Tinkering time
January 23, 2026newsletter
Hello,
I'm back to share some new links, highlights, and updates from the past couple of weeks as well as a topic that's been on my mind.
I'm Joel Gascoigne, Founder CEO of Buffer. My goal with this newsletter is to learn in public and share insights into how I operate while building a long term, independent, profitable business with big ambitions.
What caught your eye from this edition? Hit reply and let me know.
π¬ A recent post
In my experience, shipping faster isn't usually the answer when growth stalls. It took years of decline to learn this.
What truly drives sustainable growth is a strong strategy, differentiation, and a sound business model.
π Links I saved recently
Cal Newport on Seasonal Productivity, Blank Schedules & Adventure Time
β A thought provoking article about how Cal Newport defines time off, and ways we can structure our time to unlock creativity.
The Konik Method for Organizing Electronic Notes
β I've been nerding out on note taking systems, zettelkasten, and other ideas around creating a long-lasting valuable body of knowledge for myself for years now. This article gave me some great additional food for thought on note taking.
iOS Voice Memos to Obsidian With Claude Code
β I've been building all sorts of personal tools for myself with Claude Code and I've been finding that my current workflow for going from voice memo journal entries into Obsidian isn't as smooth as it could be. This article shares a neat way to process voice memos to Obsidian notes.
π What Iβve highlighted recently
Simply shipping a product that works is no longer enough, everyone can do that, especially now with AI. It's not the differentiator anymore as people expect things to work. What makes a product stand out is the brand, design, how intuitive it is, the overall experience. Taste is what matters.
β Emil Kowalski in Developing Taste
Brands and logos and press releases do not resonate with us anymore. We are interested in your people β who they are, what they care about, and what they have to say β not your brand.
β Ed Elson in People Are the New Brands
For prolific writers who publish weekly or daily, the ability to see a vast array of top-level connections quickly across subjects isnβt only important, but crucial.
β Bob Doto in A System for Writing
π§ Something that's been on my mind
Tinkering time
As a founder, I've drastically increased my tinkering time in the past year. It's been fun and has no doubt improved my strategic decisions for Buffer, too. I believe now more than ever before, tinkering time is essential as a founder.
As AI models and tooling improved over the past two years, I found myself being drawn to exploring what is possible and getting back to building myself. I feel fortunate that I have a technical background at a time when AI has been growing and making it much faster and easier to build.
I built Buffer in the early years, but I then went on to have an 8 year gap in coding as the company grew. Coding is something I always missed, but it never felt like I could be efficient enough writing code for it to be a good use of my time. AI has completely changed that equation. It's a dream come true to be able to go so quickly from ideas to working tools. I'm using Claude Code to build all sorts of little tools for my personal productivity and my various workflows as a CEO and creator.
The rise of AI, for me personally, has been a forcing mechanism where there's just no question that I have to be playing with this new technology directly myself. I now see it as a key part of my role to be tinkering with AI, exploring ideas and problems, and feeding those reflections back into company strategy and resourcing decisions. And there's no real way to have high enough fidelity of the possibilities of AI and how fast things are changing without working with it with your own hands. If the executive team of your company is trying to make decisions on how to utilize AI from a purely theoretical lens, I think you should be worried right now.
Even with a technical background I constantly feel behind. Every week it feels like the advancements in technology and tooling are 100x more than I could reasonably explore. And yet I am so energized about these times we're experiencing. It's rare to live through such a drastic shift and feel like you're genuinely seeing it unfold before your eyes. I'm here to play with this, keep my eyes wide open to the opportunities, and see where it leads.
π¨π»βπ» New and noteworthy at Buffer
Our 2025 Results
I'm delighted to share that 2025 was one of Buffer's strongest years in our 15-year history. Key results for the year:
- $23.4M Annual Run Rate (+20%)
- 69,764 Paying Customers (+22%)
- 195,928 Monthly Active Users (+19%)
- $2.51M Net Income (+1,142%)
One of my favorite parts about having a great year is that we get to do a very meaningful profit share for the team. We distribute 15% of profit in the form of our profit share bonus, and with our results for 2025 that's $377,005 we're distributing, an average bonus of $5,164 per person.
Have a great weekend,
β Joel