Outfoxed Rand Fishkin - "Build your company to optimize for the things you're great at"
The third episode of the Outfoxed podcast by Hunter.io features Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of SparkToro (and former cofounder of Moz). As a longtime leader in digital marketing, Rand has spent more than two decades helping companies understand where their audiences are and how to reach them effectively. His work has shaped how marketers think about SEO, audience research, and the balance between data and creativity.
Today, Matt and Rand cut through the noise to talk about how SparkToro navigated a hard pivot off social media to clickstream data, why zero-click marketing changes how success is measured, and how founders can find their first 100 customers by focusing on channels they genuinely enjoy (including offline ones) instead of chasing trends. They also discuss the limits of AI-generated content and why judgment still matters more than automation.
This episode offers practical lessons for founders, marketers, and creators — packed with data, candor, and grounded advice from someone who’s built and rebuilt in public.
Podcast Episode Highlights:
- How SparkToro survived losing its primary data source and rebuilt from scratch
- Why your first 100 customers should come from channels you actually enjoy
- The rise of zero-click marketing and what it means for audience research
- Why AI is a useful tool but a poor substitute for human creativity
About Rand Fishkin:
Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of SparkToro, an audience research software company that helps marketers identify where their ideal customers spend time online. Known for his contrarian approach to entrepreneurship, Rand has earned a reputation for challenging Silicon Valley norms while building enduring, profitable companies.
A Seattle native, Rand attended the University of Washington before leaving to help rescue his mother’s struggling marketing firm from debt. That company became Moz, which he co-founded in 2004 and led as CEO from 2007 to 2014. Under his leadership, Moz grew from a seven-person blog into a global, 200+ employee SaaS company that generated over $50 million in annual revenue.
At Moz, Rand launched the Whiteboard Friday video series, co-authored “The Art of SEO,” and played a pivotal role in making SEO education accessible to millions at a time when the industry was notoriously secretive. He was named to BusinessWeek’s 30 Under 30 and became one of the most recognized educators in digital marketing, keynoting more than a hundred conferences worldwide.
After leaving Moz in 2018, Rand cofounded SparkToro, which pioneered an alternative, transparent funding model and built tools that help marketers discover where their audiences actually spend time. His 2018 book, “Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World,” drew widespread attention for its candid take on venture capital, founder burnout, and mental health in tech. He also cofounded Snackbar Studio, an independent game company that experiments with creative funding models.
He lives in Seattle with his wife, award-winning author and travel blogger Geraldine DeRuiter.
Learn more about Rand and SparkToro via:
Credits:
Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm.