
Why I'm open sourcing the financial side of my business - Mojah
https://ma.ttias.be/open/
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zerotolerance
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!"

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tempsy
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
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.

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simmanian
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.

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

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encoderer
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.

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yeezul
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.

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NickBusey
"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
In most of the Europe all Ltd (private) companies need to publish annual
financial statements.

EDIT: That’s ehy European valuations are lower :)

~~~
mobattah
Why would that make European valuations lower? I don't understand the
implication.

Why would more transparency depress the value of a company?

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mhfs
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
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.

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mark-ruwt
For anyone looking for more of these, I find Baremetrics' "Open Project"
fascinating.

[https://baremetrics.com/open-startups](https://baremetrics.com/open-startups)

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tempsy
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
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
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.

