In a world of vaporware and ghost startups, how do you prove your company is real?
I’m Alex, founder of FormFlow—a bootstrapped form builder for agencies. When I launched three years ago, I had zero reputation, zero social proof, and zero reason for anyone to trust me with their business data.
So I did something that felt terrifying at the time: I made all our key metrics public.
Revenue, user count, churn rate, uptime—all of it, updated in real-time, visible to anyone on our website.
It turned out to be the best marketing decision I ever made.
The Trust Problem
When you’re a small SaaS, you’re competing against giants and well-funded startups. Prospective customers have legitimate concerns:
- “Will this company exist in 6 months?”
- “Can they actually handle my data securely?”
- “Is anyone else using this, or am I a guinea pig?”
- “Are they just going to sell to a big company and kill the product?”
You can say you’re trustworthy. You can claim you’re growing. But talk is cheap.
I needed to show, not tell.
The Radical Transparency Experiment
Inspired by companies like Buffer and Baremetrics (who pioneered open startups), I decided to build a public metrics dashboard.
But I wanted it to look good. Most open startup pages are ugly data dumps. I wanted something that felt professional, that communicated competence, that made our small size feel like a feature rather than a liability.
Enter ChartPuppy.
The Public Dashboard
Our metrics page (formflow.io/open) displays:
1. Monthly Recurring Revenue
A clean line chart showing MRR over time. Every month, visible to everyone. When we crossed $20K MRR, customers celebrated with us. When we had a bad month, they saw that too.
2. Customer Count
Simple counter with a trend line. Prospective customers can see that real humans use our product. Currently: 847 paying customers.
3. Churn Rate
This one was scary to share. But our churn is low (2.1%), and showing it builds massive credibility. If we weren’t confident in our product, would we share this?
4. Uptime
Rolling 90-day uptime percentage. Currently 99.97%. This matters to agencies who depend on us for client forms.
5. Customer Satisfaction
NPS score and trend. Real feedback, publicly visible. We can’t fake this, and customers know it.
6. Response Time
Average support response time: 2 hours, 14 minutes. Agencies care about support. This proves we deliver.
The Implementation
ChartPuppy made this surprisingly easy:
- Data flows from Stripe (revenue, customer count) to a Google Sheet
- Intercom data (NPS, response time) syncs daily
- Uptime data comes from our monitoring tool
- ChartPuppy pulls from all sources and generates beautiful, branded charts
- Charts embed on our /open page via iframe
- Auto-updates every hour
Total setup time: One afternoon. Maintenance: Zero—it just runs.
The Results
After 6 months of public metrics:
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Trial-to-paid conversion | 8.2% | 11.0% |
| Average sales cycle | 14 days | 8 days |
| Monthly churn | 3.1% | 2.1% |
| Inbound leads mentioning metrics page | 0 | 34% |
| Support tickets asking “is this real?” | ~10/month | ~1/month |
That conversion increase alone was worth more than any ad campaign I’ve ever run.
Why Public Metrics Work
1. Trust Through Vulnerability
When you show your actual numbers—including the imperfect ones—you demonstrate confidence. Anyone can share cherry-picked success metrics. Sharing everything says, “We have nothing to hide.”
2. Social Proof Without Testimonials
Testimonials can be faked. Screenshots can be manufactured. But a real-time revenue chart pulling from Stripe? That’s hard to argue with. Prospective customers can see 847 others trust us with their business.
3. Filtering for the Right Customers
Some prospects see our small revenue and leave. Good. They wanted an enterprise vendor anyway. The customers who stay are excited to work with a focused, independent company. They become our best advocates.
4. Accountability and Motivation
Knowing our metrics are public keeps me honest. I can’t let service slip when everyone can see our response time. I can’t ignore churn when it’s on display. The transparency creates healthy pressure.
5. Content That Markets Itself
Our metrics page gets shared in SaaS communities constantly. “Look at this bootstrapped company growing sustainably.” It’s marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.
The Charts That Matter
Not every metric deserves a public chart. Here’s what I chose to show and why:
MRR Growth → Proves we’re sustainable and growing Customer Count → Social proof in a number Churn Rate → Proves customers stay (our biggest selling point) Uptime → Critical for our use case (agency client forms) Support Response → Differentiator from big competitors NPS Score → Shows customers are genuinely happy
I deliberately don’t show:
- Expenses (not relevant to customers)
- Runway (would cause unnecessary worry during normal dips)
- Individual customer data (obviously)
Objections I Hear
“Won’t competitors use this against you?”
Maybe. But my competitors can look at my Stripe anyway if they really wanted to (there are tools). The benefit of customer trust far outweighs competitive risk. Also, we’re small—competitors aren’t paying attention.
“What if the numbers are bad?”
Then you have a business problem, not a transparency problem. Hiding bad numbers doesn’t fix them. And honestly, showing a dip and then a recovery builds more trust than showing only success.
“Isn’t this a lot of work?”
Not with the right tools. ChartPuppy automates everything. I spend maybe 30 minutes per month reviewing and occasionally adjusting chart styling. That’s nothing compared to the trust it builds.
“Our investors/board wouldn’t allow this.”
That’s a real constraint for some companies. But if you’re bootstrapped or have aligned investors, there’s no excuse. Ask yourself: why are you afraid to show your numbers?
The Design Details That Matter
Public metrics pages often look like afterthoughts—just raw numbers dumped on a page. I invested time in making ours look professional:
Branded colors — Our chart palette matches our app Clean typography — Easy to scan, not cluttered Contextual labels — “MRR” means nothing to many visitors; I label it “Monthly Revenue” Trend indicators — Up arrows in green, making growth obvious Last updated timestamp — Shows data is fresh, not stale
ChartPuppy made all of this possible without needing a designer. I used their templates and customized to match our brand.
The Community Effect
Something unexpected happened: customers started caring about our metrics like they were their own.
When we crossed $25K MRR, customers sent congratulations. When churn ticked up one month, a customer emailed with suggestions. We’ve built a community that’s invested in our success because they can see it happening.
One customer told me: “I check your metrics page more than my own Stripe dashboard. I’m rooting for you.”
That feeling of shared journey? You can’t buy that with advertising.
Tips for Going Public
Start With One Metric
You don’t need a full dashboard on day one. Start with something you’re proud of. For us, it was uptime. Prove you can be transparent about one thing, then expand.
Make It Beautiful
Ugly data doesn’t build trust; it looks amateur. Invest in making your public metrics page look as polished as your marketing site. ChartPuppy makes this easy.
Update It Reliably
A public metrics page last updated 6 months ago is worse than no page at all. Automate updates so you never have stale data.
Add Context
Raw numbers without context are confusing. Add brief explanations: “Why we track this.” “What this means for you.” Help visitors understand.
Share the Losses Too
Don’t just celebrate wins. When something drops, acknowledge it. “Churn increased this month due to X, here’s how we’re addressing it.” Honesty compounds trust.
The Long Game
Three years in, our public metrics page is one of our biggest competitive advantages.
When a prospect is comparing us to a VC-funded competitor, they can see our sustainable growth, our low churn, our responsive support. They can’t see any of that from the competitor.
Trust is earned, not claimed. And there’s no better way to earn it than showing your actual work.
Try It Yourself
If you run a SaaS (or any digital business), here’s a challenge:
- Pick three metrics you’re proud of
- Create beautiful charts using ChartPuppy
- Put them on a public page
- Share it with your audience
- Watch what happens
You might be surprised. In an world of skepticism and hype, radical transparency stands out.
The companies that will win the next decade are the ones willing to show their work. Start showing yours.
Alex Petrov is the solo founder of FormFlow, a bootstrapped form builder serving 847 agencies worldwide. He’s been building in public since 2021 and writes about sustainable SaaS growth at alexpetrov.dev. He lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife and an unreasonable number of houseplants. You can see FormFlow’s live metrics at formflow.io/open.