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A Sleeping Giant Taking on GA4 📟
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Finlay Williams
October 10, 2024
2 minute wacky businesses, you can tell your buddies about 🧠
Fathom Analytics is your quirky privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics, minus the spy vibes. Founded by Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis in 2018, this business didn’t just get on the field; they bulldozed it. Their annual revenue is a casual $1 million+. To top it off, they’ve open sourced the platform and attempting to take on Google Analytics.
Custom Models and Surprising Success 🧐
Paul(an AMA link!), a minimalist entrepreneur and author of "Company of One," teamed up with Jack Ellis to create Fathom, a privacy-first, no-nonsense, open-source analytics tool. Fathom was born as a side project but quickly gained traction as concerns/complications about data privacy started to spike after the introduction of GDPR in Europe.
They also made the bold decision to make Fathom open source, letting anyone run their own version of the platform. While that might sound counterintuitive for a SaaS company, it was a deliberate move to foster trust and transparency. They’ve turned what most analytics companies call a weakness (not tracking personal data) into a huge strength.
Pretty clean interface too
What are the nuggets? 💎
🌮 Origin: Paul Jarvis had already been running a successful business as an author, designer, and online course creator. Initially, Fathom was built as a side project, with the duo aiming to solve their own problem: simplifying website analytics while respecting privacy. They started small, but as data privacy concerns began to grow globally, Fathom quickly found a niche audience.
🌮 Interesting insight: “That screenshot was posted [on Twitter] for fun, but it spread like wildfire. Soon hundreds of people were offering to pay us for the real thing. So, we built it. First as an open-source project (which has now been downloaded millions of times). Then, as a paid and hosted product, which is the Fathom Analytics you see today” - Paul & Jack, Co-founders of Fathom.
🌮 Pivotal Moment: Fathom’s journey has been shaped by radical decisions that reflect the indie hacker ethos. They made it open source, allowing anyone to contribute to or run their own version of Fathom. This decision came not from a desire to scale rapidly or profit immensely, but to provide a true alternative to the ad-driven, privacy-invading analytics platforms dominating the market. COUGH Google analytics COUGH
🌮 Unexpected growth: Despite the slow, organic growth, Fathom has become a six-figure business without a single dime of outside investment. They managed to build a tool that doesn’t just promise privacy, it actually delivers by not collecting personal data at all.
Recommendation 🌟
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