Jack Ellis was a software developer from the UK who had built several side projects. Paul Jarvis was a well-known author and designer with a large audience from his book "Company of One" and his newsletter. They found each other through a shared conviction: Google Analytics was a privacy nightmare, and the world needed an alternative.

The Privacy Opportunity

When GDPR took effect in May 2018, every website in Europe suddenly needed cookie consent banners. Google Analytics, which tracks users across the web with cookies, became a compliance headache. Many website owners were asking: "Do I really need all this tracking? My Google Analytics dashboard is overwhelming and I only check pageviews anyway."

Paul Jarvis had built a minimal, open-source analytics tool and was looking for a technical co-founder to turn it into a real product. Jack Ellis, fresh from building his own analytics projects, was the perfect partner.

The Fathom Approach

• **No cookies** — No consent banners needed (GDPR/CCPA compliant by design)
• **No personal data** — Doesn't track individuals, only aggregate pageviews
• **One-page dashboard** — Everything you need on a single screen
• **Fast script** — Under 2KB (vs Google Analytics at 45KB+)

The product deliberately did less than Google Analytics — and that was the selling point. Most website owners were drowning in data they never used.

Building in Public

• Monthly revenue numbers on Twitter
• Technical decisions and architecture changes
• Privacy policy analysis and GDPR/CCPA guidance
• Why they chose to stay bootstrapped

Paul's existing audience (from "Company of One" and his newsletter with 30K+ subscribers) provided the initial distribution. Jack's technical transparency attracted developers who cared about performance and privacy.

The V2 Rewrite

In 2020, Jack rewrote Fathom from scratch (V1 was Laravel/PHP, V2 was Go + custom analytics engine). The rewrite was necessary to handle scale — by then, Fathom was processing billions of pageviews monthly.

The technical blog posts about the rewrite became some of Fathom's most popular content, attracting developers who appreciated the engineering depth.

Growing Against Free

Each Google Analytics controversy (data sharing with advertisers, GA4 migration chaos, EU regulatory actions) drove a wave of Fathom signups.

Staying Bootstrapped

• The business was profitable from early on
• Privacy analytics doesn't need blitzscaling
• VC pressure to grow might compromise privacy values
• They wanted to build a "Company of One" (Paul literally wrote the book)

• ARR: $100K+ (reached in ~2 years, continuing to grow)
• Customers: Thousands of paying customers globally
• Script size: <2KB (vs Google Analytics 45KB+)
• Cookie consent: Not required (no cookies, no personal data)
• Infrastructure: Custom Go analytics engine, processes billions of pageviews
• Pricing: From $14/month (100K pageviews) to custom enterprise plans
• Team: 2 co-founders + small team (Company of One philosophy)