Above Board
Fathom Analytics
A podcast exploring running an indie + bootstrapped software (SaaS) company. Follow Jack and Paul (the co-founders) in their journey of building and growing Fathom Analytics.
Published every two weeks, listen in on lively debates about profit, customers, software, and how they’re working to keep their business in line with their values.
This is a podcast from Fathom Analytics (usefathom.com).
Published every two weeks, listen in on lively debates about profit, customers, software, and how they’re working to keep their business in line with their values.
This is a podcast from Fathom Analytics (usefathom.com).
Episodes
Mentioned books
Dec 4, 2020 • 30min
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
Nov 20, 2020 • 25min
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
Nov 13, 2020 • 54min
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
Sep 4, 2020 • 26min
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
Aug 28, 2020 • 38min
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
Aug 21, 2020 • 37min
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
Aug 14, 2020 • 40min
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
Aug 7, 2020 • 29min
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
Aug 1, 2020 • 36min
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
Jul 17, 2020 • 33min
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
