4 ms·

Why I'm open sourcing the financial side of my business

65 points by Mojah 7y ago

NickBusey 7y ago
"All of this data is open to begin with, it’s published in our yearly financial statements (obligated in Belgium)" Does this mean any company, no matter the size, has to publicly publish yearly financial statements in Belgium? In the States only publicly traded companies need to do that.
- drno123 7y ago
  In most of the Europe all Ltd (private) companies need to publish annual financial statements. EDIT: That’s ehy European valuations are lower :)
  - mobattah 7y ago
    Why would that make European valuations lower? I don't understand the implication. Why would more transparency depress the value of a company?
- heartbeats 7y ago
  I would guess that any corporation needs to, but sole proprietorships do not.
- grenoire 7y ago
  Often there's a small (couple euros) fee to access them on the chambers of commerce, but yeah, it's rather common here.
klausjensen 7y ago
I love seeing these kinds of reports. It is very inspiring. Kudos to Mattias!
tempsy 7y ago
It seems like there are far easier ways to make money, such as buying an existing business with established revenue and growing that e.g. taking B to C instead of A to B. Is it more about building something from scratch yourself?
- encoderer 7y ago
  Multiples for small companies are not insane but there are some real challenges with this. First, it’s like buying the perfect used car. The people who take the most care and build the best thing are likely in it for the long haul. If an entrepreneur thinks they have something great, in SaaS the math almost always works to just hold on for one more year and likely double their equity value. Second, buying 3000 euros of profit a month is going to cost at least 100-150k euros. You need that liquid. That’s not common. So it’s a bit glib to say “why not just buy the business”. When real win/win small company buying occurs it’s often because the acquirer has a structural advantage (existing customer base or audience, ability to amortize costs across a portfolio, wizard at marketing etc) that allows them to unlock substantially more value than the original creator. Again, this is not common. Yes, building something is hard work but it’s rewarding and can be quite profitable.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    I think the problem is a lot of people look at Pieter and inspired by his success but don't realize how much of an outlier he is.
zerotolerance 7y ago
This is interesting and brave because it invites others to make value judgements on your performance. Personally I love the transparency because it helps demystify the operation for others considering getting into the business. But "Open Source" business does not mean "open implementation." Open sourcing the financial side of a business would look like sharing the systems, reports, analysis criteria, etc that you use to operate that side of the business. This is more like, "look at the memory that my open source API gateway is using!"
encoderer 7y ago
Oh Dear is a great product you should be very proud. When I first saw it a couple years ago I had that twinge of regret that we didn’t have a Cronitor plan with those features bundled. Thanks for sharing.
simmanian 7y ago
I believe open sourcing the financial side of business will become more popular in the near future when more people want increased sustainability and fairness in business practices. It helps create a culture where employees and employers have a transparent and balanced relationship.
mark-ruwt 7y ago
For anyone looking for more of these, I find Baremetrics' "Open Project" fascinating. https://baremetrics.com/open-startups https://baremetrics.com/open-startups
mhfs 7y ago
Before reading this post I had no idea of who Mattias was and had never heard of Oh Dear! or DNS Spy. I'm happy to read about other people's finance during my lunch break, but I question what are the motivations other than cheap marketing reach.
- wink 7y ago
  I can't pinpoint where from, but I knew the name already before those businesses were started. I think Mattias had been active in some open source projects before. So this is just one counterpoint to yours, also it doesn't matter - I'm just trying to say that it doesn't look like cheap marketing reach to me.
tempsy 7y ago
I've been following Jon Yoonfook for over a year now who was inspired by Pieter as well. He is a really talented developer and seems to whip out production ready websites in a few weeks, but after what seems like a dozen pivots he's only at $500 revenue per month (https://www.mojosaas.com/ https://www.mojosaas.com/) It's actually a bit discouraging because he is relatively high profile, great designer/developer, gets on the top of Product Hunt, etc., and yet has hardly any revenue for the amount of time he's spent trying to get something off the ground.
- mobattah 7y ago
  That was my thought process as well. If these guys can't seem to make a decent living off their own applications, that's not a good sign.
yeezul 7y ago
On a side note, I love his blog. Not sure if he's using a platform or not, but love the simplicity of it. That blog page has 4 requests going: html page, one css file and two images. No tracking, no 50 javascript libraries, nothing. If anyone know if/what platform hes using, I'm interested. Very clean looking website, very simple. Love it.

65 points by Mojah 7y ago

"All of this data is open to begin with, it’s published in our yearly financial statements (obligated in Belgium)" Does this mean any company, no matter the size, has to publicly publish yearly financial statements in Belgium? In the States only publicly traded companies need to do that.

drno123 7y ago
In most of the Europe all Ltd (private) companies need to publish annual financial statements. EDIT: That’s ehy European valuations are lower :)
- mobattah 7y ago
  Why would that make European valuations lower? I don't understand the implication. Why would more transparency depress the value of a company?
heartbeats 7y ago
I would guess that any corporation needs to, but sole proprietorships do not.
grenoire 7y ago
Often there's a small (couple euros) fee to access them on the chambers of commerce, but yeah, it's rather common here.

klausjensen 7y ago

I love seeing these kinds of reports. It is very inspiring. Kudos to Mattias!

tempsy 7y ago

It seems like there are far easier ways to make money, such as buying an existing business with established revenue and growing that e.g. taking B to C instead of A to B. Is it more about building something from scratch yourself?

encoderer 7y ago
Multiples for small companies are not insane but there are some real challenges with this. First, it’s like buying the perfect used car. The people who take the most care and build the best thing are likely in it for the long haul. If an entrepreneur thinks they have something great, in SaaS the math almost always works to just hold on for one more year and likely double their equity value. Second, buying 3000 euros of profit a month is going to cost at least 100-150k euros. You need that liquid. That’s not common. So it’s a bit glib to say “why not just buy the business”. When real win/win small company buying occurs it’s often because the acquirer has a structural advantage (existing customer base or audience, ability to amortize costs across a portfolio, wizard at marketing etc) that allows them to unlock substantially more value than the original creator. Again, this is not common. Yes, building something is hard work but it’s rewarding and can be quite profitable.
- tempsy 7y ago
  I think the problem is a lot of people look at Pieter and inspired by his success but don't realize how much of an outlier he is.

zerotolerance 7y ago

This is interesting and brave because it invites others to make value judgements on your performance. Personally I love the transparency because it helps demystify the operation for others considering getting into the business. But "Open Source" business does not mean "open implementation." Open sourcing the financial side of a business would look like sharing the systems, reports, analysis criteria, etc that you use to operate that side of the business. This is more like, "look at the memory that my open source API gateway is using!"

encoderer 7y ago

Oh Dear is a great product you should be very proud. When I first saw it a couple years ago I had that twinge of regret that we didn’t have a Cronitor plan with those features bundled. Thanks for sharing.

simmanian 7y ago

I believe open sourcing the financial side of business will become more popular in the near future when more people want increased sustainability and fairness in business practices. It helps create a culture where employees and employers have a transparent and balanced relationship.

mark-ruwt 7y ago

For anyone looking for more of these, I find Baremetrics' "Open Project" fascinating. https://baremetrics.com/open-startups https://baremetrics.com/open-startups

mhfs 7y ago

Before reading this post I had no idea of who Mattias was and had never heard of Oh Dear! or DNS Spy. I'm happy to read about other people's finance during my lunch break, but I question what are the motivations other than cheap marketing reach.

wink 7y ago
I can't pinpoint where from, but I knew the name already before those businesses were started. I think Mattias had been active in some open source projects before. So this is just one counterpoint to yours, also it doesn't matter - I'm just trying to say that it doesn't look like cheap marketing reach to me.

tempsy 7y ago

I've been following Jon Yoonfook for over a year now who was inspired by Pieter as well. He is a really talented developer and seems to whip out production ready websites in a few weeks, but after what seems like a dozen pivots he's only at $500 revenue per month (https://www.mojosaas.com/ https://www.mojosaas.com/) It's actually a bit discouraging because he is relatively high profile, great designer/developer, gets on the top of Product Hunt, etc., and yet has hardly any revenue for the amount of time he's spent trying to get something off the ground.

mobattah 7y ago
That was my thought process as well. If these guys can't seem to make a decent living off their own applications, that's not a good sign.

yeezul 7y ago

On a side note, I love his blog. Not sure if he's using a platform or not, but love the simplicity of it. That blog page has 4 requests going: html page, one css file and two images. No tracking, no 50 javascript libraries, nothing. If anyone know if/what platform hes using, I'm interested. Very clean looking website, very simple. Love it.