I love seeing companies open up and share their business details. Income and transparency reports have become more and more popular. Alex Turnbull, of Groove, notes why transparency alone should not be just about the numbers:
Why is transparency effective?
Because it makes your content more useful and relatable.
As a reader, if I read a post about marketing strategy, it’s far more valuable to me if I can:
- See examples of the strategies in action, along with results.
- Understand the tips in the context of the writer’s metrics, so that I can better apply them to our own situation.
That’s one of the things that makes transparency so valuable: it makes great content better.
Along these lines, I really enjoyed Zack Katz transparency report for GravityView, where he breaks down their first $100,000 in revenue. Zack describes his successes, his mistakes, and goals for the next year. It’s really insightful, and exactly the kind of transparency report I like the most.
Oli Dale at WP Lift likes income and transparency reports too. He did an entire wrap-up of WordPress-ish businesses that do them, with their April results. And though it’s not very thorough, the ThemeReview guys did an income report too, for those interested in how that side project is going for Emil and Justin.
While I’m at it, I owe a report of my own. I’ll have much more regarding successes, failures, and what I’ve learned coming soon. But I figured it’s time to let you know basic income for Post Status. Since the January launch, gross revenue is $67,118.
$30,000 of that is the 12 $2,500 corporate partnerships, so the remaining $37,118 is the value of the memberships sold so far. After the initial boost of sales, I’ve kept pace of just over one new member per day, which is awesome. I hope it stays that way.
