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.
Escaping into a good book is one of my favorite activities, so I could hardly believe it when I learned that working at Buffer meant a free Kindle and the license to grab any book I wanted, anytime! (In fact, I snagged two today.) You’ll notice that reading shows up again and again in our improvements—fiction and non-fiction, business books and pleasure reading. Why? Because we know that reading makes us better writers [http://blog.bufferap
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. Earlier this year, Buffer had a job opening for a position we (at the time) called “Life Saver.” That person, we thought, was going to work in lots of different and important areas to help keep Buffer running smoothly—things like helping to plan our multiple annual retrea
I just booked a flight for a vacation to Cancún, Mexico, and it got me pondering the relationship between work and rest in a startup. One reason I’m building a startup is to gain control over many aspects of my life. I like to hack my productivity, and I’ve found I don’t necessarily thrive by followingnormal working hours or only working from an office [https://buffer.com/resources/distrib
If you have ever wanted to pop an escape hatch or teleport to distant worlds just to get out of a meeting, take heart. There are ways to hold a better meeting. Forward-thinking companies have found creative ways to get their teams together, and their lessons and structure can be easily duplicated in meetings anywhere. These creative methods aren’t just clever for cleverness’s sake: Most of them are science-backed and all of them are grounded in successful experience. With just a handful of ha
One night, I got a Facebook message about the 100 Happy Days challenge. So I clicked through and here’s what I read: “While the speed of life increases, there is less and less time to enjoy the moment that you are in: Every day submit a picture of what made you happy!” OK, fair point, we don’t take time to appreciate things anymore… I was about to click away and get on with my life, when I read that next sentence: “71% of people tried to complete this challenge,
We talk about “steps” a lot at Buffer-how many we’re aiming for every day, how many we’re getting and how we’re making changes to get more. That’s because each member of the Buffer team gets a free Jawbone UP (among other neat perks) when they join us full time. Why? Not only is general self-improvement part of Buffer’s core culture, exercise pops up quite often as a specific form of self-improvement for many of us. Here’s how Buffer founder Joel puts it: In the last three years, I’ve gone fr
When I meet with outstanding first-time entrepreneurs, I can really feel the passion and determination they have, and I know that if they will just continue there is every chance that eventually they will be very successful. Often a topic that comes up in these conversations is the timing of raising funding as a first time founder. I’ve had entrepreneurs often talk to me with just an idea or a very early prototype with no traction and tell me that they want to raise funding. We closed our $450K
June was a month of great content, curation and experiments at Buffer. We saw an amazing milestone for us Content Crafters as we made a big push toward growing our email subscriber numbers and rounded 30,000 subscribers, topping out at the end of this month with 30,289 folks on our Buffer Social mailing list! (For everyone who’s getting our emails , thanks! A
I was blown away by a show I saw recently which included performances by acrobats and trapeze artists. The trapeze in particular was captivating to watch. It looked so joyful that I found myself wanting to find out how to have a go! I love to try new things; new experiences make life fun and interesting. And I’m incredibly lucky and proud to work for a company that values positivity, happiness and self-development . Every week we share w
June was a fantastic, fascinating month for customer happiness at Buffer as we made great strides toward meeting goals, expanded our awesome team, and pushed forward in a number of new, exciting areas. Stats June 2014 is the first month that I know of where we hit “inbox zero” at least once per day in both email and twitter. (We use Help Scout and Sparkcentral , respectively.) It feels great to be getting closer to the point where our customers do
I believe that when you’re building a startup, it is as much about developing yourself as it is about developing your startup. Recently I’ve realised that “feeling uncomfortable” is just what I need. Why is it a good thing to feel uncomfortable? Seth Godin describes why we should feel uncomfortable using the following chart: Godin argues that most
We’ve been working hard at Buffer to launch new features and products, improve existing product areas and build out our internal tools to help us move faster than ever. This is our first product report of the year, and I’d love to explore everything going on behind the scenes at Buffer! What we launched: New product launches in June In June we had several major launches that are helping us to move the needle of Buffer’s growth. In the web app, we’ve begun curating new topics for content sugges
At any given time, I have a side project running. It’s often a new blog or a Tumblr or a book or a newsletter. Sometimes I try to design WordPress themes. Other times I try photography. This ethos of new projects and new improvements runs throughout our Buffer team. We love to find ways to grow, excel, and improve through side projects and hobbies. I have yet to create the next Uber or Gmail—million-dollar and million-user enterprises that b
Travel is a high priority for lots of us at Buffer—it’s a bit ingrained in our culture , and it’s always a great experience to see the world and broaden your geographic and cultural horizons . Travel is also the time where it can become a challenge to hang onto go
When you’ve got a great idea , share it. It might seem like counterintuitive advice, but that’s the philosophy that’s building Buffer: An emphasis on transparency and openness around almost everyt
I’m thrilled to announce that Octavio Aburto has completed his 45-day Buffer Bootcamp and is joining us full-time as Buffer’s newest Happiness Hero! Hailing from Mexico, Octavio supports both our English- and Spanish-speaking customers. Adding another language to the list at Buffer has been a huge benefit, especially for the Happiness Team. Octa is our first Spanish-speaking hero, and he is also much more than that. :) Everything is a bit brighter with Octavio ref
I’m so pleased to announce that Nicole Miller has completed her 45-day Buffer Bootcamp and is joining us full-time as Buffer’s first Community Champion! When Nicole joined Buffer, a few things immediately changed. First, she started taking amazing care of our community, and Buffer stickers have now gone to all corners of the world. Second, the pet-to-human ratio at Buffer increased significantly. And third, she took Buffer’s handwriting-legibility average to n
I’ve had a few different experiences in my past that made me reach a big realisation. What I’ve discovered is that the context of any situation is very important. Hiten Shah clearly already understands this very well. This Tweet from him is what tipped me over the edge to share some of my further thinking around context: Get context before you give advice. — Hiten Shah (@hnshah) August 30, 2012 [https://twitt
Not only do we strive for personal improvement every week at Buffer, those of us who work on the blog here get the opportunity to dig into the science of self-improvement in many different areas. Here are a few resources for improvements that might be on your list: • 6 Research-Tested Ways to Improve Your Memory • 8 Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine [http://blog.bufferapp.com/youve-got-25000-mornings-as-an-adult-8-ways
I’m excited to share the details for Buffer’s progress in May. If you want to read our update from April, you can take a look here . I’ll keep it short this month, just wanted to give you an update on our latest progress. Traction update • New users: 60,000 (Total: 1,537,000, from 1,477,000: +4.1%) • Daily active users: 40,000 (last month also 40,000) • Monthly active users: 156,000 (down from 157,000: -0.6%) • Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): $283,00
How do you balance the necessity of highly secure passwords with the utility of easily recalling them all? It’s a question I mull each and every time a security breach happens. When the Heartbleed vulnerability was discovered last spring, the mandate was for everyone to change all their passwords right away. It’s still on my to-do list. I cringe at the thought of getting hacked, and I also cringe at the thought of taking the time and mental energy to do a complete overhaul of my favorite passwo
Many people around me have a pretty good artistic side: Music, painting… they are crafters of all sorts, they can truly create things out of thin air! As for me? Well, I’m not a gifted artist. I shouldn’t be allowed to sing outside my shower and I still struggle to draw a smiley face. For a while, I thought the artistic road wasn’t something for me, period. Yet, the thing is, even though I can’t create very much, I still have pretty strong opinions about what I like. Curating creativity It t
During the journey of building Buffer , I’ve had some truly fantastic moments. I’ve reached some defining milestones. New doors have opened for me, and it has been great. Looking back to when I started Buffer , even though I had learned a lot from my past startup experiences, I truly didn’t know what I was doing and I approached everything with that mindset. I was out there to learn an
Our second weekly #Bufferchat focused on personal improvement . Thank you to everyone who was able to participate! Here’s a brief overview of the amazing discussion: Some personal development goals of attendees * Leverage natural talents and strengthen discipline to work smarter * Improve video production skills [https://t
