PLG Strategy: Fixing Retention to Hit $1M ARR | Fathom

Richard White is the founder and CEO of Fathom, the #1 rated AI note-taking app that automatically captures and summarizes meetings. Today, Fathom has over 175,000 active companies using it monthly, but the early days were a struggle to find product-market fit. In this episode, Richard reveals why he refused to monetize until he solved retention first. He shares the "Session" metric mistake that plagues most analytics tools, how a 100,000-user spike from Zoom nearly broke the company (and why 99% of them were low quality), and the counter-intuitive decision to offer a generous free plan that competitors charged for. 🔑 Key Lessons 📉 Retention First: Why Richard refused to charge a dollar until user retention was stable, and why "First 10 Customers" is the wrong goal. 🚀 The Zoom Spike: What happened when Zoom sent them 100,000 signups in one month (and why only 100 stuck). 💡 Free Forever Strategy: How giving away unlimited recording for free created a viral loop that paid ads couldn't match. 🛠️ The "Fake Call" Feature: How adding a bot to simulate a meeting solved their biggest activation problem. 🔄 Serial Founder Advantage: How Richard "speed-ran" Fathom by bringing his best engineers from his previous exit (UserVoice). 📖 Chapters Welcome and Introduction Fathom: The AI Note Taker Richard's Background and Early Ventures The Journey to UserVoice Founding Fathom: From Idea to Execution Building and Scaling Fathom Challenges and Early User Acquisition Zoom Marketplace Launch and Initial Struggles Improving Onboarding Processes Challenges and Silver Linings Monetization and Market Shifts Balancing Growth and Monetization Launching the Team Plan Overcoming Skepticism and Leveraging Virality Expanding Beyond Zoom Rapid Growth with AI Integration Insights and Reflections Lightning Round: Business Advice and Personal Insights This episode is brought to you by: 👉 This episode is sponsored by Mailtrap. Try it at Mailtrap.io — use code THESAASPODCAST for 20% off Resources: 🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/449 🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email 💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus