Stop shaming founders who share their revenue

There has been a lot of debate recently on Twitter about whether posting revenue figures is just engagement bait and used to grow a following. While I realize that building in public isn't for everyone, I have to defend founders who share their revenue.

Haters on Hacker News

A few days ago a founder Tony Dinh shared an excellent blog post about growing to $45k MRR in 2 years. As is often the case, the haters soon came out:

Sharing figures encourages founders

I would not have become an entrepreneur if it wasn’t for people back in 2016 and 2017 sharing revenue numbers. You may not remember back that far but back then, it encouraged a lot of people into entrepreneurship! I don’t have a business background and I didn’t know any entrepreneurs in my city when I started (I still only know a couple). This is a spicy topic but my city Edinburgh, and Scotland in general, isn’t very entrepreneurial.

So before I found people on Twitter, I had no role models and no encouragement etc from entrepreneurs. I can see if you come from the Bay Area or London or your parents were founders, that won’t have been your experience.

Be happy for other people

If you are annoyed or feel bad when you see people posting revenue numbers I have news for you: you’ll also feel bad when they get married and you’re single, when they get a better car than you or when they go on a fancier holiday than you.

But that is very much a ‘you’ problem. If you can’t be happy for other human beings doing well you need to think about what that says about you. I would search for “abundance mindset”’ as a starter . The bottom line is you’re sad because you’re comparing yourself to others.

My friend Amar runs a $2m ARR startup, Zenmaid. My friends Alex and Julian run $500k businesses. I'm happy for all of them! It would be weird if I wasn't.

Should founders also include things like their cost of living or their profitability? Yeah, perhaps. But I'll always be on the side of happy optimists rather than bitter cynics. When my friends do well, I’m happy.