Vague updates are invisible. Numbers aren’t.
“Making progress!” tells nobody anything; a real number turns your update into a story people follow.
“Exciting progress this week!” is the build-in-public version of elevator music: technically there, instantly forgotten. “Went from 12 to 31 paying users, and 9 came from one Reddit comment” gets questions, advice and people checking back next week to see what happens.
Buffer is the classic example of openness as a brand. The company says it has been open about its finances and team salaries since 2013, the year it published every salary in the company, and it still runs a public page with its monthly active users, MRR, ARPU and ARR. Its stated reason is simple: it believes transparency builds trust. You don’t need to publish your salary spreadsheet, but the idea scales down to a one-person SaaS just fine.
Pick the numbers you’re willing to share every week, not just the good ones: users, MRR, signups, churn, hours spent. Pair each number with your best guess at what caused it. And post the down weeks too. A feed of nothing but wins reads like an ad.
The example
- Instead of
- “Great week for the startup! Lots of exciting progress, more updates soon.”
- Try
- “Week 6: 31 paying users (up from 12), $412 MRR, 2 churned. 9 of the new ones came from a single Reddit comment.”
Before you flush
Write this week’s update with three real numbers and one sentence on what caused the biggest change. Post it before you talk yourself out of it.