What Is an Open Startup? Publishing Revenue Publicly

What is an open startup?

An open startup is a company that publishes its core business metrics, usually revenue and often customers, churn, or traffic, on an ongoing basis for anyone to see. The defining feature is continuity: an open startup does not just announce a milestone, it keeps a public record that updates over time, including the months when numbers fall.

The term overlaps with building in public, but the two are not the same. Building in public describes a broader habit of sharing progress and lessons. An open startup is a narrower, more data-heavy commitment: the numbers themselves are public, ideally from a source the reader can check.

This guide covers where the idea came from, what open startups typically publish, the benefits and risks, and how to share revenue responsibly if you decide to do it.

A short history of open startups

Public financial transparency among software startups became visible around 2013 and 2014. The following sequence comes from the companies' own accounts and contemporary press coverage.

Buffer. Buffer's open page says it has been open with its finances and team salaries since 2013. In December 2013 it published every team member's salary and the formula behind it. It still publishes a public metrics dashboard, salaries, and monthly shareholder updates.

Groove and Baremetrics. A 2015 article on Buffer's blog, The Transparency Movement, says Groove began publishing revenue in September 2013 as part of a blog series about growing the business, and that Baremetrics made its entire revenue dashboard public in February 2014, with Buffer following a few months later.

The Open Startups page. Baremetrics, a subscription analytics company, then created Open Startups, a directory of companies whose Baremetrics dashboards were public. VentureBeat's April 2015 coverage reported seven startups at launch and listed metrics such as MRR, net revenue, fees, annual run rate, and customer counts. The page still exists and lists companies with a public monthly revenue figure.

Later examples. Many smaller companies adopted lighter versions. Plausible Analytics, for example, has published its own website traffic publicly from the start and written openly about how it grew, according to co-founder Marko Saric.

The same Buffer article noted that open finances were already becoming less of an outlier by 2015. As transparency becomes common, it attracts less attention on its own. That is a useful reminder: publishing numbers is a means, not a strategy in itself.

What open startups publish

There is no standard. Common elements include:

Revenue. MRR, ARR, trailing revenue, or gross volume, ideally updated automatically.
Customers. Paying customers, active users, or signups.
Retention. Churn rate or net revenue retention.
Costs and profit. Less common, because costs are harder to automate and more sensitive.
Salaries and equity. Rare. Buffer is the best-known example.
Narrative updates. Monthly or quarterly posts explaining what changed and why.

The more a company publishes, the more important it is to define each metric. Baremetrics-style dashboards typically show subscription MRR. A payment-processor total may instead include one-time sales, annual prepayments, and refunds. The MRR vs ARR guide and the what is MRR guide explain the definitions most open startups use.

Benefits of running an open startup

Credibility with customers. A public record shows that the company is real, active, and sustainable. For small vendors competing against larger ones, that can reduce a customer's fear that the product will disappear.

Attention and distribution. Founders who share real numbers tend to attract readers, particularly other founders. The Buffer article says transparency brought Buffer a lot of media attention and credits Groove's growth partly to the attention its transparency created. Whether that converts into customers depends on whether your customers are among those readers.

Recruiting. Buffer has linked its open salaries to hiring. A 2014 Nextgov report quoted Buffer's CEO as saying applications more than doubled after it published salaries, though that is the company's own account.

Discipline. Publishing numbers on a schedule forces you to measure them consistently and to explain changes.

A record for future buyers. If you sell later, a consistent public history can help buyers understand the trajectory, provided it agrees with private data. See the guide to preparing a startup for sale.

Risks and costs

Open startups also accept real downsides.

Competitors can see what works. Revenue curves reveal when a channel or feature took off. A copyable product in a small niche may attract competitors faster than customers.

Bad months are public. That is the point of transparency, but it can unsettle customers, employees, or partners who read a decline as a crisis.

Pricing and negotiation leverage. Suppliers, acquirers, and large customers can read your numbers too. A buyer who knows your revenue fell last quarter will use that in negotiation.

Privacy. Aggregate revenue rarely exposes customers, but customer counts, plan breakdowns, or "recent sales" feeds can identify individuals in a small market.

Credibility gaps. Self-reported numbers invite skepticism. A dashboard you maintain yourself is only as trustworthy as you are, and screenshots can be edited.

Inconsistent definitions. If you switch from gross revenue to MRR midway without saying so, your public history becomes misleading even if every individual number was accurate.

How to share revenue responsibly

If you decide to run an open startup, a few practices make the numbers more useful and less risky.

Choose one metric and define it

Write down the metric, the period, what is included, and whether figures are before or after refunds and fees. Keep using that definition. If you must change it, say so publicly and explain the effect.

Use a source readers can check

Automated, provider-derived numbers are stronger evidence than typed figures. On RevenueBug, founders connect a payment provider such as Stripe or Lemon Squeezy, and the public profile shows a daily revenue graph and trailing 30-day revenue calculated from the provider's data. Refunds and disputes are subtracted, and non-USD amounts are converted using historical rates, as described in the methodology.

Be precise about what that means. RevenueBug's "verified" label means the figure was calculated from a connected provider. It is not an audit, proof of profitability, or proof that you own every product in the connected account. The headline is trailing 30-day revenue, not necessarily subscription MRR.

Decide what stays private

Most open startups publish aggregate revenue and keep customer-level data, contracts, and costs private. If you want public revenue but not a public product identity yet, RevenueBug's anonymous mode hides the product name, domain, description, and logo while keeping revenue visible. Anonymous mode cannot be combined with a for-sale listing.

Publish the bad months

An open startup that disappears when numbers fall is not open. If a decline has a cause, such as a lost large customer or a pricing change, explain it.

Keep public and private records consistent

If you ever raise money or sell, diligence will compare your public figures with provider exports, bank statements, and accounts. A clear metric label and a consistent definition prevent avoidable questions. The startup buyer due diligence guide describes what buyers typically reconcile.

Open startups and acquisitions

Public revenue can help a founder find buyers. On RevenueBug, a founder can mark a startup as for sale; interested buyers send private inquiries that RevenueBug relays. RevenueBug does not broker, escrow, or transfer businesses, and the for-sale flag requires the product identity to be visible.

Buyers should treat a public revenue graph as a screening tool, not proof of value. A verified trend says nothing on its own about costs, owner workload, customer concentration, or legal ownership. The micro-SaaS valuation guide explains how revenue fits into a broader valuation.

Is an open startup right for you?

Consider it if:

your customers value vendor stability and would find public numbers reassuring;
your audience overlaps with readers who follow founder transparency;
your advantage does not depend on keeping a channel or tactic secret;
you can commit to publishing consistently, including bad periods.

Avoid it, or limit what you publish, if your idea is easy to copy, your revenue is concentrated in a few identifiable customers, or you are in the middle of a negotiation where public numbers would weaken your position.

If you want to try it, you can add your startup and decide later whether to keep the profile anonymous. Browsing existing startup profiles is a good way to see how other founders present their numbers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an open startup and building in public?

Building in public is a general habit of sharing progress, lessons, and decisions. An open startup specifically publishes core business metrics, usually revenue, on an ongoing basis. Every open startup builds in public, but not everyone who builds in public runs an open startup.

Which company started the open startup movement?

There is no single founder of the idea. Contemporary accounts point to Buffer, Groove, and Baremetrics publishing revenue or finances in 2013 and 2014, followed by Baremetrics' Open Startups directory in 2015.

Do open startups publish profit?

Usually not. Revenue is easy to publish automatically from a payment provider, while costs and profit require bookkeeping and reveal more about the business. A few companies publish broader financials, but revenue-only transparency is more common.

Can publishing revenue hurt my business?

It can. Competitors, suppliers, and acquirers can all read your numbers, and declines are visible. Most of these risks can be limited by publishing aggregate figures only and keeping customer-level data private.

How do I prove my open startup numbers are real?

Use a source readers can check instead of screenshots. A provider-connected profile shows revenue calculated from your payment provider's data, though it is not an audit and does not prove profitability or ownership.

Can I run an open startup anonymously?

Yes. You can publish revenue without revealing the product, for example using RevenueBug's anonymous mode. You will need to reveal the product if you later mark it for sale.