[stevewepay]

I think this is vastly over-exaggerating.

Unless you specifically state that you are using the GAAP term "revenue", revenue could mean anything, just like "made" could mean anything, like saying "we made $1M last month".

I highly doubt if you were making a presentation and you said "We had 1M in revenue last month", and it wasn't actually GAAP revenue, I find it hard to believe you would be subject to lawsuit or arrest. In fact, arrest is even more of an over-exaggeration.

Even Groupon had a hard time defining exactly what its "revenues" were pre-IPO, and yet no one got sued or went to jail.

[patmcc]

If someone invests in you because of a revenue claim when no one else in the room would agree with your definition of revenue, you might end up getting sued. That's pretty reasonable. If it's in a casual conversation, they should have plenty of time to look over the books later, so it's not a big deal.

That said, why not use appropriate GAAP values? You should already know them, assuming you're keeping proper books, so it should be the easiest value to give.

[stevewepay]

You could get sued, but in the US you can get sued for anything. But you would win the lawsuit.

"Revenue" can mean anything. Look up the term online, for example http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/revenue, and you'll see 6 different definitions. One of them is: "an amount of money regularly coming in". How is this definition of revenue wrong, or how could it result you getting sued? The answer is you won't.

Sure it could cause misunderstanding, but that happens all the time. As long as you don't misrepresent it as "GAAP revenue", you're perfectly fine using it in any reasonable way. Unlike what Sam Altman says, it's not a felony. My wife is a CPA and she laughed out loud when she read that.

[Tloewald]

Even Groupon?