Does the upside of revenue transparency outweigh the downside?
I was just wondering if the upside of sharing revenue numbers and being completely transparent outweigh the negative effects of it. Does anyone have any experiences to share?
I was just wondering if the upside of sharing revenue numbers and being completely transparent outweigh the negative effects of it. Does anyone have any experiences to share?
My take: there isn’t much upside to sharing revenue numbers unless you have a plan for using that to amplify other marketing efforts. For example @levelsio with Nomad List or @dvassallo with his ebooks and Userbase. Being open about your business gives you a lot to talk about online, which can be great for growing your Twitter following, email list, etc, and ultimately driving more people to your product, but doing that right takes some strategy beyond having an /open page or periodically sharing your revenue. Maybe that’s obvious, but thought it was worth mentioning.
Yes, I wouldn't want to do fully open metrics (Baremetrics style). I prefer controlling what I share, because there is definitely a downside. I don't want my decisions to be influenced by what others watching the metrics might think is happening, and I don't want to get into an obligation of having to justify everything publicly.
There is definitely an upside though. When it comes to getting attention, very few things have an ROI as good as going behind the scenes and sharing details from your business. Many people are curious and interested, and the find the results inspiring. And the effort of sharing a screenshot from your Stripe/Gumroad dashboard is just negligible.
I agree in not sharing too much, but just enough to inspire others.
Good points you make there! Regarding the downsides, do you think it creates many copycats? Or discourages them since you have already a first mover advantage?
Honestly not sure! My guess is that it’s more likely to create copycats than discourage them. To be clear, I don’t think this is a huge risk and if sharing revenue numbers is bringing in new customers then it’s probably a net win.
True! The internet is big enough for various competitiors anyways.