The best SaaS founders I know all end up doing the same thing eventually: mounting a TV in their office and putting the live MRR number on it. The first time I saw it was in a 6-person startup’s open-plan office around 2019. A 40-inch TV, nothing but the dollar amount, updating every time Stripe fired a webhook. Everyone walked past it all day. The founder told me revenue doubled in the year after they put it up. I don’t think the TV caused it — but I believe it helped the team feel the growth.
This post walks through exactly how to set up that TV in under ten minutes. Hardware: one streaming stick. Software: a free account with a broadcasting tool like PingBell (yes, that’s us — but the pattern works with anything that can listen to Stripe webhooks and display them full-screen).
The hardware: a streaming stick is all you need
The single most overlooked fact about putting metrics on office TVs is that you don’t need dedicated dashboard hardware. You don’t need a laptop chained to a TV. You don’t need a Raspberry Pi running a browser in kiosk mode. You need a Roku, a Fire TV Stick, an Apple TV you probably already own, or an Android TV device like a Chromecast with Google TV.
Everything else is software. And the software we’re setting up is a thin native app that boots straight into your dashboard the moment the Stick powers on.
The software: a webhook listener with a full-screen display
There are several ways to build this. The naive version is to write a web page that polls Stripe’s API every few seconds, leave it open in a browser, and pray the browser doesn’t crash overnight. This works for about two weeks before the tab dies, the laptop restarts, and nobody can find the login.
The better version uses a tool designed for the job: a webhook listener that subscribes to Stripe events, maintains a running MRR total, and displays it on a native TV app. The native app matters because it launches automatically, handles reconnection, and doesn’t require a browser.
PingBell is one such tool. Others exist. I’ll describe the pattern in PingBell terms because it’s what I know best, but the same general steps apply to any broadcasting tool with a Fire TV / Apple TV app.
Step 1: Create the counter
In PingBell (or equivalent), create a counter named “MRR”. Set the reset period to “Never” — MRR is a running value that accumulates forever, not a daily reset. Pick a display type: a large number works for viewing from across the room; a number-with-sparkline gives you the trend at a glance.
Step 2: Connect Stripe
Connect Stripe via OAuth. In PingBell this is one click. Pick the events that matter for MRR math: customer.subscription.created, customer.subscription.updated, customer.subscription.deleted. For additional accuracy, add invoice.paid to catch annual plans being paid.
The tool should handle proration and plan changes automatically. A naive “just sum every charge” counter would double-count annual-to-monthly conversions and miss downgrades. A proper tool normalizes annual plans to their monthly-equivalent MRR (total / 12) and computes the delta on upgrades and downgrades.
Step 3: Set a goal (optional)
Pick your next MRR milestone: $10K, $50K, $1M ARR, whatever. The counter displays progress as a fill indicator alongside the raw number. Crossing the threshold triggers a celebration animation. This matters more than you think — humans don’t respond to raw numbers the way they respond to “we just passed 67%”.
Step 4: Install the TV app
Plug the Fire Stick into your office TV. Go to the Amazon Appstore (or Apple TV App Store, or Google Play for Google TV), search for the broadcasting tool, install it. Open the app. A QR code appears on the TV.
Step 5: Pair the app to the counter
Open the PingBell mobile app on your phone, scan the QR code on the TV, and pick the counter to display. The TV immediately takes over with a full-screen display of your live MRR.
Total elapsed time from cardboard to live display: 8-12 minutes, depending on how fast your WiFi is.
What this actually does to your team
Here’s what I’ve seen happen in offices that set up an MRR TV:
- The founder stops obsessively refreshing the Stripe dashboard. It’s on the wall. They look up instead of opening a tab.
- The team starts asking about MRR. The number was abstract before; now it’s visible. Engineering teammates who never thought about revenue suddenly start commenting on it.
- Customer churn gets visible. When MRR ticks down, everyone notices. Before, the founder saw churn in a Monday report; now the whole team feels it.
- Milestones become events. Crossing $100K MRR with a live TV in the office is a different emotional experience than crossing it in a private dashboard.
This last one is the point. The TV doesn’t make the number grow. But it makes the team care.
Handling the corner cases
A few things to sort out once you have the basic setup running:
- Multiple Stripe accounts. If you run multiple brands on separate Stripe accounts, connect each and combine into one counter.
- Failed payments. Decide whether dunning accounts should subtract from MRR or appear as a separate “past due” counter. Most founders prefer the latter so the main counter stays clean.
- Trials. Trials don’t count toward MRR until they convert. PingBell handles this automatically.
- Time zones. Set the counter’s display timezone to wherever the office is.
The second TV
Once the MRR TV exists, a predictable thing happens: the team wants more of them. Common second-TV candidates are:
- Daily signups (new trials started today)
- Daily revenue (net new MRR added today)
- Support tickets resolved
- Demos booked (for teams with sales motion)
PingBell’s pricing is per counter, not per TV, so adding screens is usually free; adding metrics is the cost.
When the TV starts to feel wrong
One warning: the MRR TV works well when the number is going up. When the number is going down, it becomes a source of team anxiety. Some founders pull the TV during rough quarters and put it back when momentum returns. Others keep it up as accountability. There’s no right answer. But be prepared for the emotional reality that a visible number cuts both ways.
Start small
If you’re reading this and wondering whether it’s worth the effort: start with one TV, one counter, the MRR number. Live with it for a week. See if the team’s behavior changes. If it doesn’t, you’ve lost the cost of a streaming stick and 10 minutes of setup time. If it does, you’ll understand why founders end up with three TVs in the office.
Ready to try it? Start a free trial — it takes longer to unbox the Fire Stick than to set up PingBell. Or read more about the SaaS MRR counter setup in detail.