Learning Lessons with Freedom Chat

The past few years, privacy has emerged as a critical concern for users worldwide. In fact:

90% of users disapprove of selling user data
85% of global adults want to do more to protect their online privacy
78% are willing to spend time and money to protect their data
55% believe their phones are listening in to their conversations
50% believe their calls and texts aren’t secure and can be read by third-parties

I first encountered these findings in late 2022. It wasn’t until I experienced a few unsettling incidents first-hand, however, that I truly grasped the severity of the issue.

One afternoon, while working at my desk, I noticed I had missed six calls and received two texts from my grandma. I immediately called her back, concerned.

She answered after just one ring. “Hello, hello! Tanner, are you okay? Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m fine, Grandma. Why? Are you and Grandpa okay?” I replied.

Without addressing my question, she told me she had received a disturbing call. The caller claimed that I had been in a severe car accident, was underinsured, and needed a $25,000 payment. She said she was calling to confirm the payment details.

I quickly reassured her, “No, Grandma, please don’t send anyone money. I’m fine; I’m sitting at my desk. This is a scam.”

After a few minutes of calming her down, I hung up the phone.

Later that same October day, a less dramatic privacy-related issue occurred. A friend sent me a video about his new hot tub, and I was soon bombarded with hot tub ads across the internet for the next few weeks, even though he never mentioned “hot tub” or “tub” in his texts—he only referred to it twice verbally in the video.

The next morning, the idea for Converso was “born.”

The Beginning of Converso

Now, anyone who has read Mindset by Carol Dweck, Grit by Angela Duckworth, or The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, M.D., knows that you can be, do, and have whatever you want. Ideas never come out fully formed, they are not born; they become clearer as you work on them. You need the courage to get started and persistence to stick with it.

To help bring this idea to life, I enlisted one of my employees from Zeke SEO—a very talented developer with an MBA in computer science from Stanford. I, myself, had very limited (little-to-no) technical expertise compared to him.

The thinking behind Converso was to create a completely private messaging app with no commercial use of user data, no storage of messages on our servers, and end-to-end encryption to ensure that conversations cannot be read by third parties. In line with the common buzzword in Silicon Valley and the broader entrepreneurial community of developing a minimum viable product (MVP) as quickly and efficiently as possible, Converso aimed to release a product with the minimum capabilities needed to address customer needs. The purpose of this MVP approach is to validate customer needs and demands before investing in the development of a more fully featured product.

In simple terms, our goal was to determine if there was a market for this product and if users would embrace it.

Developing the MVP

Development for our MVP began in December 2022, and less than four months later, we launched the product on the App Store and Google Play Store. Initial growth was slow, with only friends and family downloading the app. However, after a few strategically sponsored articles and podcast mentions, Converso started gaining global traction. Within 30 days, the app had over 30,000 downloads on both iOS and Android and was available in 55 countries.

I realized we were on to something. There was clearly a market for a truly private social messaging app. “Users wanted this,” I thought.

However, there was one major problem: the product was not as advanced as we had believed.

We focused so much on delivering appealing features—such as sharing images, videos, and GIFs, as well as editing and unsending messages—that we didn’t dedicate enough time to thoroughly testing and seeking expert opinions on the most critical component of the app: its security.

The Product is Compromised

A white-hat hacker—a cybersecurity professional who uses their skills to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems, networks, or software— discovered that our encryption was implemented incorrectly and that the product did not live up to many of our claims. As a result, the product was compromised, leading to an onslaught of negative publicity. The hacker orchestrated an effective smear campaign, creating a website and Reddit account just days before publishing the findings. The hacker never revealed their identity and has not released any new content since.

As an entrepreneur facing such challenges, you have two choices: give up, assign blame, and succumb to defeat, or stand firm, take responsibility, and strive for improvement. Theodore Roosevelt’s iconic “Man in the Arena” speech perfectly encapsulates this mindset. I’ve read and listened to this speech so many times that I’ve practically memorized it. In fact, I even referenced this speech in my third-book, Start with A Step which was published in 2020.

The speech emphasizes that true credit goes to the individual who takes action, fails, and gets back up, not to the critic who points out flaws from the sidelines:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Getting Back Up After You've Been Knocked Down

Inspired by Roosevelt’s call to action, I embraced the challenge of creating something meaningful, no matter how difficult. I removed myself from a day-to-day development role and I recruited the most talented developers that I could find to help build the product.

It also became clear that the initial name, ‘Converso,’ was not resonating, despite the large influx of users. Privacy concerns were primarily coming from conservative circles, which was understandable given recent events and the politicization of privacy and free speech.

As a staunch advocate of free speech, myself, and to better align with our audience and market trends, I decided to rebrand the project as “Freedom Chat.”

The Making of Freedom Chat

Our revamped team secured funding based on initial user interest, refined our concept, partnered with the only certified end-to-end encryption company in the world, and addressed every single one of the white-hat hacker’s security concerns. I entrusted our CTO, CISO (Chief Information Security Officer), and top security experts to lead us toward our goals.

Freedom Chat was in development for over a year before its full release to users on September 3rd, 2024. Some things take time; developing a truly private, next-generation messaging app is not an easy endeavor, and the process cannot be rushed. We have been incredibly meticulous in implementing our security protocols and developing user features.

The Importance of Freedom Chat

I am very excited about what the future holds for Freedom Chat, and I believe there has never been a more crucial time for it. Privacy and our First Amendment rights, are under attack now more than ever, perhaps only rivaled by John Adams’s Sedition Act of 1798.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, online privacy and the ability to express your thoughts freely should be universal rights. No one should be able to censor you because of your beliefs, and no one should have access to the content of your private messages. Period.

Anyway, hindsight is always 20/20, and although we still have a very long way to go until we accomplish our goal of 100 million users by 2030, I have tried to capture as many lessons as I could from starting Converso and pivoting to Freedom Chat below:

Lessons Learned

Ensure the product has been thoroughly tested and is ready for prime-time: A MVP is not an excuse for a premature launch; it is possible to release a product too soon.
You can’t skip the process: Things take time to build. Two years is two years—don’t try to do it in four months. As Warren Buffett says, “You can’t have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” This brings me to my next lesson:
Slow down: Not everything needs to be done overnight. Patience. Patience. Patience.
Hires should make your life and the company’s operations easier: You need to bring on people who are better than you in their respective roles. Whether it’s the CFO or the CTO, they should be able to perform their jobs more effectively than you could. I’ve found that the more skilled individuals Freedom Chat hires, the more I can concentrate on my core responsibilities, which increases our chances of success. This is worth emphasizing: hire great people and let them guide you on what needs to be done to achieve your goals. Steve Jobs said something similar: “The greatest people are self-managing—they don’t need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they’ll figure out how to do it. What they need is a common vision.”
Persistence can overcome a lot: Never quit, no matter how dire things may seem.
Accept criticism and get better: Don’t complain.
Be rational: Call a spade a spade and don’t sugarcoat things.
Problems rarely go away on their own: In fact, they usually grow larger the longer you let them fester.
Be quick to fire and slow to hire
Be incredibly hard on yourself, but realize you’re learning and will make mistakes
It’s okay to lean on experts: There is no substitute for experience
Raise more money than you think you’ll need: Things rarely go entirely according to plan. It’s going to take longer and be more difficult than you anticipate.
Work your ass off