NB 008 – Financial transparency
Podcast | September 4th, 2014
Why don’t people share financial numbers? In this twenty-minute audio essay I delve into some of the reasons why people are afraid to be financially transparent, and why I’ve chosen to ignore those reasons in favor of exposing my revenue numbers (and why you should too).
Show Notes
Sacha Grief – one of the people who’s inspired me most to start publishing books and be transparent about the process.
Jarrod Drysdale – a great designer and one of the inspirations behind my design books.
The App Design Handbook launch – here’s the blog post I published where I revealed all my launch numbers – and got accused of bragging as a result :-D
Want to try something fun? Leave a comment below with a financial number you’re comfortable sharing. It could be anything from your latte budget to how much your most recent product launch made!
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57.
The number of people who have signed up to be notified when my ebook comes out, since I first put up an email capture form 2 days ago. (http://YourFirstProduct.com). Your interview with Patrick Mackenzie on his podcast is definitely what inspired me to try putting my writing in ebook form. Now I’ve got a few fun months of writing ahead. Thank you :-)
This may not be exactly what you are asking for, but I noticed the other day that I made $92.00 in Amazon affiliate commissions on a web site that I set up quickly about a year ago and couldn’t work on. The majority of the sales were on three related inexpensive items from a single article, and many items that people picked up while they were on Amazon.
I offer this as an example to point out that there’s not a lot of $$ in Amazon affiliate commissions, but that it is possible, and I think it’s a combination of that “magic keyword” and the long tail.
I have to admit that I’ve been working a lot on another web site, and it hasn’t accomplished a thing. Not to say I am going to take the “set it and forget it” attitude of course, but it is sort of funny.
I will go back and optimize the Amazon site in hopes of giving it a boost, but I will be keeping my expectations in check.
Thanks for a good podcast on transparency, I hope my response wasn’t too goofy.
$1742: August revenue (non-recurring) for Folyo, a fairly complex “startup” I’ve been working on for 3 years and which never really made any money (this was a really good month).
$10,355: August revenue for Discover Meteor, an eBook.
$2000: August revenue for Sidebar sponsorships.
(Folyo and Discover Meteor revenue is shared 50/50 with my partners on these projects).
That about covers it :)
Thanks for sharing Sacha! Your numbers are what got me inspired in the first place.
I have a mobile app (available for both Android and iOS).
App income: About $500/month
I made a web version of it and I’m hoping to eventually ditch the apps in favor of a Saas offering.
Current number of Saas suscribers: 1 (Equivalent to $7/month)
$320,000.
The amount I purchased my first house for back in March, 2014.
First? How many do you have? (Or is that sharing too much :) :) :) )
$600,000
The amount I spent on my very own first home.
Nathan – you’re absolutely right about Baremetrics’ dashboard of real numbers. We checked them out last week and my partner was gobsmacked to see that those were their numbers! But it did make the whole experience, well, real. (Noticed the high churn too – but they’ll get that nailed down). We’re transitioning from web services to a SaaS business after many years. I can tell you as we turn down web dev business (gulp) to begin a SaaS business that our numbers are dismal right now … but we’re playing the long game! And may share our numbers and story along the way.
Increased our personal net worth by over $115,000 in less than 12 months. Niche markets and niche skills drive demand for the services we offer as well as diversifying our income streams, both passive and active. People laugh at or don’t know how much mobile developers can make.
Thanks for sharing your own numbers! I’m hoping to be more open about mine, but sometimes it’s uncomfortable talking to people in less fortunate situations since it does seem like bragging, no matter how you try to frame it.
Six figures in the first half of the year for us :)
63. The number of people who were logged into Agile Planner yesterday.
It’s a SaaS app for software teams use agile techniques to keep track of what they need to work on. Think Pivotal Tracker meets Trello.
It’s in private beta and I’m yet to integrate a billing system (otherwise I’d be able to share revenue too!).
$1887 – Revenue from my first Authority inspired eBook.
I left my $160,000 job as a senior web developer at Disney this August and I have made $56,400 since then freelancing and expect to have made $70,000 in 4 months by the end of 2014.