I recently got the chance to hear the founders of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne and Leo Widrich, speak at a small meetup in Iceland about how they started and built up their business. What I found refreshing in the way they spoke was their transparency about their company and the process they went through, unlike most people they were willing to share all their numbers and tactics. From the start I’ve tried my best to be very honest and transparent about my process as a founder but even though I feel like I myself am transparent I haven’t wanted to share all the financial numbers about my company and I guess that is because I am afraid of what the consequences of that would be. If I share those number would people find out that my company is actually making less money than they thought and judge me for not being a better founder, or would they be able to use those numbers to compete against me? I guess there is a lot of doubt not just with me but with any founder when it comes to sharing all the details of their business. Let’s face it in the startup scene there is a lot of fake-it-till-you-make-it and I guess in many cases there is much less behind companies then the public perceives.
I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I should make all my numbers public yet but I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think that companies in general should be more transparent and share all their ups and downs, all their financial, all their processes online? And why is it that we are afraid of sharing facts about our businesses, what is the worst that could happen?
