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Every employee at Buffer can take a full day or two half-days off each quarter to show gratitude by volunteering or otherwise contributing to their community, wherever they may be. Here’s more detail about the program!
It feels ridiculous for me to write about being an engineering manager. It’s a job I’ve done for not even 30 days yet. But that’s what I want to know from others — how did you start? How did you make it through your first month? No two first rodeos are ever alike. But they’re all rodeos, and falling off is falling off. There’s some kind of pattern. So here I am, writing the post that I want to read. What is this job, anyway? I had a rough idea what I was getting into from the internal
It’s one of those mythical and vaunted startup perks, and one of the Buffer perks that tends to entice folks the most: unlimited vacation time. When someone new joins the team, they’re immediately granted as much time away from work as they’d like, no questions asked. Under this non-policy policy, teammates have had some great vacations, including cruises around the world and even a month of sailing the Atlantic. But is it really that simple? Well, yes and no. Buffer’s unlimited vacation po
Heads up! This is an older post that references some outdated processes at Buffer, specifically the “Buffer bootcamp.” Feel free to see the latest information here, including all the reasons why we retired this concept! We’re Retiring The ‘Buffer Bootcamp’ Period For New Teammates – Here’s Why Every new person who joins the Buffer team starts with a 45-day bootcamp trial period, which is intended to see how the fit feels for both the bootcamper and for Buffer. As my bootcamp came to a close l
I’ve “leaned back.” And I’m okay with it. Sort of. As the first teammate to have a baby while working at Buffer, I was able to create our initial family leave policy before I used it. Even that wasn’t enough to prepare me for the reality of being a working mom. Going into motherhood, I had a lot of grandiose ideas, preconceived notions and expectations. The biggest of which was that I’d be able to jump back into my role without skipping a beat. After all, Sheryl Sandberg did it – she leaned i
January 3, 2011, was my first day at Buffer as sort of the social media intern. The introductory task that Joel and I came up with was fairly simple: Spend 30 minutes a day on Buffer’s Twitter account and help it grow. We had about 78 followers at the time, and the 100 follower mark was in sight. I had just turned 20 years old, was halfway through my second year in college and I was ready—for anything really. It didn’t matter what, I just wanted to go and do. So I did. I made a lot of mistake
* 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
It’s perhaps a daily occurrence for a cat, dog, child or significant other to appear in a meeting between Buffer team members. And we’re okay with that. More than okay. We love these moments and we encourage them. Here is my son, Anthony’s, appearance at his first Buffer all-hands meeting when he was three months old (we’re towards the top left): As a fully distributed team, many of us work from home. For the parents of Buffer, this allows for the opportunity to work from home with their kids
Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. We’ve shared a bit in the past about what we believe creates a great fit at Buffer, but the hiring process is so much more than these factors alone. How do you create a positive experience for all candidates, regardless of the outcome? How do you avoid bias and view all candidates through a lens of equality? We don’t know all the answers to these quest
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. What combination of strengths help a team thrive? We’ve written before about the “bias toward action” mindset that we believe creates a great fit on the Buffer team, and we’re always experimenting, evolving and fine-tuning the ways we work together. Recently, we’ve turned toward a new model we’re
Buffer People Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All People reports * All Buffer reports Key Stats Applicants 365 –49% Offers completed 0 Open blog posts published 15 +87.5% Team NPS score 54% –5.3% Hello from Buffer’s People team, which works to build,
Buffer Engineering Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All Engineering reports * All Buffer reports Key stats Requests for buffer.com 68.3m Avg. response for buffer.com 220ms Requests for api.bufferapp.com 944m Avg. response for api.bufferapp.com 88.1 ms Bugs & Quality * 2 S1 (severity 1) bug reports – 2 closed 100% (In July: 9 S1 Bug reports – 6 closed 66%) * 24 S2 (severity 2) reports – 17 Closed 71% (In July: 38 S2 reports – 23 Closed 6
Buffer People Ops Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All People Ops reports * All Buffer reports Key Stats: Net Revenue $983.7k +12.4% MRR $941 ARR $11.2m +0.9% Expenses 9,450 +11.8% Expenses 9,450 +11.8% August has been a month of continuing good trends: increasing revenue and remaining cash flow positive. We’re also examining a lot of our internal vendors, tools and team participation to ensure everything is in a good place. Here’s
Buffer Product Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All Product reports * All Buffer reports Key stats in August Weekly active users (Awesome + Individual plans) 157,194 +1.3% Weekly active Buffer for Business users 4,451 0% Buffer for Business monthly recurring revenue $445,334 +4.7% B4B trial starts 9,450 +9.9% August has been a month of progress across the product and growth tribes and exciting new transitions within the team. Buffer on
Buffer Happiness Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All Happiness reports * All Buffer reports Key stats: Responses within 1 hour 47.85% -2.7% Customer satisfaction score 91 -2.1% Email conversations 8,478 -11.1% Twitter conversations 8,508 -11.1% Average Twitter response time 3.3 hours -19.5% Onboarding webinars 8 We’d be nowhere without our customers. Because of this, every team member strives to put customer experience and ha
Buffer Marketing Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Key stats: Buffer signups 1,697 +33% Buffer for Business trials 266 -2% Social blog sessions 1,164,934 +14% Email subscribers 100,819 +1% NPS 57 -1% What are some of the metrics that guide the goals for your marketing team? Leads, signups, conversion rate, and traffic all seem to be popular ones. Some folks might be interested in social medi
Respond Report August 2016 * Last month’s report * All Respond reports * All Buffer reports Key Metrics MoM Revenue +4% Customer Churn Steady Replies sent via Respond 45,000 Six months ago Respond launched… It’s incredible just how fast time moves when building a startup. Massive highs and lows all in the course of a single week. In fact, I’ve heard some team members compare working in a startup to being in a pressure cooker – everything just h
If the Buffer team wasn’t fully remote, here’s how I’d picture our office looking: wide-open spaces with big tables for collaborating, children and babies hanging out on their parent’s laps; cats and dogs running around merrily with a scattering of pet toys littering the floor. We believe in bringing our whole selves to work, and that means family and furry friends alike! Thus, we all strive to know and celebrate each other’s pets, kids, signific
Many of the best experiences in life are totally unplanned. I remember one of my last days in high school when the entire grade 12 class (all boys) hopped over the fence of the neighboring girls’ boarding school in the middle of the night and went streaking. I made a wrong turn and — with nothing but running shoes on — stumbled upon a legion of young girls staring out of their dorm windows. Totally unplanned, 100 percent memorable. *Yes, I’m well aware that this story is a little odd for a po
Hometown. Siblings. Childhood memories. High school activities. Travel, spouses, friends. Life goals. These are things you might know about your significant other, close friends. How about your coworkers? At Buffer, we’ve discovered that sharing more of ourselves — our whole selves — is a key component in bringing team members closer together. At our past in-person retreats, we’ve called these exercises “personal stories,” and it’s become one of our favorite ways to connect. Now, we’re scaling
We’d love to share what we’ve learned (so far) through the Twitter Squad experiment!
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
See last month’s marketing report → See all marketing reports → See all Buffer reports → Marketing Report July 2016 This past month, we announced Buffer for Instagram to the world (go team!). We ran Facebook Live videos and Snapchat takeovers (we’re @buffersnaps for any Snapchatters out there). We set some exciting, audacious, fantastic goals for what we want to achieve between now and October. And oh yeah, the decision was made that community should combine with marketing, so in
See the previous hiring report → See all Buffer reports → People Report July 2016 As we’ve grown at Buffer, it’s been fun to watch the People evolve. This group works to build, retain and encourage the best team we can at Buffer, and includes roles focused on recruitment, human resources, inclusivity, and team-building and togetherness. Here’s what we got up to in July! July’s People metrics Applicants: 543 Interviews: 18 first stage interviews Offers made: 1 (Full-stack Develope