"A meta-discussion comment proposing that revenue claims in side project threads should distinguish between gross revenue and profit, since some projects have near-zero costs while others have significant expenses."
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Maker: jimnotgym
N/A — this is not a product post but a convention proposal about how revenue should be reported

Growth Levers

  • When reporting revenue milestones, distinguish between gross revenue and net profit for credibility
  • SaaS projects should highlight their margin advantage explicitly when sharing revenue figures
  • Lower-margin projects (hardware, services) should be transparent about costs to set realistic expectations

First Customer Strategy

N/A — this is a community discussion post, not a product.

Pricing Insight

The commenter highlights that SaaS businesses typically have high margins, but some side projects shared in these threads have much lower margins, making the '$500/mo' benchmark misleading without cost context.

Key Takeaways

  • • Revenue figures without cost context are misleading — $500/mo gross with $450/mo costs is only $50/mo profit
  • • SaaS businesses have an inherent advantage in these discussions due to typically high margins
  • • Transparency about margins builds trust and gives other builders realistic expectations
  • • The HN community values precision in financial claims and will push back on ambiguous revenue reporting

Sentiment Analysis

1 Neu / 1 Neg

Notable Quotes

"If you sold $500p/m and had costs of $450 p/m then you made $50p/m — jimnotgym"
"Angry Scam Altman noises who 'made' 20 Billion by spending 100 Billion — Lionga"

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