Things that influenced us
Books
- Nexus (Noah Yuval Harrari)
- All About Love (Bell Hooks)
- PostHog Handbook
Companies:
- Costco
- ruthlessly efficient, pass on cost savings
- save customers money, provide high-quality products
- treat employees well
- long-term value > short-term profits
- PostHog
- extreme transparency - handbook
- marketing provides value to others
- product-led growth
- engineering, small team obsession
- long-term value > short-term profits
- Apple
- think differently
- top-down, clear leadership
- design obsessed, beautiful products
- long-term value > short-term profits
Handbook
As a company in the business of trust, the most important thing we can do is be transparent to the public. Heavily inspired by companies like PostHog and GitLab, we’ve decided to openly post our intentions and how we work.
By understanding how we work and our unwavering desire to tackle internet fraud, you can make an informed decision on whether you’d like to use our product.
Timeline
We’re at the very beginning of our journey here at Oath, building the product and planning our first launch in Lego Trading Groups on Facebook. Yet the story really starts sometime in 2022, when the founder Jonathan worked as a product manager for the social gaming platform, Roblox.
At Roblox, Jonathan worked on the marketplace team where he helped build avatar customization and a vibrant trading economy of digital items between users. Much to his surprise, he found a system rampant with users scamming each other for digital pets, clothes, and other items. At the same time, he almost got scammed purchasing electronics on Facebook. Hearing similar stories from friends on Reddit, Discord, and other platforms, he realized this problem was persistent and commonplace across the whole internet.
Thus began a multi-year obsession on understanding the root cause of fraud, the antiquated financial system, and the extremely negative impact fraud has on consumers.
This led him to the 3 unique strategic problems that inform the product direction of Oath:
- As generative AI improves, fraud exponentially grows
- Most apps focus on growth and engagement neglecting security, privacy, and safety
- Lack of communication between communities leads to repeat scam offenders
Oath as a product aims to solve and counter these 3 huge issues.