The Brag Board

An achievement tracker for solo-founders

Making the transition from a secure day job to becoming a solo-founder is one of the most challenging leaps anyone can take. The toughest part? Accountability. From the day we start school, we’re conditioned to perform well when a teacher (and later an employer) is keeping us accountable. Even in highly autonomous roles, like the ones I've been lucky to have, there is still a structure in place guided by your managers and team, whether that's tasks, deadlines, OKRs etc. As a solo-founder, you can find yourself aimless without this.

This is where many solo-founders turn to building in public.

Building in public is definitely not a new trend and in the past when I've tried it I've kinda just ran out of things to write about... However, as someone who’s always loved the idea of achievement hunting, whether it's earning badges on Strava, hitting streaks on Kindle, or trying to 100% a video game, I wanted to take this concept a step further. I needed something more structured, more fun. That's where the idea of a Brag Board came from.

The name "Brag Board" is a bit of a tongue in cheek way to try not take myself too seriously whilst also not falling to the pressures of Tall Poppy Syndrome. Fake it 'til you make it right..?

How it works

I’ve created a list of 26 achievements on my home page (if you want to see the full list in detail, scroll to the bottom of the page) that cover the typical goals most founders will aim for, from reaching MRR milestones to acquiring a certain number of customers. Each time I hit one of these goals, I’ll update the Brag Board with the date and an accompanying post to share more about the journey to that achievement.

I’ve made sure that most of these goals are relevant to what founders should focus on when starting a company. But I’ve also sprinkled in some fun (and secret 👀) achievements, like acquiring a 4 letter .com domain or becoming “Ramen Profitable.”

The idea is to keep the Brag Board enjoyable and rewarding, to remind myself that being a founder isn’t just about hard work, it’s also about celebrating the small victories along the way.

As I progress, I’ll keep adding new achievements to the list. I’d love to see this list grow to over 100 achievements.

The full list of the achievements

1. First Sale
2. $100K Total Revenue
3. $1M Total Revenue
4. $100 Monthly Recurring Revenue
5. $1,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue
6. $10K Monthly Recurring Revenue
7. $50K Monthly Recurring Revenue
8. $83K Monthly Recurring Revenue
9. $100K Monthly Recurring Revenue
10. 100 Customers
11. 1000 Customers
12. 10K Customers
13. 100K Customers
14. Sold a Startup
15. Sold a startup for +$1M
16. Launched a Product
17. Ramen profitable
18. Secret 👀
19. Secret 👀
20. Lost a customer
21. Referral
22. First Hire
23. ProductHunt: Product of the Day
24. Acquired a 4 letter .com domain
25. My parents understand what I do
26. Secret 👀