Join us as we share what we’re learning as we build a company that approaches work from a fresh perspective. We write about workplace culture, our finances, and our business decisions and strategies.
It’s one of the biggest pieces that will make or break us as we try to become a great company, and I only recently realized it. We’ve been back and forth a number of times about the topic of feedback, and it’s an area where we still have a lot of work to do to get right. People often say, “You have this value of positivity and no complaining [https://buffer.com/resources/no-
A few years ago, my girlfriend proposed an interesting thought: How well do I really know my friends and family? My initial thought was that of course I knew these people. We all get along and things are great. I’m friendly, they’re friendly. What more is there? However, it wasn’t as simple as I thought. This simple question started a reflection over the past few years on how I really interact in my relationships. Was I really curious and deeply invested in the people who I call my family and
You’ll notice that I made the title of this post sound quite impressive (at least I hope I did!). But the great thing about this story is that anyone can have such an impressive outcome, and it’s not at all as daunting as it might sound. In fact, all these outcomes came from doing small things every day over a long period. I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder and finding small ways to make my work more
As a social media startup, Buffer is constantly learning about what it takes to build great products. Whether it’s giving a unique role to our Product Creators or evolving the structure of our teams , we try to treat everything as an experiment with opportunities to continually learn and improve. One of our more recent sources of learning has been the launch of Pablo , our so
Imagine getting off a plane in a new state or country, heading to a place you’ve never seen, to spend a week with 70-plus coworkers you’ve never met (plus some of their partners and kids). That’s what happened to more than half of the Buffer team over the weekend. This week, our fully distributed team is all in one place—Honolulu, Hawaii—for our 7th all-team retreat . We’ll spend a full we
A lot of people want to help women succeed in the business world lately, which is an awesome trend to see. There are an ever-growing number of programs and initiatives focusing on everything from getting girls interested in coding to getting professional women into leadership roles. One interesting offshoot of this trend has been an emphasis on language and speech—it feels like more and more well-meaning people are giving thought to the words women should say [https://www.washingtonpost.com/b
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. I remember the feeling—the sleepless night beforehand, the nervousness in the pit of my stomach. I was waiting for the results of my annual performance review. Performance reviews—most often yearly—are how many companies provide feedback to their employees. They often involve a numeric rating and maybe
First college graduate from my family. Vegan. Working mom. Cherokee. Mormon. Queer. There are so many beautiful forms of diversity, and we’ve had an amazing crash course. In spring of 2015 we opened up Buffer’s Diversity Dashboard , a passion project for me and many other Buffer teammates focused on creating an inclusive team. The dashboard shares real-time data on the demographic diversity of the Buffer team, as well as thos
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. One of the things we’ve always been interested in doing at Buffer is looking at compensation differently and transparently. In the latest update of our transparent salaries formula, one key change was that we began to pay teammates more money if they had dependents, or family members who depended on their income. The formula that we originally came up with o
Life is a mashup of passions, purposes, and pursuits. The role we play at work is only a small part of who we are . Yet often, it’s the only part employers care about. Traditionally, when we arrive at work, we leave something at the office door—and the same applies to getting home. We almost separate into two different personas. In fact, a fascinating study by Deloitte [https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/u
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. Buffer is a fully distributed team, which means that our teammates work from anywhere! Our official headquarters is in California, but we don’t have an office anywhere anymore. Although this is rare, it seems to be a growing trend. As we grow, it has been great to see how larger remote companies such as
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. The makeup of the Buffer product team is constantly in motion. We’re always evolving in search of the ideal team structure that helps us move as quickly as possible and make the most impact for the community. I sat d
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. Something a lot of people tend to be surprised about when they join the Buffer team (or even speak to a Buffer teammate for an extended time) is how specific, deliberate, and careful we are with the language we use. There are literally no harsh words at Buffer, or at least none that I’ve ever heard. No brusquely worded requests, no passive aggressive note
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 Editor’s Note: When someone new joins us at Buffer, they go through the Buffer Bootcamp [https://buffer.com/resources/inside-b
Hello friends! I’m Deborah , Culture Scout for the Buffer team. I’ve been very lucky to join the Buffer team in October and finish my bootcamp a couple of weeks ago. What is a Culture Scout, you might ask? I’m part of the People team and my role is to bring on new folks to the Buffer journey, with a focus on finding people that are as passionate about our values as we are, and those who we believe can co
One of the coolest perks we have at Buffer team is that all team members (and their family members!) get a free Kindle and all the Kindle books they want to read—any book, anytime, no questions asked. As a result, we end up reading a wide assortment of stuff—from popular and critically-acclaimed fiction to resources that help us build better products or improve ourselves in some way. As a team, we read 1074 books in 2015—a 63.7% increase from last year’s total of 656 books. (Of course, the te
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
The Buffer team is more than 65 people right now, which means our startup has more than doubled in size this year. It’s been an incredibly exciting adventure! There are a lot of big factors for this growth, as well as many changes for all of us that have gone along with it. We recently sat down for a video chat with Buffer: Open’s Content Crafter, Courtney, to talk about why and how we’ve grown so much this year. She asked us some great and tough questions about thi
Who isn’t busy these days? Everyone always seems in a constant rush to their next appointment, even toddlers. And of course, on our way to those meetings we need to stay up-to-date on our email , share with the rest of the world through Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, while we also try to catch up on… oh, a new email just came in. So much to do, so little time.The 40-hour workweek is expanding, but our energy isn’t In the USA, working harder is t
I am quite possibly the world’s biggest fan of being comfortable. The word, to me, conjures up an image of a big comfy couch, a roaring fireplace, and maybe a sleepy puppy to curl up with. What could be better? So it has been a challenging, repeated lesson for me to learn that feeling uncomfortable is pretty much the only way to experience real personal growth. I didn’t want to believe this for much of my life, and I often still rail against it no
I was catching up with our team’s messages on Discourse recently when I came across a unique message thread. It wasn’t about trial numbers, FAQs or monthly recurring revenue . It was about empathy. Empathy feels so crucial to the Buffer culture, and yet the word doesn’t appear anywhere in our values right now. Maybe
At this exact moment, I have 16 tabs open in my browser. How about you? With the full power of the internet at our disposal, it can be pretty easy to waste precious moments navigating to the…let’s say, less-than-productive corners of the web. I’m as guilty of this as anyone—I’ve even shared extensively how often I get sucked into Facebook! So it’s great that there are quite a few folks out there focused on helping us keep track of what really matters as we surf the web. There’s a particularl
Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Learn more about the latest formula and see all the team’s current salaries here . It’s been over 2 years since we first shared our transparent salary formula ; we’ve be