Why your startup should never release numbers

I release numbers and have had my businesses cloned, extensively. That isn't a terribly large competitive threat -- if you can't totally paste someone trying to knock off your hairbrained strategy from 12 months ago, what are you doing in this industry?

If I was to argue for keeping numbers secret, and you'll notice I'm kinda circumspect with regards to certain ones, it might be because you have multiple audiences. Numbers everyone knows are boring to some audiences. Secret numbers, though, secret numbers are a very valuable currency.

I've had a lot of success on the Android Market, but I'm frankly scared to release my numbers. I dwell over it a lot, but I can't figure out how it would help, other than to possibly make myself more popular on the web or to motivate others who are on the edge, thinking about entering the Android Market. I don't think I would get any new sales of my games from doing it, but I do think I'd increase the amount of competition I have, and the more competition I get, the harder it is to make money in this space.

Basically, I agree with the opinion in this article when it come to startups. I think releasing numbers is dangerous, especially when just starting out. I'm not signing up for a business tool online if I see the creator isn't making a profit. I don't have the time to invest in something that won't be around tomorrow.

Hi HN, I'm Paul Hontz (the guy who wrote the article that was linked to) and I'd like to correct some core things that Kapil got wrong.

Kapil's first mistake is that he misses the context of my post and insinuates that I'm always for releasing numbers. That is not the case. The post he linked to was titled "Make your Startup ridiculously easy to write about. Put Together a Great Press Pack". The meat of the article was saying "Sharing numbers with journalists can be a very good way to demonstrate traction and get them interested in you".

It doesn't matter if you have an amazing idea (or product) if no one uses it.

The numbers game works indirectly as well. If I haven't heard of a startup before, but I know a lot of people use it, I'm more inclined to reach out with an interview request.

All that said, with the limited time I've spent with Kapil (in an interview), I believe he's a good guy, he just missed the mark on this post.

Sorry, but this is lame. Why worry about this stuff - worry more about plowing ahead and just cranking.

This, to me, comes from a mindset of 'lack in the universe'. Basically that's saying that there are only unique and limited ideas. The reality is completely different. Startup ideas are a dime a dozen and, for instance, Facebook wasn't the first secret social network. Think they obsessed over whether or not to release numbers when they were small?

If you have the mindset that everyone is going to fuck you over, then yes, hold your cards close and never say anything. But if you believe that human inspiration and inventiveness (which I tend to believe in) is limitless, then just go with your gut.

I'm working on a 'stealth' startup now. The worst thing I could do is toil away in obscurity and not say anything to anyone. Instead, I want to tell as many of my friends as I know everything about it. I want to hear about what sounds right and what doesn't. And if an investor wants to know numbers (when I actually get numbers), then I'll tell him flat out. Whatever, let him try to clone it. I bet he couldn't hire a team as passionate and on track as mine to do a better job. That's how confident I am in our vision and execution.

Like Clint said: you either get busy livin or get busy dyin. Worrying about releasing number to me is 'lack' and that's busy dyin in my book. Good luck..

It depends of your strategy.

If the numbers give your start-up a competitive advange, I say go on use it. It will attract customers, make you trustworthy (social proof kind of, be honest though) and scare the competition (or stimulate it, it depends on the strategy).

In the other hand, if your strategy is to make a big BANG at your launch, that you, for example, sell your product/services to small amount of customers, then now, being a ninja is the good way to go. And by small amount I mean an amount you can reach by phone for your start-up to be viable.

There is no such thing as good and bad decision. It depends on, oh.. wait.. your strategy.

I understand this is just someone sharing an opinion but most of the time when I read articles about startups people seem like they're talking about opinions and subjective thoughts as if they're hard facts.

What works for some companies in a given environment may not work at all in another situation. Sharing a scenario is good. Making as rules based on anecdotes isn't so good.

In general, I agree. I think a good counter example is sendgrid.com. The fact that they have sent a bajillion emails installs a lot of confidence when I'm considering becoming a customer. Note, they pick the biggest number they can show while still hiding their number of customers & actual revenue.

I think you should either not bother, or make a big deal out of it - make it part of your marketing, ala Balsamiq. In between seems like the bad space to be: not attracting any interest because of the numbers, but still giving them out to people sniffing around your business that you don't necessarily want to know everything.

Never trust advice that uses the word always or never.

Looking good raises personal and sector status, but someone can come and steal your thunder or undermine you, but if they fail, that can be used to your advantage (they give you ideas and customers) or else one can more easily fail upwardly at that point.

Reminds me of the album title: "100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong"

Seeing a bunch of me-too bands could be good for Jon's ego if he can laugh at those wannabes, but alternatively being seen as niche and undiscovered might be better.

For me, I think releasing numbers (of a social network) would be more about conferring legitimacy more than anything else, and secondly, increasing competition, which I think is good if you can win.

Fred Wilson: "We like category creators — people who are the first to develop a company and a market — as opposed to copy cats." http://www.women2.org/a-vc-fred-wilson-talks-on-building-mob...

Releasing your numbers is just asking for trouble. If you are small, someone that has more resources can come along and put you out of business.

I could not disagree more.

Maybe it depends how large the numbers are? Google kept their (amazing) numbers hidden as long as possible. When they filed for IPO, their AdWords revenue numbers blew everyone away.