Publish your revenue numbers in public

Publishing your revenue means posting real numbers, such as monthly revenue or MRR, on a fixed schedule and treating each update as content. Groove posted monthly revenue updates on a blog built around a public goal of $500k in monthly revenue. Baremetrics made all of its revenue public and later grouped other open companies under one banner. Neither source ties signups or sales to the numbers.

How it works

1. Set a public goal and a frame. Groove told readers its blog would share everything on the way to $500k in monthly revenue, as shown in the archived Groove blog index. The goal gives each update a reason to exist.
2. Fix a cadence. Groove placed a monthly revenue update among its weekly posts, which gave the series a regular, numbered rhythm, visible in a 2014 snapshot of the blog.
3. Post the number as it is, small or not. Groove's first update in the series showed $30,155. The January 1, 2014 update showed $37,800. Later entries in the index, with no year shown, run from $88,319 to $106,131.
4. Choose which metrics you share. In the Baremetrics program, the companies shared MRR, ARR, LTV, churn and customer counts, according to the Open Startups launch post. Seven startups took part on launch day.
5. Give the numbers a permanent home. Baremetrics keeps an Open Startups page that lists companies sharing their metrics with anyone. That page sits next to what Baremetrics sells: subscription analytics and benchmarks against other SaaS companies.

The audience claims are real but loose. Groove reported over 5,000 subscribers in five weeks in one blog post. The source does not say how many came from revenue posts. Baremetrics said over 125,000 entrepreneurs were following open companies by launch day, a figure counted since it went public, not one the initiative drew.

Both companies still describe themselves on their own sites. Groove says it started in 2011 as a simpler alternative to Zendesk, per the company's about page. Baremetrics reports more than 850 customers and says it is ten years old on its team page. Those are current, self-reported figures and are not attributed to publishing revenue.

What it takes

Our estimate: about 20 hours of work, and about 60 days before you can read a signal. Most of the hours go into deciding what you will disclose, getting founder and investor sign-off, setting up a clean revenue export, and writing the first two posts with tracking links. A monthly cadence means you need at least two updates live before you can compare them with your regular content, so the signal takes about two months.

What to measure

Subscribers gained after a revenue post, compared with a normal post, tells you whether the numbers draw attention. Look at the 7 days after each one, since spikes fade. A good reading is revenue posts beating your typical post on that count. A bad reading is no difference, which means the numbers are just more content.

Trial signups referred from revenue posts tell you whether the readers are buyers or just curious founders. Pair this with a one-question signup survey, because a lot of people will read the post and sign up days later from another tab.

Churn among customers who arrived through revenue posts, against other channels, shows whether this audience sticks. Compare against your own baseline first. The monthly churn benchmarks give outside context. If these customers churn faster, you are attracting spectators.

When it backfires

• Readers who never buy. Baremetrics described its following as entrepreneurs. That fits a product sold to subscription businesses. If your buyer is not a founder, a founder audience may cheer and never convert.
• Confusing records. Groove's archived index shows two different January 1 figures, $106,131 and $37,800, and only one carries a year. Readers and journalists can misread a series that is not clearly dated.
• Flat or falling months in public. Once you commit to a cadence, skipping a bad month is visible. Decide in advance that you will post the bad months too.
• Competitors reading along. Sharing churn and LTV, as the Open Startups companies did, tells rivals your weak spots.
• Cadence drift. The tactic depends on a regular rhythm. A series that goes quiet reads as a company in trouble.

Run it as an experiment

Hypothesis: monthly revenue posts bring more trial signups per post than our regular posts.

Comparison: we recommend a before and after test with a fixed window. Publish two monthly revenue posts and compare each one's first 7 days against the median of your last six regular posts. A true split test is hard with content, so keep the publish day, the distribution channels and the email send the same across both groups.

What to log: UTM-tagged signups per post, newsletter subscribers per post, signup survey answers, and later churn for each group. Track it in the growth experiment backlog template and follow the write-up steps in how to run a growth experiment.

Decision rule: keep the series if revenue posts beat the regular median on signups in both months and their signups do not churn faster. Otherwise stop and keep the numbers for investor updates. If you distribute through a newsletter, the newsletter growth playbook covers how to count subscribers cleanly. The founder-led content playbook covers social distribution.

How strong the evidence is

The grade is case with numbers. At least one company ran the tactic and published figures on its own pages. Groove carries most of the weight, with monthly revenue figures on its own blog. Baremetrics adds a documented program and a participant count. Both outcomes are mixed. Neither source has a baseline or a control, and neither attributes subscribers, signups or revenue to the act of publishing. The revenue growth Groove reported may have happened anyway. Treat this as a plausible content format to test, not a proven growth driver.