Founder narrative
The month a quality of earnings report halved my price at $49K MRR: a founder diary (2026)
A composite founder diary (2026): at $49K MRR a letter of intent valued my company at four times ARR, and eleven weeks later a quality of earnings report put the price at $1,162,960 instead of $2,352,000. Why ARR overstated my trailing twelve month revenue by $70,700, why the two year recurrence test killed most of my add-back list, and the line I had never once thought about: the market salary I never paid myself, which cost more than the revenue restatement, the add-back fight and the deferred revenue combined.
10 min read8