2 builders who never spoke to each other

Frame paying you as joining a side

Name the adversary in the positioning line and say what you do about them, so the purchase reads as a stance rather than a line item on a card statement. Calling your paying customers the people who fund the roadmap makes the same point from the other direction, since it explains why their requests decide what gets built.

The method

1. 01

   Frame paying you as joining a side, so the purchase reads as a stance rather than a line item.

2. 02

   Call your customers your investors, and point out that this is why their requests decide the roadmap.

3. 03

   Write a tagline that names the adversary and states what you do about them, so the positioning is legible in one line.

What it returned

• Fathom tells buyers they are joining a growing set of people refusing Big Tech and declining to fund surveillance-based business models.

• Fathom describes thousands of customers as its investors, and contrasts that with venture-backed companies that must weigh what their funders want against what customers want.

• The Markup's line casts Big Tech as the watcher and the newsroom as the party watching it back, which rules out participating in ad tech or data broking.

Sources

• Why Fathom Analytics doesn’t have a free plan - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · Is Fathom Analytics free? · 2023-09-18
• Privacy Stories: The Markup - Fathom AnalyticsJulia Angwin · usefathom.com · A non-profit newsroom · 2021-06-21