About MRR screenshots but this time honestly

I shared every possible number about my business from day one. It became a habit. But my interests have changed. Should I keep sharing?

We met offline with friends who follow my updates on socials and they casually joked if I should pay for the dinner. I laughed, too. But deep inside, I started to question my “content strategy”.

I didn’t have any! I shared everything: revenue, profits, code, infrastructure, my wins, my failures, and my plans.

And I like it that way. It is simple. I don’t need to build complex narratives or try to manipulate people. I share what I think about related to my business, get feedback and talk to people.

”Money won’t make you happy”

It is bullshit. Don’t trust people who say that. Money will make you happy by removing most of your problems. And there will be only a few problems left that you will finally have time to solve.

Money is still of great interest to me, but more as a prism through which I can dissect stock markets, other businesses, or even people’s lives.

However, more and more my mind is occupied by how good my product is, how I can make customers happier, retention, my family, friends, books… And rarely I think about MRR and money. As a result, I have less and less impulses to share these MRR screenshots.

I am broke

Most entrepreneurs are broke.

My bank account only has money to pay for servers. Everything else I invest, or we travel, or we spend on our life. I have loans!

No matter how often I told people about my margins and paying thousands of dollars for servers, SaaS, and contractors, people still don’t see it. They perceive your MRR as your profits you can spend on buying a new MacBook, clothes, or an iPhone.

It is a shame to share, but I wear clothes that are on average 10+ years old. People don’t notice that.

And most entrepreneurs I know are like that.

MRR screenshots, while being the most true thing you get about any business, distort the perception of others.

You won’t get more followers

It turns out I am addicted to social media, I love attention, but I never truly cared about the exact number of followers.

I got a few hundreds of followers initially when I share MRR screenshots, but these days, people either mute or unfollow. Some even questioned if I share fake numbers.

What will get you more followers is sharing your story and build cool stuff.

Your brand looks cheap

You shared your huge win of getting $253 MRR. Do you think your potential customers can trust you now? They will see it is a new and fresh product; they will think twice before paying for it.

It might be a joke, but I can believe it:

Copycat generator machine

But if you share a big number, you will see copycats popping up every week. And I mean copycats with your style and all your content synonymized by AI, not even competitors with differentiation.

I shared everything with people because I wanted to help others to start and to show that it is possible. And I still want that and will keep helping.

But when others see big MRR numbers, they forget about everything. Even one of my closest friends wanted to build a screenshot API.

I also wrote a lot about more interesting niches and how hard it is to make money with screenshots. But people don’t believe. I see people launch a new screenshot API and abandon it after a few months.

I hope more people can succeed, but by just copying what I do, I don’t believe it will work.

Competitors get stronger

I was never worried about my competitors. I am fully focused on my customers. But I noticed even they started to copy your tactics and strategies. They get stronger and more convinced to keep fighting.

And they know all your numbers, all your moves, everything.

I still see it as an interesting challenge. Can you still succeed by sharing everything? Or it plays against you? I am not decided on that.

But you should be aware that when you share all your numbers, your competitors have an asymmetric advantage.

I don’t sell you lifestyle

People asked me about building API products, and I did think to write a book about that. But how to find time?

MRR screenshots in that case would help. Because I could use them as proof that I built a working API product and you can trust me. But can you? I didn’t build 100 products. Am I the best person to extract lessons from my journey? And is MRR enough of proof that it is possible and repeatable? I don’t know.

I rarely share about my travels or my lifestyle. And I don’t plan to sell a course on how to get rich (today?). Why then keep sharing?

I want others to succeed

But there is so much more to share and in such a better way. Write a post about marketing, about improving churn, about improving product health. But will people trust you if you never shared numbers?

Think twice

It has become a huge habit of mine on social media. Should I keep sharing MRR screenshots? Next time, I will think twice.

Should I only keep sharing the big milestones instead? I do not know. But it might be the first time I seriously thought about why I post about money and should I.

What do you think?

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It was originally posted in my personal blog.