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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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/.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.