“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

“Anything you to do to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone will ultimately enable you to take larger risks and grow.”

I’m sure we’ve all read plenty of quotes and articles about the importance of escaping your comfort zone. I know I have. But for years, I’d always taken this type of advice with a pinch of salt. That was until I started my own business. Now, doing something new, frightening and out of my comfort zone is an almost daily experience.

“You’re up next, Ash.” I was sat in the crowd.

It was my turn to get up and pitch my startup to an audience of mentors, investors and founders. I was nervous.

Four minutes later, it was over. I walked back over to my seat in the crowd and felt amazing. Pushing myself into something uncomfortable and coming out the other side felt so rewarding.

What is a comfort zone?

Your comfort zone is an artificial mental boundary, which gives you a sense of security and feelings of , well, comfort. Within this artificial comfort zone, everything is routine, familiar and safe.

Inside our comfort zone we rarely seem pushed and rarely unlock our full potential or achieve what we’re capable of. Often, people will stay in a job or relationship just because of its familiarity, security and the fact that the unknown can seem extremely daunting. After all, why break a routine if it’s comfortable?

Though the comfort zone is an artificial boundary, there’s plenty of research and science to back its existence and effects on human performance.

Reaching optimal performance

Have you even been in a situation where the pressure has been on you? Maybe a presentation to your boss, investors or a potential client; a first date with someone you really want to impress or an impending deadline you see as impossible.

Just when you feel the last thing you need is a bit of anxiety or some last minute nerves, they kick in; you start to question yourself and fear the worst; What if I don’t finish this work in time? What if she doesn’t like me? It may feel like the end of the world is approaching, but actually, a little anxiety is a good thing.

Just outside of our comfort zone lays a space called ‘optimal anxiety’, it’s a sweet spot of human performance and place where we’re motivated to succeed.

Similar to an athlete who has just prepared and warmed up for a big game, optimal anxiety is the space where we are ready to perform at our best.

The theory that anxiety can aid performance is not something new, the idea goes back to at least 1908 when Robert Yerkes and John Dodson released a study showing that arousal (anxiety) increased performance. The study also shows that only certain levels of arousal are good for performance, too much has the opposite effect and is detrimental to performance.

Therefore, pushing ourselves too hard, too often can also create a notion that challenging ourselves is a negative thing and re-enforce our desire to stay within our comfort zone.

Why leave your comfort zone?

Your comfort zone isn’t a bad thing. It’s far from it. We all need a space where we can relax, feel at ease and comfortable. So, why should we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone from time to time?

You can achieve more

Sometimes a goal can seem out of reach and unachievable. Often this will put us off chasing the dream and we’ll settle for the mediocre (or what is achievable within our comfort zone).

As illustrated by this inforgraphic from Marcus Taylor, as we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone into optimal anxiety and our ‘growth zone’ challenges will become easier and our comfort zone expands.

Eventually, things that previously scared us will become part of our growth zone, then move into our comfort zone, thus helping us achieve more than we previously thought possible.

You’ll lead a more fulfilled life

Comfort can lead to laziness, and as we’ve already touched on stepping outside of our comfort zone can lead to heightened activity and optimal performance.

Comfort may feel good in the short term, but as Ran Zilca, explains on Psychology Today, sacrificing productivity for comfort may lead to regrets in the long run.

“We live in a society where comfort has become a value and a life goal. But comfort reduces our motivation for introducing important transformations in our lives. Sadly, being comfortable often prohibits us from chasing our dreams. Many of us are like lions in the zoo: well-fed but sit around passively stuck in a reactive rut.

Comfort equals boring shortsightedness, and a belief that things cannot change. Your comfort zone is your home base, a safe place not to stay in, but to return to, after each exhausting and exhilarating expedition through the wilderness of life. Take a look at your life today, if you are enjoying a shelter of comfort, break through it and go outside where life awaits.”

You’ll deal with change better

Sometimes we’re forced to leave our comfort without any choice. The more you push yourself to do things you wouldn’t normally do and experienced uncertainty in a controlled manner, the better you’ll be able to deal with un-expected situations as they arise.

You’ll be more creative

Pushing our boundaries, new experiences and learning new skills are great ways to inspire and educate ourselves. With new experiences and leanings behind us we can start to look at old problems in new ways and come up with new creative solutions.

4 ways step outside of your comfort zone

Whatever goal you’re trying to achieve — whether business or personal — there’s no doubt at some stage you’ll have to make a move that feels uncomfortable at some point.

There are plenty of ways to step outside of your comfort zone and extend your boundaries. Here are some ways you can do so to help yourself become more productive and escape whatever has been holding you back:

Change your daily routine

Most of us have a set daily routine, by making small changes to this we can push ourselves to step outside of our comfort zone. You don’t have to make huge changes, small subtle differences in your day-to-day routine can be enough to change your perspective.

If you run everyday, you could push yourself to go an extra mile tomorrow. If you get a coffee every morning before work, why not try a new flavour or get a fresh fruit juice instead.

If you’re tying to grow your business try pushing yourself to make one or two extra sales calls each day.

Think big, but take small steps

Maybe you want to start your own business, quit your day job to pursue your passions or hit your next big growth milestone. These may seem like unattainable goals, but if approached in small steps you can slowly push the boundaries of what you feel is possible.

As Lewis Howes explains in this Forbes article, “If your goal is to “start a business” — change it to “interview one business owner.” By taking an initial step outside your comfort zone will help you move towards your greater goal.

In my case, when I came up with the idea for my startup I took the smallest possible step to launching it and gradually kept taking small steps along the way to until I had a product to launch.

Look forward to the outcome, whatever happens

Fear of failure can be a big reason we stay within our comfort zones. If you want to achieve something go for it, if you dream of building a business, then give it a try.

Noah Kagan explains in his interview with Internet Marketing Party, “Roughly 86 percent of what we do fails. But eventually the 14 percent works, and that’s what everyone else sees.”

Leaving your comfort zone isn’t about getting something right first time, it’s about extending your horizons and allowing yourself to grow — no matter what the initial results may be.

Try new things

Over at Physcology Today, Alex Lickerman explains, “New things or a new way of thinking is often frightening. But if you think about it, most of the things we fear don’t actually come to pass. What’s more, we’re often unable to anticipate the good things that do occur as a result of our trying something new.”

Trying new things can be as simple as new foods or bigger things like travelling to new places, taking a new class or learning a new language. When it comes to building a business, leaving your comfort zone is essential. Almost everyday you’ll be pushed into new situations and unfamiliar surroundings.

What have you done that’s taken you outside of your comfort zone?

Unknown

11:52 AM

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Legendary historian and documentarian James Burke famously said, “you can only know where you’re going if you know where you’ve been.” He was referring to history, but this quote just as easily applies to marketing. Many marketers that are eager to improve blindly embark on a marketing plan without understanding their current state of affairs.

Creating a marketing plan without performing a proper digital marketing audit can cause you to invest in unnecessary initiatives and to overlook gaps in your current strategy. Many marketers forgo performing an in-depth audit because it can be an intimidating and time-consuming process.

Being so closely involved with your marketing on a daily basis often makes it hard to have an objective idea of where you stand. This article will attempt to outline a plan to help you objectively examine your online presence across multiple platforms and help you optimize your efforts using the latest tactics and best practices.

Big Picture Questions

Before attempting to address specific concerns or areas for improvement it is necessary to take a zoomed out view of your marketing strategy. Focusing on incremental improvements or compliance with best practices will be useless if your overall marketing plan lacks focus or is pointing your organization in the wrong direction.

The questions to be asked in this phase of the marketing audit might seem simplistic, but careful consideration may reveal truths about your business and/or marketing strategy that may have been previously hidden. These questions include:

• What is the current state of our business?
• How is our marketing strategy affecting our business?
• What business goals are we expecting from a marketing overhaul?
• What would success look like?
• How would marketing contribute to that success?

In order to set yourself up for success, you need to define it; and measuring your efforts in detail requires you to clearly define the criteria for success. Understanding the current state of affairs is crucial because the value of all future efforts will be judged according to this baseline.

The next step towards articulating the expectations of your marketing strategy is to have an idea of how marketing will affect your bottom line. At the end of the day, this is the only function of marketing strategy. Understanding how marketing will ideally interface with the business will be necessary for evaluating your current strategy, as well as plotting a course for the future.

SWOT Analysis

Any marketing 101 class will certainly have highlighted this classic evaluation tool. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and constitutes a simple yet effective way of understanding your business from both an internal and external standpoint.

Once you’ve defined your criteria for success and how your marketing strategy might help you advance these goals, then you can evaluate each component of your organization’s marketing in regards to one of these four categories.

Strengths and weaknesses: These represent the internal state of affairs within your current marketing strategy. This evaluation might consider the current capabilities or competencies of your marketing team, the quality of communication amongst this team, or the accuracy and volume of marketing data you are collecting.

Opportunities and threats: These constitute external factors that might affect your overall marketing strategy. This may involve analyzing market research and determining if the channels you are currently using are trending downward in traffic. For a company well established on MySpace in 2005, Facebook’s ascendance may have been a huge threat. Additional factors to look at are where your competition is placing their efforts and if you can outdo them or find room in that space.

While performing a SWOT analysis, always keep in mind the business insights from the previous step. All these terms are relative judgments and they are based on the ability of your company (both internally and externally) to employ marketing strategies to meet business goals.

Once a SWOT analysis is complete for the marketing strategy as a whole, the next step will be to perform a more granular analysis of the various components of your digital marketing mix.

Search Engine Optimization Audit

Search engines lie at the heart of any digital marketing strategy because they constitute one of the main ways that people discover products and services online. According to a recent report, Fleishman-Hillard found that 89 percent of consumers turned to Google, Bing, or another search engine to inform their purchasing decisions.

Optimizing a website for search is an intricate, in-depth, and lengthy process. This makes any current efforts particularly difficult to audit. However, there are a few key steps for evaluating where your SEO strategy stands and how certain factors that affect search ranking might be improved.

Competitive analysis: The first step to determining the effectiveness of your SEO is to get an idea where your strengths lie. Take stock of the content, keywords, and links currently present on your site and see which of these are working for your rankings. Prioritize those that work and pursue building them out further, while abandoning areas that are not returning as well.

Technical issues: The next step in the auditing process is to determine if there are any weaknesses stemming from flaws in your site’s programming or design. Are there links that lead to nowhere? Content orphaned without links back? Poorly written or outdated content? Identify and remedy any problems you encounter.

On-Page Optimization: Once you’ve identified strategies that work and fixed any glaring errors on your website, now it is time to optimize this content. Here is where investigation of best practices will be crucial. Prime your site to rank well by properly using title tags, meta-data, and keywords.

Link building: After fully optimizing your site and deciding on content that works, employ a link-building strategy to help seize any opportunities that may be present for your site. Seek write-ups on other relevant, well-trafficked pages, and/or produce content on-site that you know your audience will share.

Social Media Marketing Audit

While search may be the primary way people hunt for specific information about products, social media constitutes the main way that people form an impression about a brand or organization. In addition, social media has begun to play a role in how search engines rank results.

However, many brands do not take social media as seriously as they should. Many brands have social accounts that are languishing and forgotten. Some have accounts on different platforms that look like they belong to different brands. Still others have no clearly defined schedule or goals for their social presence. Brands who are guilty of any of the following are in need of a social media reality check. A social audit will address all of these issues and more.

Engagement evaluation: First, take stock of your current social media efforts across channels to determine which of your posts report the highest levels of engagement. This data will show which types of posts appeal to your target audience and point to where your current social media strengths lie.

Profile standardization: The next step is to determine where your social media presence might be lacking, non-existent, or inconsistent with your core messaging. This will also include taking stock of your current resources and abilities to determine how many channels your team is capable of tackling competently.

Best practices and trends: Once you have decided which types of posts work and what channels you will focus your efforts on, research industry trends and best practices for these channels thoroughly. Focus on compiling a social media checklist that can be summarized and shared across your entire team.

Schedule creation: After performing a broad analysis, identifying key channels, and determining best practices, collaborate with your social media team on incorporating the findings from the audit into a comprehensive and detailed social calendar. Each channel should have its own schedule, but they should all interrelate to each other.

Content Marketing Audit

If social and search constitute the current marketing standard, content marketing represents where these two distinct channels come together and where the current trends for digital marketing as a whole are pointing. Publishing high-quality content can dramatically enhance your SEO efforts and having quality content to post is all but necessary for finding success on social media.

It is critical to audit your content marketing to ensure you’re focused on the right goals from the start. Many look for shortcuts to success with content, which can be avoided by understanding how your content performs today and what you want to achieve in the future.

“Don’t look for loopholes to exploit,” said Jesse Noyes, senior marketing director at Kapost.

“Instead, focus on creating quality content and doing it consistently. So many businesses try to game search engines and social networks. They look for some weakness in the algorithm that will get their content seen more often. And, sometimes, this works — for a little a while. But eventually the Google’s and Facebook’s of the world figure it out, improve it, and suddenly that same content is buried or penalized,” he added.

Many organizations either don’t have a clear content strategy, or do not account for the various opportunities for synergy it presents as Noyes pointed out. A content audit will help brands ensure that their current content efforts align with their audience’s expectation and current best practices and that their future efforts take full advantage of content marketing’s potential.

Content consolidation: Many brands might be producing content, but these content efforts are often scattershot. Locate all of the content your brand has produced across channels and decide where this content may be best consolidated.

Audience evaluation: To inform the decision of where to have your content live, do an analysis of the target audience for this content. What demographics does your current content appeal to? Where do they spend their time online? What other kinds of content might they be most receptive to?

Content strategy: Once you have decided which audience and channels to target, work closely with your content team to develop a content strategy and schedule to best capture this audience’s attention. Determine not only where your content will live, but also which types of content would be most appropriate for this channel, and what level of frequency your team is capable of producing.

Content optimization: After creating a robust content schedule the final step is to research multiple ways to optimize this content for each part of the sales funnel (SEO and social distribution as well as conversion and lead generation). Create a comprehensive set of guidelines for your content team moving forward and make sure your existing content is edited to fit these guidelines.

While the prospect of a comprehensive marketing audit might be daunting, the only way you can hope to improve your marketing is to have a solid idea of where you stand. By following these guidelines you should be able to investigate your current marketing efforts methodically and comprehensively and do so in a way that simultaneously informs your future marketing efforts.

How does your organization regularly analyze the state of your marketing efforts and when was the last time you performed an audit?Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Does Your Digital Marketing Strategy Need An Update?

Make it your goal to bring your out-dated digital marketing strategies up-to-date. If you don’t have the time or personnel to deal with auditing your digital marketing strategy on your own, consider hiring a marketing partner with over a decade of experience building high-performing digital marketing strategies that will fulfill your business goals for the year ahead.

Unknown

11:40 AM

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Cleaning out your closet, emptying your inbox, putting things where they “belong.”

A few years ago, I worked at a Web design agency as a product manager.

The part of the job I loved the most was working on product with our design team and clients. Unfortunately, this only made up about 10 percent of the work that I actually got to do.

The majority of the time, I was trying to control the constant flow of stuff – keeping track of meeting notes, searching for files, and trying to stay up-to-date with the latest technology news.

I was mentally exhausted. I’d get home feeling that I hadn’t really accomplished anything.

Once I left the agency and started ooomf, I wanted to fix how I approached consumption in my life.

Over the last few years, I’ve discovered ways to reduce the noise of stuff around me so I can focus on creation and have more time for the things that matter most.

The last year has been the most productive of my life and I owe a lot of it to understanding the importance of decreasing how much I consume and coming up with ways to cut clutter.

How clutter happens

You collect things for a number of reasons – maybe you think you’ll need to use it later, it has sentimental value, or you spent good money on it so you feel you need to keep the item, even if you haven’t touched or used it in weeks, months, or years.

You might be holding on to that book you bought a year ago that you swear you’ll read or those killer pair of shoes that you’ll bring out for just the right occasion.

But the reality is, you probably made a mistake in buying those things and it literally hurts your brain to come to terms with that fact.

Researchers at Yale recently identified that two areas in your brain associated with pain, the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, light up in response to letting go of items you own and feel a connection towards:

This is the same area of the brain that lights up when you feel physical pain from a paper cut or drinking coffee that’s too hot. Your brain views the loss of one of your valued possessions as the same as something that causes you physical pain.

The more you’ve commited emotionally or financially to an item, the more you want to keep it around.

Why Apple wants you to touch its stuff

When it comes to physical things, merely touching an item can cause you to become more emotionally attached to it.

In this study, researchers gave participants coffee mugs to touch and examine prior to participating in an auction.

The researchers varied the amount of time the participants were able to handle the mugs to see if this would have an effect on the amount of money participants would be willing to spend on the mugs during the auction.

The results of the study showed that participants who held the mugs longer, were willing to pay over 60 percent more for the mugs than participants who hed the mugs for shorter periods.

The study concluded, the longer you touch an object, the greater the value you assign to it.

Apple is familiar with the effect of touch on your psychology and has brilliantly designed its retail stores to help you build an emotional attachment to their products.

Here’s a shot of an Apple Store:

Author Carmine Gallo is writing a book about the ins and outs of the Apple Store. Gallo explains that everything in the Apple Store is designed for you to touch and play with, to make you feel like it’s your own. Gallo states:

The main reason notebook computers screens are slightly angled is to encourage customers to adjust the screen to their ideal viewing angle…The ownership experience is more important than a sale.

When you introduce new items into your life, you immedietely associate value with these items,making it harder for you to give them up in the future.

This psychological connection to things is what leads to the accumulation of stuff.

Clutter’s impact on your brain

Whether it be your closet or office desk, excess things in your surroundings can have a negative impact on your ability to focus and process information.

That’s exactly what neuroscientists at Princeton University found when they looked at people’s task performance in an organized versus disorganized environment.

The results of the study showed that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

A team of UCLA researchers recently observed 32 Los Angeles families and found that all of the mothers’ stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings.

Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.

Clutter isn’t just physical

Files on your computer, notifications from your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and anything that goes “ping” in the night competes for your attention.

This creates a digital form of clutter that erodes your ability to focus and perform creative tasks.

Mark Hurst, author of Bit Literacy, a New York Times best seller on controlling the flow of information in the digital age, put it best when he said:

Bits are a new material.

When you have to-do items constantly floating around in your head or you hear a ping or vibrate every few minutes from your phone, your brain doesn’t get a chance to fully enter creative flow or process experiences.

When your brain has too much on its plate, it splits its power up. The result? You become awful at:

• filtering information
• switching quickly between tasks
• keeping a strong working memory

The overconsumption of digital stuff has the same effect on your brain as physical clutter.

Finding your perfect storm

I like to keep things neat but when I used to clean my room to perfection, my mom would still see that same room as a disaster.

Everyone’s tolerance for clutter is different.

Researchers have even found that certain people need a bit of a mess in their surroundings to feel inspired and get work done, stating that:

A clean desk can be seen as a dormant area, an indication that no thought or work is being undertaken.

For instance, if you look at this photo of the home office of Steve Jobs, it’s not exactly the picture you’d expect of a zen-like visionary obsessed with less:

On the other hand, there’s TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, who traded in his million dollar mansion for a 420 square foot apartment that only has the bare essentials.

His kitchen consists of 12 salad bowls and utensils:

In an interview with the New York Times, Hill stated:

I like material things as much as anyone. I studied product design in school. I’m into gadgets, clothing and all kinds of things. But my experiences show that after a certain point, material objects have a tendency to crowd out the emotional needs they are meant to support.

While clutter has been shown to negatively effect your performance, it is your perception of clutter that matters, not someone else’s.

If having a notebook, pen, or a photo of your significant other on your desk, doesn’t feel like clutter to you, then it’s not.

You should seek to create spaces that make you feel at ease.

Editing the noise: 4 ways to master clutter

There are millions of sources of information and things for you to consume so it’s important to figure out a way to control these streams so you have more time to do things that matter.

Here’s four things that have been working for me:

1. Apply constraints

One of the principals of good design is constraints. You can apply this same theory to create a system for mastering consumption.

For instance, set a limit for how many people you follow on Twitter, how many books you buy, or how many apps you own.

I set a limit of 200 people I follow on Twitter and I don’t buy any books until I’ve finished the current book I’m reading. I also don’t purchase or download any apps until I need them.

There will always be more information available than you can consume so set limits so you’re no longer simply trying to just get through it all but rather enjoying more of what you consume.

2. Use small storage spaces

Cutting down on your storage space can do wonders for limiting consumption. Try cutting your closet down to 10 hangers or force yourself to use a small bag when you travel.

Do you really need a walk-in closet or a rack for all your shoes? Try constraining your storage spaces and you’ll quickly identify what you really need.

3. Conduct a monthly review of your closet

Every month, review your closet looking for items you haven’t worn. If it’s summer and you have t-shirts, shorts, or shoes that you aren’t using, put them in a bag to sell on eBay or Craigslist or give them away.

Another option is to try and get rid of one item a week until you’ve cut your belongings down to the things you actually use.

4. Remove all files from your desktop daily

If you work on a computer, having a cluttered desktop every time you turn on your computer can give you a constant uneasy feeling.

At the end of each day, remove every file from your desktop. If you don’t have an immediate place to move the file, create one folder on your desktop and drop the stray files in there.

Here’s a screenshot of my desktop screen with one “Home” folder:

Clutter, whether physical or digital, is something you’ll always have to deal with but it can be controlled.

Finding ways to stear the streams of consumption in your favor will give you a sense of power and a freed mind, leaving room for you to create and experience life without constantly filling your cup to the top with someone else’s sugar.

Unknown

11:39 AM

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As Neil Patel recently said, “transparency is the new marketing.”

For several years now, internet and affiliate marketers like Pat Flynn andMatthew Woodward, have shared their “income reports”. This works well for marketers as proof that they know what they are doing. When they launch a product, or even publish a blog, people listen.

Within the last couple of years, you are now starting to see actual companies sharing their revenue numbers and many other things (like employee’s salaries). Often times, these sorts of posts are the most read. It attracts readers of all kinds, not necessarily just potential customers.

Some of the companies doing this are venture backed, and some are bootstrapped. It’s what makes them fun to read. You see a diversity of tactics and strategies being implemented based on what stage they are in.

Here is a list of companies providing regular revenue reports that are worth the read, along with a quote from their founders about why they do it:

Buffer

Buffer really pioneered “transparency marketing”. It started when they began sharing a look behind the scenes into their revenue. Since then, they’ve shared just about everything else including employee salaries, theirpitch deck/valuation information, and even where your money goes as a customer.

I asked Joel Gascoigne, Co-founder of Buffer, about why they provide this level of transparency:

“For us, transparency is a core value we’ve chosen to have and we strive to live by that value regardless of whether we are seeing great growth or are going through a more difficult period. We’ve certainly seen some useful benefits of being transparent and we’ve even been lucky to gain some attention as a result of our sharing.

The top benefit we’ve seen is that being transparent has increased the level of trust both between team members and also with our customers. We have shown we are dependable and will keep customers informed of important issues the moment we know about them.

On top of trust, I think transparency also holds us to a higher standard and brings justice. Transparency has been shown to close the gap in terms of gender and other inequality in pay.

Finally, it opens us up to receive feedback from our customers and the general public. Sometimes people will notice something we haven’t considered and we feel privileged to be able to gain that new perspective, as a result of sharing.

These are some of the side effects we’ve seen and we have been happy with some of these results, however as I said we don’t practice transparency for any results, we simply see it as a principle we believe in. We believe that transparency at its core is honesty, and it’s a value that we want to live by no matter what.”

Groove

Groove was really the first company to have a goal to hit as they documented their journey to $100k. They started the journey when they were at$28,525/mo in revenue in September 2013. By December of 2014 they hit their $100k/mo in recurring revenue goal.

Their new goal is now $500k/mo in revenue. I asked Alex Turnball, founder of Groove, what value transparency brings to their business and he had this to say:

“I like to do business with companies that deeply understand me and my needs. Who gets the hopes and challenges of a startup like another startup? The better we tell our story, and the more we share, the easier it is for other small businesses to see that we’re very much like them, and that we understand exactly what they’re looking for.

There’s also the value that sharing our wins, fails and lessons learned delivers to the people who read our blog. Sharing numbers adds important context to each story and makes the content more useful for readers. That, in turn, helps us build stronger relationships with the people who end up using our product.”

Moz

In 2012, Moz (they were SEOMoz at the time) posted their first annual review that discusses revenue, an acquisition they made, expansion plans, and a lot more. In 2012 they also released their slide deck, which boldly outlined a goal of becoming Seattle’s next $1B+ startup.

In 2013 they posted another annual review and also shared some insights into their rebrand.

When I asked Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz, about why they were such believers in transparency, he took it back to his childhood:

“Transparency for us isn’t a question of business value or marketing strategy – it’s one of our core values. That means we’d be transparent (and have been) even when it’s harmful to the business (for example, when I blogged about our VC processes, it turned off many investors from wanting to engage with me or Moz in the future).

Transparency is part of our values mostly, I think, because of my personal history. My family/parents spent a lot of years keeping secrets from one another (“don’t tell Dad about this,” “don’t tell your Mom we went here” – that kind of thing). I hated the stress and the pressure that maintaining those secrets created, and I resolved to reveal everything – even the worst stuff – publicly. It’s a defense mechanism for me – if I share the news, good and bad, then there’s no skeletons in the closet and nothing from which to hide.”

Unbounce

Unbounce joined in on the transparency game at the beginning of 2014 with their “Inside Unbounce” blog. Over 30 different Unbounce employees contributed posts over the past year. Here’s their impressive annual review of 2014.

When I asked Rick Perreault, Founder of Unbounce, what benefits they get from transparency he said:

“Most important for me in regards to transparency is that is sends a strong message of trust to all our employees, and the company benefits from trust in return and an honest dialog takes place between all.

I also think when I’m out there being super transparent about financials or KPIs, I believe it sends a message to everyone at Unbounce at I’m proud of what we are doing which gives everyone confidence to keep moving forward.

I can’t think of many negatives consequences with being transparent but I can’t think of anything good coming out of not being.”

WP Curve

Founder Dan Norris has been very open about being just days away from needing to find a job when WP Curve took off. Now his startup WP Curve (A wordpress support service) has over 800 customers and around $60k/mo in revenue. He shares all the details every month on their blog.

Dan also wrote a book to help others launch a new business in seven days called, “The 7 Day Startup“. When I asked Dan what benefits he has seen from offering such transparency, he stated:

“Our revenue reports have produced amazing results for us. I found Alex who became a 50 / 50 owner in the business through my transparent blog posts. We have also struck up partnerships with major players in the WordPress community, who have specifically told us it was our reports that really cemented things for them. They are incredible at building trust. “

Baremetrics

Founder Josh Pigford recently shared the Baremetrics journey to $25k/mo in revenue. Baremetrics also received $500k in an investment from The Stripe Fund when they hit $20k/mo in revenue.  You can follow along with their live dashboard (which is their product).

When I asked Josh what transparency has meant to Baremetrics, he offered this::

“For Baremetrics, transparency is about helping other businesses, especially earlier-stage ones. When you’re just getting started, it’s so hard to know what’s even in the same ballpark of “normal” and there are so few legitimately useful resources with practical, actionable information.

So many people have been helpful to me over the years, and being transparent as we build our business is our small way of giving back.”

LeadFuze

Inspired by the transparency of other companies, I decided to document my own startup’s journey. However, unlike most of the other companies on the list, I’m not waiting for success first.

You can literally follow along from the “idea stage” where I launched the business in 24 hours, to when I made 4 figures in the first 30 days.

The risk by doing it this early is looking foolish, while simultaneously providing a roadmap for competitors. Very much like what the other founders have said, I feel the most important thing revenue reports and transparency brings is trust and even empathy. Ultimately, I feel there are several lessons to be learned even in failure, so I’m happy to share the journey.

Storemapper

Founder Tyler Tringas tried to sell this product a couple years ago when it was just a side project that was making nearly $20,000 per year. He was offered $40,000 and decided to hang onto it instead.

Now it’s making him over $8k/mo and it’s become his full-time focus. When I asked Tyler about why he provided this level of transparency, he said:

“Complete financial transparency gives you just the right amount of credibility. The internet is full of people who eke out a bit of money selling scammy schemes claiming to make you millions online. Transparency is the solution to credibility in an increasingly opaque and anonymous world.”

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a caching plugin that helps speed up your WordPress site. You don’t often hear of plugins that make five figures in recurring revenue, but this one hit the $35,000/mo mark this past year, have their plugin installed on over 15,000 sites and have over 4,300 customers.

In addition to just revenue reports, they provide customer support data, development decisions and more. So I asked Jean-Baptiste Marchand-Arvier about why they provide this level of transparency and he had this to say:

“First, this is for our customers. We try to build a very strong relationship with our customers. We are always transparent in the customer support, i.e. if we have issues resolving something, or if our plugin has a bug, we tell them, and we don’t hide behind technical terms.

So being more transparent by publishing everything, is going further with our customers, and making them feel even more confident in us. This is a way to build trust with our company.

Second, this is for our team. Hiding things is super bad for the team. They have to know everything, especially in startup where things move very fast. We want to build something with them, if we don’t share everything with them, it’s not possible.”

Conclusion

These companies don’t just discuss the numbers, but what went on behind the scenes to achieve them. They also share the things that didn’t work, which is often times the most helpful.

You shouldn’t compare yourself to them, but look to see what you can learn from them instead. As these companies are all in various stages, pick those that are ahead of you and follow along their journey. You’ll be surprised at how much you learn!

Know of any other companies that should be added to the mix? Let us know in the comments!

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11:33 AM

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