Joel Gascoigne
CEO and co-founder @ Buffer
A collection of 130 posts by Joel Gascoigne - Page 2
Buffer Transparency Report Q3 2017 * Last quarter’s report * All Transparency reports * All Buffer reports MRR $1,312,614 ARR $15,751,368 EBIDTA $957,883.16 (+38.3%) Paying customers 76,293 (+3.8%) Q3 Revenue 3,840,296.81 (+8.16%) Cash in bank $4,367,158 (+23.5%) In the past seven years that we’ve been building Buffer a lot has changed. The Buffer product has evolved, the social net
MRR $1.23m ARR $14.8m QoQ 7.48% Paying customers 73,503+4.98% MAU 302,710+2.99% WAU 186,594+0.21% * Net income: $705,146 (+244.68%) * Cash in bank: $3.5m (+26.29%) 72 team members across the worldThings have been moving ahead at Buffer at a fast and exciting pace. This is partly as a result of our new experiment with six-week cycles as a team. These short periods of focused time working on key projects have been very impactful for us since we’ve implemented them. We’re keen to keep lean
Can you remember where you were seven years ago? I was in my apartment in Birmingham, UK, coding up the very first version of Buffer as a tool to schedule tweets. So much has changed since then: the Buffer product has evolved, the social networks themselves have matured, and social media managers have grown exponentially in skills and influence. Today, I’m excited to share an early look at what we believe these ch
Editor’s Note: We’ve switched our Investor’s Reports from monthly to quarterly.We’re excited to keep publishing them in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . Buffer Investor Report Q1 2017 * Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports MRR $1.18m ARR $13.8m MoM 1.9% from
I’ve recently found myself reflecting a lot on being a distributed team and the nature of a company where the team works from remote locations to accomplish our work. Scaling remote working has been a challenge as the team has grown. Remote companies are still relatively rare, and therefore all of us who are choosing to have a remote-friendly culture need to do two things: 1. Work through the normal challenges of growing as a company and as a team 2. Put time into figuring out how remote can
By now we have a fairly long history of doing retreats at Buffer. We’re now a team of 75 who all work remotely, and we just wrapped up our eighth company retreat in Madrid, Spain. Here’s a quick history of retreat locations, timeline, and size over time: It’s been a wild ride for us at Buffer, and the regular company retreat is a very clear part of our culture. Each retreat has felt a little different, and the nature of the retreat evolves as the company grows
We’ve always done things differently at Buffer. For me, this has always come from a natural desire to question things. Why base your company and team in a single location? Why is it customary to keep salary information private? Why can’t someone exercise during their day and work unusual hours, as long as it’s a productive way for them to work? Asking these questions – and seeking their answers – has taken us down an interesting path. It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey so far. We’ve made
On Friday, President Trump banned entry into the United States for migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries and instated a 120-day halt to resettlement of refugees from around the world. As the founder of a global team , I believe this ban is fundamentally wrong and directly opposed to Buffer’s values of inclusion, diversity and openness. Buffer is a company founded
Editor’s Note: Every month we share an update with all of Buffer’s investors. We also publish that note in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . Buffer Investor Report November 2016 * Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports MRR $1.05m ARR $12.6m MoM 1.9% from Octobe
Editor’s Note: Every month we share an update with all of Buffer’s investors. We also publish that note in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . Buffer Investor Report October 2016 * Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports MRR $1.03m ARR $12.36m MoM 4.4% from Sept
Buffer Investor Report September 2016 * Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports Editor’s Note: Every month we share an update with all of Buffer’s investors. We also publish that note in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . September was a month of big achievements an
* Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports In August, we had our best MRR numbers of 2016 and wrapped up our first “Buffercelerator” project. Here are the highlights: MRR: $947.7k ARR: $11.4m MoM: 4.7% from July Note: We adjusted our calculation of MRR as we discovered we were overreporting our MRR by around $20k, which was due to the portion of MRR coming from Apple in-app subscriptions. We’ve now corrected this, and so if you were to compare our revenue growth to l
See the most recent investors’ report → See all investors’ reports → See all Buffer reports → In July, we launched a big new feature, had our first cashflow positive month of 2016 and rallied around a strong vision for Buffer’s future. Here are the highlights: Key metrics * MRR: $926.0k * ARR: $11.1m * MoM: +3.1% Further metrics * 62,201 paying customers (+3.0% from June) * 255,158 MAU (+0.0% from June) * 159,995 WAU (-1.0% from June) * $1.29m cash in bank (+5.7% from June) * 80 t
Editor’s Note: Every month we share an update with all of Buffer’s investors. We also publish that note in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . Hi Team, Thanks for all your continued support. I’d love to share an update on what’s happening at Buffer: Key metrics MRR: $897.0 ARR: $10.8m MoM: +4.9% Further metrics: * 60,413 paying customers (+3.5% from May) * 256,882 MAU (+0.0% from May) * 159,995 WAU (+1.5% from Ma
The last 3 weeks have been challenging and emotional for everyone at Buffer. We made the hard decision to lay off 10 team members, 11% of the team. I’d like to share the full details of how we got here, and the way we have chosen to handle this situation to put Buffer in a healthier position. I believe most startup founders are, by nature, optimistic. We want to solve problems and we believe in going from nothing to something. The attitude of most successful founders is that something previousl
In the past couple of months, I’ve had a number of thoughts around the growth Buffer has experienced in the last year and some interesting challenges and paradoxes that seems to be bringing us. I’ve had a number of conversations with people in the team on this and I recently shared a version of what follows with the whole company to get their thoughts. It resonated with almost everyone, and as a result we’ve started to put in place some changes based on these realizations. I’d love to share it
I often read quotes, blogs and books by some of the great minds of startups , and realize that I don’t fully take on board what they mean until some time later. A while back, I reached a point where I felt like I understood the following Basecamp quote: “Great businesses have a point of view, not just
On a recent flight to Hawaii, I tried a little experiment and did an “AMA in the Sky.” On a flight (sitting in a chair in the sky with wifi!) ✈️? Got a little time, ask me about @buffer / startups / anything and I’ll reply! — Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) February 20, 2016 It was incredibly fun and kept me busy for about 2.5 hours, nicely passing some of the flight time. I think I ended up answering
“Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.” – Bruce Lee I’ve felt lucky to learn so much from being an avid reader in the past few years. I’ve come to believe that there is such immense power and knowledge contained within books. As a natural introvert, I’m a reflective person and love to read books and think about what we could try to apply at Buffer. In fact, we’re such believers in the power of reading at Buffer that all new team members (and family members
I’ve been fortunate to have many great mentors over the years, and as a result I try to spend a lot of time helping other founders. When Buffer was going all the way with our self-management experiment , I was meeting weekly with someone who championed this concept within her company and successfully got the team started in this direction. After several chats, Buffer hit a key phase of growth and I wasn’t able
Not too long ago, our pals at Product Hunt were kind enough to ask Buffer founder Joel Gascoigne to host an “ask me anything” chat session . 10,000+ words and many dozen questions later, we wanted to share some of our favorite questions and answers with you, too. 1. Joel’s average weekday Q: What’s your average weekday like? A: These days I generally have a lot of quick meetings with different people in the team.
We have some very exciting news to share in this month’s investor update: we’ve acquired Respondly , a social media customer service and brand monitoring tool! With this move, we will reposition Buffer in the coming months to be a full social media solution for companies across both customer service and marketing departments. Read on for more on this and all the other news from November… Overall key metrics * 2,921,380 total registered use
I have some great news: Buffer has acquired Respondly , a social media customer service and brand monitoring tool! We’re excited to bring this product into the Buffer family and move into a whole new market that many of you have been encouraging us to explore for years. I wanted to take a little time to share the full details about how we came to acquire this product and our overall vision for how we’ll grow our social media offerings to help you to deliver great ex
I’ll be the first to admit it: When I first got hooked on the idea of startups, the goal in my mind was monetary. I wanted to be “financially free” so that I could do all the things I wanted to do but was unable to do due to money. So my first startup was a “big idea.” It could change the world (or at least I thought so), and I would be rewarded enormously for what I would do — given time. After trying a few different ways in order to reach the success I had in mind, I realized that I was unh