Flatlines, confirmation bias and pretty graphs

Today I got unsolicited advice from a Redditor. I'll call him MG (Marketing Guru). Here is what MG said.

MG is talking about NeetoCal metrics. MG is right. If you look at the graph, the first two years it is dead.

In May 2022, NeetoCal had only six meetings booked. NeetoCal had to wait until January 2024 to book the first 1k meetings.

MG is right. If I remove those first two years from the graph, then the graph will look nicer. And I won't be lying. But here is the truth. It won't be the complete truth.

And that's the problem with many founders, VCs, marketing, and sales people. They have a lot of "selection bias".

They glorify startups like Bolt, which generated millions in revenue in four months, and WindSurf, which flipped for billions of dollars. Guess what - that's a clear case of confirmation bias.

Most of the startups end up in the gutter. If a startup makes it to profitability, that's a high-water mark.

So yes Mr. MG I can hide that data to make it look like NeetoCal made it to 40K bookings in a record time. But I won't.

Because I’m not here to impress VCs who get dazzled by those tricks. I’m here to build Neeto products and share our metrics as they are — boring, flatlines, and all. No smoke. No mirrors. Just the real data.