Why Indonesia’s startup founders should shut the f*ck up about their numbers

I’m a journalist in Indonesia. It’s my job to report on startups, and I talk to company founders every single day. Occasionally, I will write stories with a little flair about entrepreneurs whom I find truly interesting, or who are doing something unique to help Indonesia as a developing country. Admittedly, in the past, as a newbie to Jakarta’s tech startup scene, I was much easier to impress – naïve even – when it came to allowing Indonesian founders to romanticize themselves through my writing. Misleading percentages, vanity metrics, and incomplete claims about their user activity usually did the trick. Past examples include:

“We’ve tripled our site’s traffic.”
“Our business has grown by 800 percent this quarter.”
“We’re not growing by 50 percent this year – we’re growing by 50 percent this month!”
“We gained more than 60,000 registered users in twelve weeks.”

But what I quickly learned about technopreneurs in Indonesia was this: If you give one founder a media boost, the rest will come running, shovels in hand, prepared to stuff misleading numbers, bullshit grandeur, and sometimes, downright lies down your throat. It seems to happen more in Indonesia than any other Asian nation because the very fabric of its business and political culture is woven around corruption. [Author’s note: I stand corrected on this sentence. Please revert to comments.]

See: How to cope with Indonesia’s murky business culture

I won’t lie. I’ve fallen victim to it before, and was promptly chewed out by my peers. One person even called me a fanboy and told me that my story made him want to vomit. As a result, these days I will often eliminate drama of any kind from a story in order to present the safest possible assertions.

As journalists, we understand that founders are only trying to look out for the best interest of their companies. But we want to let you know that inaccurately plugging yourself and your company in the media is a mistake. Not only can we smell the bullshit from six miles away, but your attempts to misinform will certainly amplify our skepticism. Here are four reasons why Indonesian founders should shut the hell up about about their numbers unless they are actually worth sharing, and get back to what matters: running your business and making it attractive to users in meaningful ways.

1. It turns the writer off

If you’re lucky, the reporter has not yet turned cynical about the space in which they write. They might even like you as a person. But it’s not smart to bank on the idea that they will lap up whatever you feed them. In fact, they’re not allowed to. When you try to mislead a reporter, the best case scenario for you is that they simply don’t include your claim. The worst case scenario is that they quote you on it verbatim, but highlight a fundamental flaw in your statement. Here’s what it could look like:

John Doe claims to have half a million people signed up for his photo sharing app. However, he declined to comment on how many of them actively use the product.

Or:

Jane Smith says her company has quadrupled its revenue, but did not state the actual amount of money it makes currently or in the past.

2. Your goal should be to build a good company, not the perception of one

3. Tech media readers are not necessarily your target audience

4. The phrase “no comment” was invented for a reason