Insight
Growing SaaS companies must keep an in-house copy of raw data
“Frankly, in a very hard way is that you always want to keep some, like, at least one copy of your data in-house, and there is a lot of people in a company that sometimes will walk up to you and say you shouldn't do that, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buffer doubled revenue with zero conversion drop after doubling prices
“When we switched from the five dollar to the 10 dollars, We had a zero change in conversion rate, so we literally doubled our revenue from one day to the next without losing a single customer”
Disclosure
Widrich: Buffer is oblivious to competitors and never thinks about them
“Because we are so oblivious to competition at Buffer, Whether we are ignorant, or whether we are arrogant, or whether we are naive, or like, some combination of some of those three things, but truthfully, it's never on my mind. Like, I never think about it”
Insight
Widrich: Founders should avoid problem-solving each other in masterminds
“The one tip here, if you experiment with that, is to sort of avoid solving each other's problems, and instead really practice listening and the Socratic method, which is sort of to ask more questions and to, you know, really let that person come up with their …”
Insight
Widrich: Early startups should prioritize qualitative feedback over quantitative charts
“I think, I actually believe that it can be such a huge distraction early on when you're building your company, where you get too focused, too narrowed in, in, in trying to look at charts, look at numbers, when it can actually be much more useful to focus on th…”
Insight
Widrich: Founders should seek opposing expert opinions on major decisions
“Whenever you have those big conversations, try and get two opposing opinions that you really respect. And in the past I would like talk with someone and be so hooked and now my, Immediate goal is, after I've had one of those conversations, is to immediately go…”
Disclosure
Widrich: Buffer employs four full-time staff dedicated solely to customer development
“We have four people full-time at Buffer now who do nothing but customer development. So all day, every day, they talk with customers. They don't try to sell them anything. They don't try to do customer service. They don't try to market. All they're trying to d…”
Insight
Widrich: Early products should be embarrassing for lacking features, not being broken
“I think this line, I think this famous quote from Reid Hoffman around, you know, you should be embarrassed by your first version, I think that also gets misinterpreted a lot, because it shouldn't be, you shouldn't be embarrassed by it from, Ah, you know, it sh…”
Insight
Widrich: Evaluate acquisition offers by the learning experiences you would miss
“And one thing that's really helped us at Buffer is we did a list that talks about what are the experiences we would be missing out on if we were to sell now. And sort of that change of, like, focusing on personal growth and, like, a sort of Einstein's idea of …”
Assertion Supported
Buffer surpasses 50,000 paying customers
“And we just hit 50,000 paying customers a few days ago, which I'm really excited about.”
Prediction Held up
Buffer nears $9 million ARR, expects to hit $10 million by March
“We're not quite at 10, so you're, we're at about 8.9, or so almost nine, so we're estimating that we'll get to 10 by March”
Insight
Widrich: Founders Must Avoid Hypothetical Leading Questions in Customer Interviews
“You won't find any questions here that are would you buy this if, or would you use this, right? Sort of these questions that bias the person already to say yes, which we really want to avoid.”
Disclosure
Buffer Exclusively Used Content Marketing for Its First Year
“And at Buffer, one of the things we've done early on, we picked a single, single strategy only, and that was content marketing. Nothing else. No paid, no SEO, no nothing. We just did content, content every day for, at least for the first year.”
Assertion Supported
Widrich: Buffer for Business generates 45% of Buffer's total revenue
“And Buffers for business is now doing 45% of Buffers total revenue, and so this has been really successful for us to take that approach here.”
Disclosure
Widrich: Buffer received four serious acquisition offers in five years
“So throughout the five years of Buffer's journey, we had four offers, serious offers, to sell the company.”
Disclosure
Widrich and Gascoigne held weekly mastermind meetings for five years
“We've been doing this for the last five years once a week, and it's totally transformed my relationship with my co-founder.”
