An aside, I still receive Inc. magazine despite not renewing my subscription 7 years ago... Is that to inflate the reach? I’m not arguing it’s illegal or anything. It makes me wonder how widespread misleading audience numbers are in ad-based businesses. Do I count? Do I count as reach for all the other ad mailers I get but immediately toss in the recycle bin?
This seems like a common practice for startups, at least in my experience. I've worked at companies that boast they have hundreds of thousands of users to their investors and on their sign up pages, but in actuality, they have less than a thousand active users. It's deceptive. Most users were never active to begin with, yet outwardly they stretch the truth. Yes, you may have a high user row count in the database, and you may also have a high spam user count, but that means nothing and they hide it.
You say it's common so I suppose investors are used to it and find out quickly?
Yes any semi-experienced investor will immediately screen for active users vs signups, and if they find out you’re trying to game the numbers it’s usually a dealbreaker.