Decision
michaelhouck.co will NOT publish per-business revenue figures or charts at launch. The business cards carry client outcomes instead (a single proof button per company). The revenue pipeline keeps running privately so the data is complete whenever the site turns it on.
Tripwire, set cold: publish revenue when BOTH conditions hold on the same monthly close: (1) trailing six months of consolidated clean revenue trend up versus the prior six, and (2) consolidated monthly revenue clears $150,000. Both are measured from the Kick books via the existing nightly job. When they hit, the site flips the figures on without a further debate.
Context
The site was built with live Stripe-verified revenue on every business card, mirroring marclou.com. Reviewing it, Michael asked whether transparency makes sense yet, noting that Greg Isenberg and Alex Lieberman do not publish, Matt Gray’s figures look unreliable, and only Marc does it credibly.
The deciding evidence was the actual shape of the data. Megaphone by month from 2025-09: 117k, 138k, 101k, 74k, 69k, 81k, 70k, 196k, 85k, 44k, 79k, 60k. Consolidated is $102k in August against $139k in September. Marc’s transparency compounds because his line rises; a visibly declining chart on a personal brand site arms the skeptic instead. It also sets up the wrong arithmetic directly under the locked hero line about walking away from a nine-figure startup.
Options considered
- Publish as built. Rejected: the trend is down, and publishing is a one-way ratchet. Once shown, going quiet in a bad month reads as hiding, so it becomes a standing obligation to narrate the worst months of the agencies’ rebuild.
- Publish only the portfolio total, not per business. Rejected: the total is also down year over year, so it fails for the same reason while losing the per-brand proof.
- Publish with a caption explaining the decline. Rejected: Michael’s read on the drafted captions was that they were corny and read as AI justification. A number that needs a defence should not be on the page.
- Drop the transparency idea permanently. Rejected: he likes it, it fits a brand that sells judgment with receipts, and it becomes an asset once the trend supports it.
Consequences
- Business cards show logo, name, one-liner and one outcome button. No dollars, no charts.
- The rail loses its
$102k/mofigure. - Revenue components stay in the repo unmounted; the Mini pipeline, nightly cron and data repo keep running, so history is unbroken when the tripwire fires.
- Transparency effort redirects to the public decision log, which is rarer than revenue transparency, cannot be gamed, and is uniquely Michael’s.
- Client outcome numbers now carry the proof burden, so they must stay sourced and current.