Wed, December 04, 2024

Paul has retired

In this episode of the Fathom Analytics Above Board podcast, hosts Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis dive into a significant transition—Paul's retirement from the company. The conversation is both heartfelt and insightful, reflecting on the bittersweet nature of this change. Key Highlights: Retirement Announcement: Paul shares his decision to retire, emphasizing it as a positive step rather than a departure from something he disliked. He discusses the importance of leaving Fathom in a strong position without compromising its independence Bittersweet Emotions: Both hosts express mixed feelings about the end of their five-year partnership, acknowledging the deep connection they've built while also looking forward to new beginnings Company Evolution: The discussion touches on Fathom's unexpected journey from a side project to a thriving business, highlighting the trust and collaboration that defined their co-founding relationship Future Plans: Paul contemplates his next steps post-retirement, sharing that while he doesn’t foresee jumping back into entrepreneurship , he remains open to possibilities. He reflects on how he has never tied his identity to the business, allowing for a smoother transition This episode is not just about retirement; it’s a celebration of growth, friendship, and the unpredictability of entrepreneurial life. Read more about this announcement on the blog .

Tue, October 15, 2024

Why Google search is failing us

In the latest episode of The Above Board Podcast, hosts Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis discuss the decline of Google as an effective search engine, particularly in light of its increasing reliance on AI-generated content. They share personal anecdotes about their frustrations with search results, noting that traditional search engines like Google and DuckDuckGo have become less reliable, often returning irrelevant or incorrect information. Jack expresses skepticism about AI's ability to replace developers, arguing that while AI can assist with basic tasks, it often fails in more complex scenarios, leading to wasted time and confusion. Both hosts lament the impact of SEO practices on content quality, which they believe prioritizes keyword optimization over meaningful information, resulting in a frustrating user experience filled with ads and irrelevant content. They conclude that many users are outsourcing their critical thinking to AI and search engines, which may ultimately hinder their understanding and knowledge retention. Takeaways Google search has become less effective over time AI is not a reliable tool for complex technical tasks SEO practices have led to a decline in content quality Search results can significantly influence public opinion Understanding the incentives behind search engines is crucial AI-generated content can often be incorrect or misleading The reliance on AI may lead to a decline in critical thinking Users are increasingly frustrated with the quality of search results The future of search engines may involve more AI integration Trust in search engines is diminishing due to advertising influence

Mon, September 30, 2024

Fathom updates and WP drama

Jack and Paul discuss what’s new at Fathom Analytics recently, like the ongoing refactor project. This paves the way for great new features, including entry and exit pages. They also give their opinions on the recent drama in the WordPress (WP) community between Automattic and WPEngine.

Tue, August 27, 2024

Jack and Paul talk politics

In the latest episode of the Above Board Podcast, hosts Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis discuss various topics, with a significant portion of the conversation focuses on the recent arrest of Telegram's CEO in France (Pavel Durov), exploring the implications of privacy and censorship, encryption, and the responsibilities of social media platforms in policing illegal activities. The hosts debate the complexities of freedom of speech, censorship, and the role of government and corporations in regulating discourse, emphasizing the importance of allowing open discussions to foster understanding and informed opinions.

Mon, July 29, 2024

Small updates, big progress

Things are humming along at Fathom Analytics - we’ve released several new features, have more in the pipeline coming soon, and the redoing of our internal processes is going quite well. Jack and Paul also discuss the Stripe acquisition of LemonSqueezy, the CEO of Paddle stepping down and finally, why Fathom does’t do discounts or sales (ever).

Mon, July 15, 2024

New Fathom UI, who dis?

Jack and Paul get into updating the application’s interface design and how that paves the way for new features coming soon. They also discuss why no one should trust Google’s business model (and their penchant for killing off popular products like Universal Analytics), the lengths Fathom goes to to support old analytics data, why you should lean into what works for you (even if it’s not the consensus), why companies should care a lot more about protecting their customers data, why public corporations are incentivized for being sociopaths, and so much more.

Tue, June 04, 2024

Exploring the Ethics and privacy implications of AI

The conversation delves into the ethical implications of AI, the use of AI in software, and the impact of AI on various industries. It also explores the challenges and limitations of AI technology, as well as the importance of privacy and data protection in AI development. Takeaways AI has the potential to revolutionize industries but raises ethical concerns about privacy and data protection. The use of AI in software development presents challenges and limitations, including the need for accuracy and reliability. Privacy and data protection are crucial considerations in the development and use of AI technology, especially with what data is used to train these models. The impact of AI on various industries requires careful evaluation and ethical decision-making, not just “moving fast and breaking things”. AI’s ego is it’s problem: it thinks it’s correct when it’s not, and attempts to be convincing about things it can’t know for certain is true.

Wed, May 22, 2024

The problem with big projects

Today Jack and Paul discuss what's not been working with getting the next version of Fathom Analytics launched. They come up with a plan, in real-time, to overcome this hurdle and get back to a regular cadence of releases (i.e. not a big project). They also come up with a set of rules to govern internal projects.

Mon, May 06, 2024

The art of progress

Software is complex. This episode goes into the pros and cons of how Jack (developer) and Paul (designer) work in terms of how they each make progress in huge projects, start and execute tasks, and deal with analysis paralysis that comes with complicated things.

Mon, April 22, 2024

The road to version 4

It’s been a while since Jack and Paul have recorded an episode of this show, so there’s a lot to catch up on! A new marketing site was launched, we’re still a small team navigating focus, we’re working on a brand new version of our software, and we’ve prototyped a new ingest to be the fastest analytics ingest in the world.

Mon, December 18, 2023

Version 3.5 and the shape of things to come with Fathom Analytics

Last week, we released several new features in our software and a fresh coat of paint in the UI. Jack and Paul discuss these features and how they relate to what’s coming up next, and they chat through the pricing increase that happened simultaneously. Lastly, they talk about why analytics software is more expensive than most hosting.

Tue, November 14, 2023

Dealing with negative feedback

What do you do when you can’t always please all your customers? Jack and Paul discuss how they deal with negative feedback, the different types of negative feedback, when it’s valuable (and when it’s not), and even how they deal with negative feedback internally in the company.

Mon, October 30, 2023

SaaS founder time machine (questions)

Jack and Paul get into what’s going on inside Fathom Analytics right now, and then answer some questions about what it was like starting the company, what they’d do differently (or the same), and if there’s anything they’d change if they had to start Fathom again. Special thanks to Ben and Adam from the "Hackers Incorporated" podcast for the most of the questions answered on this episode.

Mon, October 16, 2023

Vacations for bootstrapped founders

Can bootstrapped founders take time off for vacation? Is that even legal? And under what circumstances is that possible? Jack and Paul dive into vacations for indie founders, as well as a short update on what’s going on with Fathom Analytics on this episode of Above Board.

Mon, September 25, 2023

Paul’s perfect day (for productivity)

Jack and Paul dive into Paul’s routine and how he approaches tasks and work that needs doing. They chat about motivation, complex work, focus and so much more. 

Mon, August 28, 2023

Consultants for Startups

Is it harder for startup founders to hire consultants when they’re used to being the ones who do all the work? Why hire a consultant in the first place? Why not hire full-time instead? Aren't good consultants ridiculously expensive? Jack and Paul dive into these questions and more on this episode about SaaS companies hiring consultants.

Mon, July 31, 2023

Justin Jackson and Paul Jarvis chat about starting and maintaining a SaaS

Old friends Justin and Paul catch up for the first time in years and catch each other up on the state of Transistor and Fathom. They cover lots of lessons for new and veteran entrepreneurs, spanning their decades of experience in the world of indie software: cofounders, markets, surfing, experience, product moats, free time, the importance of putting things out there, and so much more.

Mon, July 17, 2023

Is a lot of startup advice incorrect?

Maybe it’s not even that advice is “incorrect”, maybe it’s just that it’s simplified to the point of being uselessly reductive. Regardless, Jack and Paul get into dissecting popular business and startup advice found online, and see what fits, what doesn’t, and where nuance and reason should be liberally applied.

Mon, July 03, 2023

What does retirement look like for a SaaS founder?

Can we retire? Do we want to retire? Can we adjust our work now (pre-retirement) to get the most out of life while we’re still young (ish)? Jack and Paul dive into what retirement looks like both for each of them, but also what their retirement from Fathom could look like too.

Mon, June 26, 2023

What’s important when everything’s important in your company?

Jack and Paul get into a discussion about what happens when the company you started begins to do well, and you have to prioritize things that all seem equally important, and all seem like they need to get done at the same time. While they may not have any answers here, they do discuss what’s worked (and not worked) as far as Fathom Analytics is concerned.

Tue, June 06, 2023

No more branches, ever!

Jack and Paul discuss changes to how Fathom Analytics develops features, moving from long-lived branches to "continuous development." Why did we start doing this? What are the benefits? And most importantly, what could go wrong?

Mon, May 22, 2023

The saga of building our Google Analytics Importer

Universal Analytics is dead. GA4 is a dumpster fire of complexity. So what what did we do at Fathom? We build an importer to save your historical data from Google. How’d we build it? Why’d it take so long? What worked and what didn’t work? Jack and Paul get into the whole story about building one of their biggest features.

Mon, May 08, 2023

How our SaaS company approaches marketing and promotion

Back in 2020, we recorded an episode about all our marketing efforts to grow our software company. In this new episode, we look at what we’ve changed, what’s still the same, what we’ve abandoned in terms of how we promote our bootstrapped company, and look ahead at what our marketing strategy could be. Meowing cats, TikTok kids dancing to analytics, and costumed protestors — all this and more.

Mon, April 24, 2023

Ruben Gamez on marketing, long-term success and making the right decisions as business owners

You don't need to have a huge audience or social following to start and build a successful and sustainable business. People have started companies this way for centuries. Jack and Paul speak with Ruben today on how marketing and sales work at his companies, how he's managed to succeed long term with two companies, what a lot of bootstrap founders get wrong and so much more. Ruben Gamez is the founder of Bidsketch and SignWell and can be found on twitter at @earthlingworks

Mon, April 10, 2023

How to build a multi-million dollar SaaS without funding (an interview with Rob Walling)

Jack and Rob Walling get into the nitty gritty of running a SaaS company with an honest and transparent conversation, based around Rob’s new book: The SaaS Playbook. You can learn more or pick up a copy of the book at https://saasplaybook.com/ .

Mon, March 27, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank and bootstrapped companies

In this episode, Jack and Paul chat about what happened with SVB, if they feel that more banks are going to fail, how it affected and could affect indie or bootstrapped companies, and how they’d (this is not legal advice, just opinions loosely held) fix things if they were in charge.

Mon, March 13, 2023

Matt Wensing on Product Market Fit, raising money and enterprise sales in SaaS

Our guest today was Matt Wensing, the founder of Summit. Jack and Matt get into an in-depth conversation about: What things do many entrepreneurs get wrong? How to pivot well, starting a business with slow funding. Why crowdfunding may be a bad idea for investors. How his SaaS excels at enterprise sales (and why it's their main focus) Summit is a zero-party marketing data platform - usesummit.com . Matt Wensing can be found on Twitter at @ mattwensing . 45m

Mon, February 27, 2023

Can makers become managers?

Jack and Paul discuss changes at Fathom Analytics. What used to work in the past in terms of workflows and specs is no longer working and actively blocking them from moving forward as quickly as they’d like. So, they sat down, formulated a plan, and shared it on this episode.

Mon, February 13, 2023

Are programmers going to be replaced by OpenAI?

In today’s episode Paul and Jack get into using AI to help write code for software. Is it useful? Is it accurate? Can it be used to write entire applications? And most important of all, will OpenAI tools like Github’s CoPilot eventually replace developers and take their jobs?

Mon, January 30, 2023

Jack and Paul answer your questions (Pt. 2)

Listeners and customers sent in their questions for us to answer, and we did just that! Questions about burnout, Google Analytics importer, our new hires, and more.

Mon, January 16, 2023

Jack and Paul answer your questions (Pt. 1)

Listeners and customers sent in their questions for us to answer, and we did just that! Questions about our brand, infrastructure, upcoming features, and more.

Mon, October 24, 2022

Paul and Jack are back

Jack and Paul catch up on the last few weeks. They cover a wide range of topics including: Do you really know what your weather forecast means, dots on charts, T-Rexs hunting you at coffee shops, wobbly desks, hiring our first customer support person (exciting!), Peppa Pig Land, North Korea, existential developer crisis’, Winnie the Pooh and so much more.

Mon, August 29, 2022

A brief history of (Fathom Analytics) time

In this episode, Jack and Paul look back to the beginnings of Fathom Analytics (which started in 2018). There was no big break here or instant success. Instead, it was a series of small bets, iterations, and tiny risks. Thankfully enough of them paid off and moved us forward enough to go from a side project to full-time jobs, not only for us, the cofounders, but for our employees too.

Mon, August 15, 2022

Can bootstrapped startups survive a recession?

When the economy is hurting, do small businesses have to suffer? Jack and Paul discuss how Fathom is (hopefully) built to be able to weather financial storms by not growing beyond our means at any given time and because we optimize for where we’re at, not where we hope to be if things go well. May all the huge hyper-growth companies who are laying off their staff could learn a little from leanly-run bootstrapped companies.

Mon, July 25, 2022

The art of making great decisions for your business

It’s no secret: Fathom Analytics is growing. So what are Jack and Paul deciding to do about growth regarding development, support, and the business in general? How do they decide how to make the best decisions for the growing business and its long-term sustainability? Tune into this week’s episode to find out (hint: we’re hiring 197 people tomorrow).

Tue, July 12, 2022

When the business itself becomes the distraction

Today Jack and Paul get very candid about what’s going on with Fathom Analytics lately, specifically regarding distractions. At the beginning of a bootstrapped business, other things are distracting (like how you make the bulk of your revenue). But eventually, as a bootstrapped business grows, it becomes a distraction from the product in and of itself—because you’ve got to juggle support, taxes, running a growing company, hiring, and so much more. So you can’t just remove distractions because the distraction (your company) is just as important as the product you’re building.

Mon, June 20, 2022

Can Matt Damon save Coinbase?

At the time of recording this episode, Coinbase just laid off 18% of their workforce and they rescinded all job offers that had already been already accepted. Jack and Paul have a lively discussion about fast-growth, Big Tech monopolies, and whether or not the best way to compete with monopolies is to change the game and focus on slow, sustainable growth (instead of market share or competition).

Mon, June 06, 2022

Does Jack Scale?

Jack and Paul talk about a wide array of topics related to running a growing software company. From how the job of cofounder changes as a company grows, from using your skillset to becoming more of a manager; to how their minds are changing about enterprise plans; to ensuring a product company isn’t wholly reliant on a single customer; to how Fathom’s tech stack has changed lately; to the importance of moving slowly to move quickly. Jack talks through the reasons for moving Fathom’s codebase from Ember JS to Inertia.js and Vue.js.

Mon, May 23, 2022

Dr. Sherry Walling on the mind of entrepreneurs

Jack and Dr. Sherry Walling dive deep into our minds to discuss burnout, depression, the benefits of neurological diversification, the mental health fallout from Covid, psychedelic assisted therapy, and more for people who work for themselves. They also get into the mindset, values and traits of becoming and sustaining going out on your own as an entrepreneur. Dr. Walling is a clinical psychologist, speaker, podcaster, best-selling author, yoga teacher, and mental health advocate. Her company, ZenFounder , provides mental wellness resources to leaders and entrepreneurs as they navigate transition, loss, conflict, or any manner of complex human experience. 

Mon, May 09, 2022

Is Google Analytics 4 a middle finger to SMBs?

Universal Analytics (the version most people use) of Google Analytics is being sunset shortly. And worse, there's no path to migrate that data into GA4 (their new product). But even worse still, they'll be deleting all Universal Analytics data as well. Yikes! Jack and Paul ruminate on why Google Analytics is so awful to use, so hard to understand, and why it feels like Google doesn't care about the end user of their software. Is it because free users of GA aren't their true customers? Is it because Google is tired of being bogged down by privacy rulings against them? Is it because SMBs weren't converting to their paid GA360? Or, is it because the true customers of Google Analytics data are advertisers, not the website owners who install GA?

Mon, April 25, 2022

Jordan Gal on competing with giants

Jack and Jordan share stories from the front lines of indie companies. Starting and running a software business, mistakes made along the way, exiting a company built from the ground up, living with bigger competitors who get all the industry press, and so much more. They also get into the rise and meteoric fall of Fast, who raised over $120m in funding, ended up only making around $600k in revenue total, and then shutting down. Jordan discusses his point of view on what mistakes they made as a company and how they moved far too fast (pun intended). Jordan's company Rally helps online merchants offer a more profitable checkout, post-purchase offers, and helping boost conversions.

Mon, April 11, 2022

Is product market fit really just luck?

Jack and Paul briefly chat about launching a few small features in Fathom Analytics: search filters, event currencies and a graph update. They also try to think through whether or not validating "Product Market Fit" is something you can plan for, just luck into, or if it's simply a trailing metric you can only learn after the fact.

Mon, March 28, 2022

How we've failed

Jack and Paul discuss our business failures... past, present and possibly even future ones. Even with Fathom, there was a point were it was only doing a couple grand a month and didn't feel like a success (so why keep going with it?) The answer to that and much more in this episode. Jack also announced that the Google Analytics import feature for Fathom will be released before April 1st.

Mon, March 14, 2022

Growth is testing Fathom

How a higher than usual growth rate has been affecting Fathom Analytics.

Tue, March 01, 2022

How can small businesses make a difference to Ukraine?

Businesses aren’t people, but they’re run by people. That means your own values can help inform actions and stands you take. With Fathom, we’ve always been a values-driven company and don’t shy away from letting our customers and audience know how we feel about certain topics, so when Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, we decided that Fathom should do something.

Mon, February 21, 2022

Should we take funding? (feat. Rob Walling)

See:  https://usefathom.com/above-board/rob-walling

Mon, February 07, 2022

When to spend money

Often in business, people talk a lot (or only) about the money they make and not about the money they spend to run their business. And it’s important to consider how much of your revenue you should be spending, what to be spending your money on, and how to best prioritize what expenses should before others.

Mon, January 24, 2022

What it took to get Fathom off the ground: Jack and Paul interviewed

In this episode we were joined by our buddy Brian Casel, the founder of ZipMessage, to interview us on the backstory of Fathom and what it took to get Fathom off the ground.

Mon, January 17, 2022

EU Ruling: Google Analytics is now illegal

In this episode Jack and Paul talk about the ruling from the Austrian DPA stating that Google analytics is illegal. Who does this affect? What can be done? Did Fathom Analytics have the inside scoop on this, and that’s why they created EU Isolation in 2021? All this and more in today’s episode."

Mon, January 10, 2022

Our daily routines

Mon, December 27, 2021

Paul quit the internet… again?!

Paul has once again quit the internet, but this time he’s left Twitter (namely, this personal Twitter account). What does this mean for Fathom, if anything? NFTs were the final (minor) straw Fathom’s recent launch of FathomCatz was the final straw in my decision to leave Twitter behind. I was excited to launch this fun new project, thought through the environmental aspect of blockchain things, and set up a local animal shelter to donate most of the proceeds to. But then, the second I shared it, a troll surfaced to cut down my tweet. At first, I was mad, but then I realized: I don’t feel like defending myself and my ideas to everyone, everywhere, all the time. I don’t need to “be right” to others who don’t matter. I don’t need to argue with strangers. I don’t need my attention and mental bandwidth to be taken up by social media. So while the NFT troll didn’t matter and wasn’t why I left, it was the final straw (of thousands) that led to the decision to remove my Twitter account permanently. Does this decision impact Fathom? Initially (i.e. years ago when Fathom Analytics started), a large chunk of new customers and awareness for Fathom came from my personal audience—via my mailing list and my writing . Currently, this is no longer the case. Fathom isn’t just “Paul and Jack do software”; it’s its own brand. Sure, “Paul and Jack” the people are part of it, but the order goes Fathom first as the brand, then us. So while removing my personal Twitter account could impact sales and growth with Fathom, it’s undoubtedly very minor. And, we have no plans to get rid of our Fathom Twitter account . We’ve (especially myself) been very conscious about how we build the brand for Fathom : where the product is always first (or our cats are first?), and Jack and my personalities are a far second. Yes, who we are as cofounders of the company matters a great deal, but it’s the most important thing. And thankfully, we’re now at a place where my personal brand disappearing shouldn’t have a noticeable impact. Scale scales negativity When you have a small audience, there’s typically less negativity because there are just fewer people. But as an audience grows (as mine did), the number of trolls also increases. Tim Ferriss has written about this (and the negative aspects of fame), as his audience is as big as you

Mon, December 13, 2021

Sharing MRR is egotistical

Jack and Paul get into the pros and cons of indie companies sharing their MRR and MRR milestones publicly. There’s definitely an appeal to sharing this, as many companies do, but is it worth doing, or more importantly, actually helpful, useful or beneficial to do so? Or, is sharing your gross revenue, just gross?

Mon, November 29, 2021

Adblockers & breaking the law

In today’s episode Jack and Paul get into why they had to roll back a piece of a new feature they spent a year building (and had to delete an episode of this show). As well as touching on why ad-blockers hate us in the most misguided way, why our EU isolation is such an important feature, and most importantly, why Fathom doesn’t simply guess at privacy laws - we hire multiple experts to inform our decisions. Not going as far as we do in the legal department would put our customers at legal risk.

Mon, November 08, 2021

Announcing: custom domains and EU isolation

Jack and Paul get into all the juicy details for newly launched Fathom features that were a year in the making. What are these updates to custom domains? What is EU isolation and why does it matter? Wait, why are ad-blockers sometimes wrong? Tune in to this episode and get full the scoop.

Mon, October 18, 2021

The episode where we initially think there’s nothing new, but in actuality a whole ton of things are new

Sometimes Jack and Paul feel like every day is groundhog day, and that not much changes day-to-day. But in reality, lots has been launched, updated, changed, and made progress on. Including: a content survey, a new freelance writer, Fathom NFTs, open-sourcing a Fathom project, disabling MRR emails and how we think about support as it relates to growth.

Mon, September 27, 2021

What’s been happening at Fathom?

Jack and Paul get into all the things that have been happening behind the scenes at Fathom Analytics, including: a new graph, some nerdy details about infrastructure updates, better labels for data on our dashboard, the new high traffic page, and our latest multi-domains feature.

Mon, August 30, 2021

The pros and cons of being the Chief Hype Officer

Jack and Paul discuss what it means to work in public and tweet about “coming soon” features. They also talk about how the momentum from releasing new features plays a pivot role in Fathom’s growth, and how it’s simply not possible to stay on the feature momentum train at all times. usefathom.com/above-board

Mon, August 16, 2021

Interview with the the founder of Carrd: going from bootstrapping to raising venture capital

On today’s show, Jack and Paul speak to the enigmatic and mysterious founder of Carrd, “AJ”. Carrd is a single page website builder that started in 2016 and now has over 2 million users, 3 million sites and is doing over $1 million in ARR. Our conversation covered how Carrd caught on and grew, what led Kim Kardashian to share a Carrd website, and why AJ decided to accept venture capital funding for his business. 

Mon, August 02, 2021

What’s the best pricing model for a SaaS?

Should you compete on price? Should you go after lots of smaller customers or a few massive customers? In this episode Jack and Paul have an honest conversation about who Fathom is for, and who Fathom isn’t for. They discuss pricing, enterprise customers, and how they are adapting the business to be more in line with the specific type of customers that best suit the software.

Mon, July 19, 2021

Hiring, firing and retiring

Jack and Paul figure out live, on-the-air, how they want to approach bringing more people into Fathom to work on the core product and integrations. They also cover the “VC vs non-VC: fight!” debate and where Fathom’s operating philosophy fits.

Mon, July 05, 2021

Version 3 is live

Jack and Paul get candid about the behind-the-scenes of launching a major software product release (previously known as “v3). What went wrong, what went right, how feedback is going, and of course, what’s next.

Mon, June 21, 2021

Privacy stories: The Markup

In this episode Jack and Paul speak with Julia Angwin, the co-founder and editor in chief of The Markup, a newsroom who uses technology to investigate technology (Big Tech). The conversation covered why The Markup is a non-profit, what their methods for investigating are, why digital privacy is important, and what the potential solutions are to fixing Big Tech’s inclinations towards deviousness.

Fri, June 11, 2021

Drug abuse and WWDC

Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Jack’s gone from 6 or more shots of espresso daily to cold turkey—and has been noticing a clearer head and improved thought processes. As well as a lively discussion about caffeine, Jack and Paul chat about the latest news from WWDC as it relates to privacy, as well as a brand new (secret) Fathom podcast project which Paul is working on. usefathom.com

Tue, May 25, 2021

It doesn’t have to be fascist at work

Jack and Paul share their views on the turmoil at Basecamp and why they deleted the episode of this podcast that featured DHH. They also talk a lot about what’s coming as far as updates to Fathom (and v3), and why Fathom has switched from “coming soon” marketing to “now” marketing… and what that means. https://usefathom.com/podcast/basecamp

Tue, May 11, 2021

Privacy stories: Sparktoro

Today Paul caught up with Rand Fiskhin, co-founder of Sparktoro (market research + audience intelligence SaaS). They spoke about starting a business at the start of the pandemic, why aggregated data (i.e. trends) can useful, why Rand isn’t growing a huge company but hiring consultants instead. And, of course a lively debate about digital privacy and targeted advertising.

Tue, April 20, 2021

Privacy stories: HEY + David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

In this episode, Jack and Paul speak with David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the co-founder of Basecamp and now HEY email. We got to chat about taking on big tech with a new software company, all things digital privacy (and spy pixels), why privacy now is like organic food in the 90s (minus the hippies in Birkenstocks and ponchos), and much, much more.

Mon, April 05, 2021

Investing in relationships

https://usefathom.com/podcast

Mon, March 22, 2021

How to destroy the privacy of your entire customer base with a single line of code

Jack and Paul give their professional(ish) opinion the weight and risks of using external scripts on a website. They talk about what is considered with Fathom's embed script and what the ramifactions are of other scripts (like Facebook). There's also a touch of cryptocurrency, pair programming and a smattering of database migration too.

Fri, March 05, 2021

Why ad-blockers are completely wrong

A quick catchup with Jack “and team” about what’s going on with Fathom and our upcoming V3 release. As well as why we believe ad-blockers got it wrong about unilaterally blocking all third-party scripts… and why that’s fired us up to create something that’s (as Jack puts it), “completely unblockable”. Here more episodes at usefathom.com/podcast

Fri, February 19, 2021

We landed a whale!

A virtual cornucopia of topics in this week’s show. We cover getting an amazing new customer using Fathom, the DogeCoin revolution and investing in general, and of course, some very specific details and features that are coming soon to Version 3 of Fathom.

Wed, January 20, 2021

We don’t want your business

If you’re starting a new business (like a SaaS) you may think, “let’s make this a really low price so that everyone will use it because it’s really cheap”. A race to the bottom in pricing is never a good idea (both for you or your customers). Jack and Paul discuss why the best-case scenario with that idea is you’ll get screwed by your own growth. usefathom.com

Sat, December 12, 2020

Paul quit the internet

What happened when Paul quit the internet? What does it mean for Fathom? What does it mean for Jack now having to field every Paul-related tweet? This, and talking about professionalism/tone as a business, all in today’s episode. usefathom.com

Fri, December 04, 2020

Privacy stories: Fastmail

In this episode Jack and Paul speak with Bron Gondwana, the CEO of Fastmail and how they’ve managed to run their privacy-focused email software since 1999. The conversation covers balancing privacy with real-world usability, competing with one of the worlds biggest tech company, why they no longer offer a free product, and much more. usefathom.com

Fri, November 20, 2020

Someone tried to put us out of business

A malicious person decided they wanted to have a go at ruining our company and it’s reputation. In this episode Paul interviews Jack about a high level attack that was targeted at Fathom Analytics. We cover what happened, how we responded and talked to our customers about it, and then what we’re doing to mitigate this type of threat in the future. usefathom.com

Fri, November 13, 2020

Privacy stories: DuckDuckGo

Jack and Paul connect with DuckDuckGo’s Communications Manager, Daniel Davis to chat about their search business, DDG's take on digital privacy, and how DDG competes with big tech (Google). This is the first of many episodes where we speak with other companies in the digital privacy space. usefathom.com

Fri, September 04, 2020

We're taking a break

Jack and Paul talk about taking a short break from this show until November or so. Also hear Paul lose his sh*t about the state of banking in Canada, a bit more on enterprise sales processes, and how they're slightly tweaking their charitable donations. usefathom.com

Fri, August 28, 2020

Building an audience, analytics & virtue signalling

Jack and Paul get into a smorgasbord of topics on today’s show including: Jack’s Laracon talk, building an audience, what to do about all the virtue signalling in the ethical product space and much, European privacy laws and their impact on American businesses and services, and much more. usefathom.com

Fri, August 21, 2020

Being competitive, YouTube and going viral

On today’s episode Jack and Paul chat about using competitiveness to your advantage, the good and bad of video games, how we dealt with a very viral customer, the logic of a privacy-focused company like Fathom using a platform like Youtube and Jack’s upcoming Laracon talk. usefathom.com

Fri, August 14, 2020

Credit cards, trust and why people buy indie software products

On today’s show Jack and Paul talk about the reasons Fathom asks for a credit card up front, and how that impacts our growth. They also get into why people buy certain SaaS products. As an added bonus, Jack calculates how much it’d cost you to use Facebook is they removed any/all ads and targeting and charged their users instead. Spoiler: it’s a LOT less than you think. usefathom.com

Fri, August 07, 2020

New hires and vacations

On today's show Paul and Jack chat about bringing a privacy officer on board, why taking proper breaks are important (even if you run an indie business) and what we are considering for the future of Fathom Analytics (version 3). Jack makes a joke about steak-cations, which does not land well. usefathom.com

Sat, August 01, 2020

Bad CEOs and Cat Jumpers

Jack and Paul dissect a few issues they've had with other companies and leadership at those companies, and then how those companies responded (both the good and the bad). usefathom.com

Fri, July 17, 2020

SaaS collaboration tools, organization, pancakes and more

Jack and Paul answer questions from listeners today, including: our favourite pancake recipe, the tools/apps we use to collaborate, how we determine hiring vs bringing on cofounder vs freelancers, and our full design and development processes. We also touch on food and routines (because it's not an episode without Paul mentioning he's vegan). usefathom.com

Fri, July 10, 2020

You’re fired!

Jack and Paul speak about having to fire a customer for the first time. It was tough, but it had to be done. They also discuss boundaries, tolerance and office politics. usefathom.com

Fri, July 03, 2020

Wealth

We’re not trying to sell you anything right now, we’re only here to share our experiences making money working for ourselves. The techniques discussed in this podcast episode can help you generate millions of dollars. usefathom.com/podcast

Thu, June 11, 2020

Are you a bad person if you use YouTube?

Jack and Paul get into if Fathom should create and post videos to YouTube (which is obviously owned by Google). Are you a bad person if you watch YouTube? Are you a worse person if you upload videos to their service? usefathom.com

Thu, May 28, 2020

Is Joe Rogan a sell out?

Joe Rogan recently signed an exclusivity deal worth $100M with Spotify which goes into effect sometime after September 2020. Is this a trend towards the end of podcasts being a free and open platform? Is this moving more towards how televisions shows have functioned with networks since the start? Are listeners going to suffer or benefit from deals like this? Jack and Paul debate the pros & cons… two enter the cage, one leaves (sorry, we had to make a bad MMA joke). usefathom.com

Mon, May 25, 2020

Were we wrong about enterprise customers?

Jack and Paul discuss the pros and cons of supporting enterprise clients, along with a SPECIAL GUEST: Ben Orenstein from Tuple. How are thinking about working with bigger clients while still ensuring our smaller clients are happy and taken care of? usefathom.com

Fri, May 15, 2020

Customer happiness over money

A lot of businesses put money before their customers’ happiness. We’ve all been there: we get a bill for a yearly subscription, but didn’t get any warning about the charge happening. And then, if we want to cancel, have to go through the onerous process of cancelling… sometimes via phone, to get the charge (hopefully) reserved. Jack and Paul dive into this topic, explain why Fathom doesn’t do this (and why it works out well), as well as cover several other topics like general expenses, standing desks and new features in our privacy-focused website analytics software. https://usefathom.com

Fri, May 08, 2020

Capitalism and copycats and communism, oh my!

Jack and Paul talk about the benefits and problems involving taking venture capital for a software company, what we think about competitors copying us, and why “free markets” should potentially have some limits or at least some regulations. usefathom.com

Fri, April 24, 2020

Why was the first $10k MRR the hardest?

Learn more at usefathom.com

Tue, March 24, 2020

Fighting with COVID-19

Paul and Jack get brutally honest about the current pandemic, and it’s horrible effect on small businesses. Oh, and they also get into cruise ship bailouts, the Canadian government (and what they’re doing right), and building toilet paper roll forts while video conferencing.

Tue, March 10, 2020

Why do programmers suck at design?

Jack and Paul dive deep into what goes into a design (if you're a designer, like Paul), and talk about the value of design. Jack queries Paul about his process and approach, and how developers can learn a few tips to make their designs suck a little less. 

Tue, February 25, 2020

Jack is leaving

It's the end for Jack, as he has a heart to heart discussion about wrapping things up for good.

Tue, February 11, 2020

Being a solo founder sucks

As you know, Jack and Paul are the cofounders of Fathom Analytics, a 50/50 split. What do they think about working as cofounders? Is it better to be a solo founder? What are benefits of only making half as much (and giving the rest to someone else)? Let's dive in on this nail-biting episode.

Tue, January 28, 2020

Every single marketing effort Fathom has used thus far

From content marketing, to paid ads, to social media, Jack and Paul dive into every single type of marketing they’ve done to promote Fathom. They talk about the effectiveness of each, as well as the difference between “marketing as brand awareness” vs “marketing as driving conversions”. Paul also drops a #thoughtleader bombshell, “Marketing is talking when you have something to say, not just when you have something to sell”.

Tue, January 14, 2020

How many hours of work is enough?

Jack and Paul ring in the new year with a hearty debate about how many hours you need to work per week. Is it as simple as “no more than 40”, or is this debate more nuanced?

Tue, December 03, 2019

How to win friends and influence features

https://usefathom.com

Mon, November 18, 2019

The open-source dilemma

https://usefathom.com

Trailer · Wed, November 13, 2019

Announcing Above Board, an episode about all future episodes, also known as a trailer

Welcome to the Above Board Podcast. In this podcast Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis will discuss all things Fathom Analytics (the product they co-own), ethics and business, and whatever else comes up as they build and sell their software product. Learn more at usefathom.com