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.
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...
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
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.
https://usefathom.com/podcast
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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...
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
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 ...
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
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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.
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.
