171: The Founder Flywheel: Retention First, Revenue Second | Richard White

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Written By damon lembi

Richard White, CEO & Founder of Fathom, is a three-time founder and one of the early alumni of Y Combinator. In this episode, host Damon Lembi and Richard unpack what it means to build viral, product-led businesses – and how AI can transform every meeting from a time sink into a growth engine. Together, they explore startup wisdom, sales-free scaling, and the future of knowledge work.

Read the full breakdown of Richard White’s episode on Learnit.

Key Leadership Lessons from Richard White’s Journey:

  • Retention over revenue. Richard delayed monetization to obsess over retention—and that’s what ultimately fueled word-of-mouth growth.

  • Meetings aren’t broken, how we capture them is: By reframing meetings as raw material for insight, Fathom turns routine conversations into knowledge assets.

  • Your job as a founder? Clarity. Whether it's onboarding users or coaching teams, Richard believes that communicating the “why” is a leader’s most important job.

Connect with Richard White:

Richard White is the founder of Fathom, the AI-powered meeting assistant redefining how teams work. His previous ventures include UserVoice, and his insights have helped shape how companies think about product-led growth, customer feedback, and asynchronous collaboration.

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