Show HN: Open Startup List | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Open Startup List

openstartuplist.com

32 pointsrandymonday16 comments

Hi Hackers, founder here,

What's in common with nomadlist, Ghost CMS and baremetrics? They are all Open Startups! It's an interesting era to live in. An era where we are in the midst of a virus outbreak, political corruptions and... Open startups! What is an open startup? Well, there is no strict definition, but it basically means that the startup operates in full transparency, so all metrics like revenue and traffic is free for all to view. I came across one problem though, how do I find these startups? how do I find their "open" metrics pages? And that's why I built openstartuplist.com Some interesting insights come across when you go over the data in the list, like: - nomadlist revenue for Feb was ~30k$, a slight decrease from Jan but not much considering the effects of the Corona virus, interesting. - Ghost have seemed to just cross today the 2M$ mark for ARR!! that's incredible! - And a lot more insights out there. I've taken the last week to curate a list of 12 open startups. But that's just the start, as I'm eagerly looking to add more to the list. I'm sure there are many more startups out there that operate in this transparent way. This is a trend in the making. All feedback is welcome and be safe and healthy :)

You are going to need some more meat on the bone for the “Why” section. Because “it’s a growing trend.”...? Seriously? So were Beanie Babies. At the very least you need a link to a separate, full write-up about why any business owner should care, much less make that plunge.

Don’t get me wrong, I am intrigued and clearly you believe in something, but you need to do a better job framing this.

Thanks for the feedback henrique, I totally agree. My initial thought was that each person has a different reason of "why" he/she should care. But I will I will probably redo that. Thanks again!

We wrote an article about this :)

https://blog.leavemealone.app/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-ope...

I would like this movement more if they focused less on the investor pitch metrics and had more operational transparency. Opening up to a userbase about something like your product development cycle & the challenges experienced in real time would intensify the relationship x10+ for better and for worse. Like Kickstarter reward updates (are supposed to be). Real time Gantt charts and dashboards with explanatory blog posts about why this or that did or didn't happen. Its a big risk if you get off message, SHTF, and you poison your customer relations. But if you believe in what your doing and don't have anything to hide then I think making the connection is worth it. To me, that would be an Open Startup.

I totally agree, and while we are not there yet, you see companies like baremetrics, ghost and nomadlist which started this movement. But if you take a closer look at smaller companies like placecard.me you will see more detailed blog posts covering their progress with almost complete view on how the founder develops his/her startup as well as metrics such as revenue and work hours (check https://www.coryzue.com/open/ ). I hope this will grow to more startups as it does instills a stamp of trust.

A good point. Quite a lot of people that have /open pages do also blog about what has and hasn't worked and have product roadmaps as well. They are just often not included on the /open page for whatever reason. I guess just because we are used to the template of showing revenue and maybe traffic.

Nice list! We are tinkering with an idea [1] to provide metrics (revenue, newsletter subscribers, tracked time …) , graphs for all of that, but also a little bit of background story too.

Why we think it’s valuable to see all of this:

1. It’s a huge motivation for others to get something started. 2. I alway try to learn from other numbers to see what works and what doesn’t work. Though most things depend on the type of thing you build, I feel like I learned a ton from those open pages already. 3. For indie developers trust is key. Funny enough some people trust big corporations more than single developers. That’s one way to build trust. 4. People want to see indie developer succeed and that’s a great way to let them follow your journey.

Keep on going, great work!

[1] https://floatie.app

Lately, there have been good number of startups releasing their revenue. But once they have grown some level they stopped sharing revenue (Buffer, Transistor). Maybe because of clones or competitors?

How can I submit?

https://www.nocsdegree.com/open/

Hi Pete, cool startup you got! I will add your startup today :D

Mind sharing links to your HN/IH/PH posts/interviews? Also if you would like, I would be thrilled to interview you on your view of having an open startup, let me know what you think :)

Thanks!!

Great :)

Where do you want me to share links to my interviews?

Yeah, happy to do an interview!

I was expecting startups developing open-source software or hardware. Sadly this isn't the case.

Wouldn't you say that sharing these metrics like revenue and traffic to the world is not considered open sourcing your data? I find it incredible.

Interesting, yes.

Incredible, maybe.

Open-source, not really.

3 more open startups were added to the list! :D

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