1. Think of Stripe as an enabler for merchants and end users.
2. Map out the journey from discovery to checkout.
3. What are the pain points?
4. Brainstorm some ideas on how to tackle pain points.
5. Prioritize.

I would start by making sure we agree on what “improving Stripe Payments” means. What specifically are we looking to improve or are we focusing on improving the experience for a particular user group? Do we mean improving the experience for the developers building on Stripe or for the users checking out using Stripe?

Once I got clarity I would share my proposed outline for a brainstorm:

I would start by revisiting Stripe’s mission and defining how Payments fit into that goal.

I would then think through some ideas of how to improve payments for the user group we discussed if we agreed on one, or for the specific improvement we decided on

I would then think about how to prioritize those ideas based on potential impact to goal

I would define some success metrics for those ideas

I would talk about trade offs