish me luck! Hopefully this helps someone here, and I’ll keep sharing updates.

Following this - stablecoin payments for cross-border e-commerce is one of those ideas that makes obvious sense on paper but has a lot of hidden complexity in practice.

Few questions as you build:

1. How are you handling the volatility window? Even with stablecoins, there's usually a small window between payment receipt and settlement where the merchant is exposed

2. KYC/AML compliance varies wildly by jurisdiction - are you going the fully compliant route or targeting specific merchant types that have more flexibility?

3. What's your acquisition strategy for merchants? The ones who actually need crypto payments (gambling, adult, supplements) are often the hardest to onboard due to their existing payment processor relationships

The 3-person team size is smart for this stage. Curious to see how the BD conversations go - that's usually where these projects either take off or stall.

Sounds like a giant endeavour but I'm pulling for you guys

Elon Snup said:

Following this - stablecoin payments for cross-border e-commerce is one of those ideas that makes obvious sense on paper but has a lot of hidden complexity in practice.

Few questions as you build:

1. How are you handling the volatility window? Even with stablecoins, there's usually a small window between payment receipt and settlement where the merchant is exposed

2. KYC/AML compliance varies wildly by jurisdiction - are you going the fully compliant route or targeting specific merchant types that have more flexibility?

3. What's your acquisition strategy for merchants? The ones who actually need crypto payments (gambling, adult, supplements) are often the hardest to onboard due to their existing payment processor relationships

The 3-person team size is smart for this stage. Curious to see how the BD conversations go - that's usually where these projects either take off or stall.

Click to expand...

Great points! you must be a Pro

1. Volatility: We don’t actually touch the funds.
To manage price swings, we use a dynamic rate lock. Whether a customer pays in BTC or a stablecoin, the rate is locked at the moment of the transaction and settled automatically through an exchange. If the payment isn't completed within a 15min window, the user just has to refresh to get the latest rate.

2. Compliance: We're keeping everything fully compliant.
We stay away from high-risk niches like adults, gambling, or replicas, the legal headaches just aren't worth the benefits. However, we do look at "sensitive" ones that traditional processors sometimes avoid, such as vapes or IPTV.

3.Merchants: We focus on regions where the local currency is weak or inflation is high.
In places like Argentina, Turkey, or parts of Southeast Asia, crypto is popular. The market is big enough, so there’s no point chasing risky or gray industries for growth.

[Updates] We worked for four more months. In June, we launched our payment backend, WooCommerce plugin, and API. We connected several stablecoin payment channels. We also got a small number of clients. But we still face very tough challenges.

Problem 1: Stablecoins are still not common. Merchants do not easily accept them. It is hard to promote. Users in high‑risk niches care more about solving credit card payment issues.

Problem 2: Even if stores connect to us, very few customers use USDT or USDC to pay. The transaction volume is too low. It cannot support our team.

For small businesses (To C): Small companies in high‑risk niches are most willing to use our service. But these clients are hard to find. And we need enough of them to make a profit. Right now, we create our own media content. We make videos to help solve their payment problems. Then we see if we can sell our service.

For businesses (To B): I think this is more important. One good B2B client can bring a lot of transaction volume. For example, in Latin America (Argentina, Mexico, Brazil) and Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam). But we have a hard time getting clients in these regions. I tried to contact them. It did not go well. Next, I plan to visit some Southeast Asian countries. I want to build trust with local companies first.