Experimenting our way to more effective collaboration
September 25, 2024newsletter
Hi,
I'm back to share my recent social posts, links I've saved in the past few weeks, highlights from interviews I watched, a current topic thatβs been on my mind, and a general personal update.
I'm Joel Gascoigne, Founder CEO of Buffer. My goal with this newsletter is to give you insight into how I operate while building a long term, independent, profitable business with big ambitions.
Find something interesting from what I've shared in this edition? Please hit reply and say hello!
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π¬ My top recent posts
The web is feeling really fun again right now, in a way I haven't felt in probably over a decade.
It's the resurgence of open standards with the open social web (Fediverse, AT Protocol), and I also feel like I'm seeing a rise in personal blogs and writing again, too. There's a lot more tinkering going on again, it's inspiring.
β¦ view post on: Threads
I'm tinkering today with my personal website, and in particular my Posts page. This page is my own implementation of the POSSE concept (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere).
The big upgrade I've made for myself today is that it's now bi-directional. In that, I can create a post from my notes (Obsidian) and easily push it out to all networks, or (this is the new part) I can post something natively (e.g. on Threads) and then easily pull it into my notes and publish it to my website. It's semi-manual in that I need to run a script, but it's working nicely!
β¦ view post on: LinkedIn β’ Threads β’ Bluesky β’ π β’ Mastodon
If as a founder of a growing company youβre not working with a coach (even better, a therapist too), youβre most likely not uncovering your own flaws and ingrained issues that will ultimately hold back the business sooner or later.
β¦ view post on: LinkedIn β’ Threads β’ Bluesky β’ π β’ Mastodon
π Links I saved recently
Founder Mode
β It seems like Founder Mode has been the phrase of the month in many circles. I'm undecided on whether it's been useful that Paul Graham has popularized this. With that said, I've gone through my own version of Founder Mode with Buffer that I aim to fully document at some point. To get beyond the quips and reach a deeper understanding of this shift, I highly recommend Lenny's Podcast interview with Brian Chesky from late last year.
slash pages
β I'm a fan of fun and original pages to add to your personal website, such as the /now page which Derek Sivers invented. I recently discovered this website which countless more suggestions for these "slash pages" you could add to your website. I'm considering adding a /uses and /bookmarks page to my website.
We Need To Rewild The Internet
β I've recently become fascinated about the history of the web, and in particular how we shifted from a garden metaphor to a stream or feed metaphor for most of our online creation and consumption. This thought-provoking article delves into how we arrived at an online world of walled gardens, and how we might regenerate more wild habitats of the Internet once again.
π What Iβve highlighted recently
You need good constraints to be creative. You need really strong constraints. And people might think, "Well, I want to be outside the box," or at least, "I want a really huge box." And I would argue a lot of the time, you actually want the smallest box possible so that your options are constrained so you can make faster, better decisions.
β Tim Ferriss in How I Write - Write Like A 5x Bestselling Author with Tim Ferriss (~20:40)
If you're not releasing then you're just journaling. If you're not posting it publicly, if you're just keeping things to yourself, then you need to admit that's just a journal. You're not really being a writer, you're just journaling for yourself. I think to be a writer, the unspoken necessity of that definition is that you have to release it to the world, otherwise it's just your diary.
β Derek Sivers in Derek Sivers Reveals His Writing Secrets For His Forthcoming Book, Useful Not True (~30:00)
π¨π»βπ» New and noteworthy at Buffer
Threaded posts and content warnings for Mastodon
The default character limit for most Mastodon servers is 500 characters. Now you can schedule longer posts with Buffer by breaking them up into threaded posts. With this update, we now offer threaded posts functionality for all the key short-form text focused social networks: π, Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky. We've also added the ability to use Content Warnings on Mastodon, which allow you to hide the content of a post behind a warning. This can be useful for spoilers, upsetting news, trigger warnings, and more. Threaded posts and Content Warnings were our top 2 feature requests on our suggestions board for Mastodon, and adding them is part of our overall push to improve how helpful Buffer is for text-first and decentralized social networks.
Buffer's August 2024 results
I recently sent out our August 2024 shareholder update to alumni and investor shareholders of Buffer. Here are the results:
- MRR: $1,583,115 (+1.07%)
- ARR: $18,997,380 (+1.07%)
- Customers: 57,205 (+0.91%)
- MAU: 150,519 (-1.84%)
- ARPU: $27.67 (+0.18%)
- Team Size: 71 (-1 person)
- Revenue Per Employee: $267,569 (+2.50%)
β Read the August 2024 shareholder update in full
π§ Something thatβs been on my mind
I recently started to observe that at Buffer we had developed a habit of collaborating primarily through regular group and 1:1 meetings. As an organization, we had many docs filled with agenda items for these 1:1 and group meeting agenda docs. I had a theory that if we could transfer all of those agenda items to be individual discussion items in an async, transparent collaboration space, we would benefit immensely.
There are a number of problems with prescheduled recurring meetings utilized to discuss multiple agenda items. Often, agenda items can end up being "saved up" for the upcoming 1:1 or group meeting, which slows down progress and leads to items being discussed at a specific time, rather than naturally when they arise and the person has the most clarity in their mind. Additionally, frequently an agenda item could benefit from someone being involved who happens to not be in that 1:1 or group meeting. Finally, as a leader I found myself sharing the same current strategic reflection or decision across multiple 1:1 and group meetings, which quickly feels inefficient when a broad group could benefit from knowing that information.
So, last week I decided to conduct an experiment at Buffer. We had reserved the week for strategic discussions and decision making as a leadership group (all managers and staff level ICs in the company), and we were going to do it synchronously. The challenge is that we had various people out on different days, and we have a variety of time zones to manage across. So I tried something different.
I called it Collaboration Week, and for the week we instead did all of our discussions in Campsite, the tool we use for async collaboration and decision making. Anyone could start a topic, and others would jump in and add their reflections. The discussions we had were across all areas, and the team didn't shy away from raising significant challenges and bold ideas. A wide range of folks across different areas participated in very constructive discussion and debate, and we had a number of breakthroughs. Towards the end of the week I nudged the group to take discussions towards decisions and conclusions. Campsite has a neat feature to Resolve Posts, which allows you to add a note on the next steps, and the post has a green label identifying it as resolved.
Overall, the week was a big success. We covered many more discussions than we would have been able to in a synchronous fashion. And they all happened out in the open for the whole company to observe. Many people beyond our leadership group participated both in discussions and starting topics, and I found that regularly people took words from another topic and quoted them to help us make the right decisions in other areas. Although this is a muscle we can still stretch further, it felt more seamless than I expected to work through a natural process of diverging and brainstorming topics, and then converging to reach clarity and decisive next steps. There's something about building the passage of time into a topic naturally by having it in an asynchronous collaboration tool, that helped us feel less rushed than we do in our meeting-heavy collaboration style. Perhaps the most exciting outcome was that we reached all the way to fundamentals in many areas, rather than solving micro-issues and remaining at local maxima.
We found the number and breadth of topics a little overwhelming, but this is mostly attributed to the fact we designed the week purely for discussion, and there was a collective backlog of topics to unpack. We are now reflecting on the week and making decisions as to how it should affect and adjust how we work on an ongoing basis. I know for myself personally, there were many aspects of this way of working which were far superior to a meeting-heavy approach. Next week I will be reviewing all the feedback from the team and making decisions on small and large changes to how we work as a company going forward.
ππ»ββοΈ A general update from me
It feels like we're in the midst of new beginnings. Our eldest is back at school and our baby has started daycare, and Jess and I are gradually figuring out this new life as parents of two. It feels like every week things get a little smoother, even though sometimes it seems like two steps forward, one step back.
Within Buffer, there's great energy right now. Collaboration Week, as I shared above, was an invigorating experiment into how we can more effectively collaborate, level up our transparency once again, and also harness the collective wisdom of the entire team.
My main personal project right now is writing and my online presence (including this newsletter, hello!). I'm still rebuilding my habit, but feeling energized by dedicating more time to this passion. I've always loved writing yet it eluded me for many of the years as we scaled Buffer. These days, I feel like I'm finding my footing as a leader (it only took almost 14 years), and so I feel more of a clarity and conviction in where I want to drive things, and also in how I want my days to look. I'm feeling a shift towards leading through writing, which in turn enables me to share more externally too. This is starting to feel like a virtuous cycle.
Until next time,
β Joel