What I'm doing now (March 10, 2019)

This update was written on March 10, 2019. The purpose of the page is to share what I'm up to and working on currently (aim to update every few months). Check out the latest update.

I’m engaged ❤️

My partner (fiancée!) Jess and I are engaged! We’ve been together for over 3 years now, and they’ve been the most meaningful, fun and fulfilling years of my life. We’re excited to make our commitment to a lifelong adventure together.

We moved to Boulder, Colorado ⛰

Jess and I moved from New York City to Boulder in July last year. We’ve had a blast being in a more peaceful place with access to many outdoor activities. We bought mountain bikes in the first couple of months of arriving and enjoyed the mountain bike trails and hiking while it was warmer. We bought the Ikon pass and have really loved skiing in the winter. With about a month of the season left, I’m up to 17 days on the mountain and have skied at Eldora, Copper Mountain and Steamboat Springs.

One of my reflections about being in a smaller city has been that I enjoy the default being calm, and being somewhere surrounded by nature. Running a business brings a regularity of stresses, and it’s valuable to have the environment you’re within be a place that balances rather than adds to stress. Seeing the mountains everywhere you turn is a real joy and the sunset is an immediate meditation.

I’m still traveling a lot ✈️

Although I’ve had a base (now Boulder, previously New York City) for several years rather than being nomadic, I love to travel. I enjoy exploring new places and cultures, and I like to meet up with friends in various places around the world.

In the past year I’ve traveled to Singapore, Bali, Japan, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico and the UK. I have trips to Colombia and Chile coming up.

Jess recently moved on from HelloFresh and joined an exciting smaller company called Perfect Keto. They’re a health and wellness company focused on products for the keto diet, and the company is very remote friendly. This means we’re now both flexible to travel and work remotely. We’re currently thinking about spending a couple of months in South America later in the year. I’d like to intensively learn Spanish.

Buffer is more independent 👨🏻‍💻

Last Summer, we completed a long project to buy out a majority of Buffer’s Series A investors. In all, we spent $3.3m to do it and there were several tough conversations to get there. What this means, is that we completely control our destiny now and can prioritize healthy growth and a focus on customers and the team.

I’m now 8.5 years into Buffer, and I plan to continue growing this company for another decade and beyond. With the decision to run this company independently for the long-term, it’s changed our mindset on a few things. Firstly, we’re now profitable to a degree we never have been in the past (after losses or very tiny profits in previous years, we had $2m+ of profit in 2017 and $3m+ profit in 2018). Secondly, we’re trying to set up a culture where we avoid burnout and people are well compensated so we can all do this for many years.

This page was inspired by Derek Sivers and his /now page.

Previous update: Feb 5, 2018.