Joel Gascoigne

After being a cmux user for months, I'm now a herdr convert (herdr in Ghostty). Shifted everything to run on my mac mini rather than laptop, it's amazing. Using moshi to access on iPhone. Spaces for projects and tabs for agents by repo (sometimes multiple) works super well.

17 Sept

Moved to Chicago with the family this summer. Who should I know here? I'm looking to get plugged into the community - especially founders, builders, and people who write online.

16 Sept

We don't do quarterly planning at Buffer. We've tried it in the past, and I always found it felt forced. These days, we revisit strategy in an area when it feels needed. It turns out to be about every six months, but never on a schedule.

10 Sept

Companies often take a lagging metric and make it the KPI they're shooting for. The problem is that lagging metrics by definition can only be observed after the fact, so you're kind of chasing your tail.

8 Sept

We all have a choice to make right now: build your own tooling around AI, or wait to adopt tooling someone else builds. I often discover and build a workflow that eventually someone does better (and then I upgrade to theirs). It can feel wasteful, but I'd rather be at the forefront than behind.

9 Aug

Many companies say they're mission-driven. I think most are actually growth-driven. During a growth season it's easy to tout a mission alongside a great trajectory and everyone's happy. Whether you stay mission-driven through a hard season comes down to who controls the company.

31 July

One of my favorite side effects of AI is that it's making the web much more open again. For over a decade we've seen platforms increasingly become walled gardens. AI has created pressure for interoperability and we're finally seeing open standards and APIs being embraced again.

13 July

I've been practicing Japanese again (I lived there as a kid and picked it up again during university, but have lost a lot of it since). I've found out a formula I'm enjoying: daily flash cards (WaniKani is awesome) combined with a show in Japanese with English subtitles I watch a few nights a week.

29 June

We've recently shifted our AI strategy at Buffer. Rather than packing AI features into the product, our focus is making Buffer great to use with AI. It's about flexibility, interoperability and extensibility. We're making Buffer delightful to use and build upon.

12 June

The more comfortable you feel sharing your strategy openly, the stronger it likely is. If you feel worried about competitors knowing your strategy, it's probably weak.

Testing out @j4ck.xyz’s Buffer menu bar app! Built with the new Buffer API 😄 github.com/j4ckxyz/Buff...

Joel Gascoigne reposted

jack

@j4ck.xyz

pushed the first version of Buffer Mac to GitHub :) - tangled coming soon 👀 github.com/j4ckxyz/Buff... working on a better app icon + versioning system right now! #bufferAPI

Joel Gascoigne reposted

jack

@j4ck.xyz

WIP menu bar app for the Mac which lets you instantly post to your configured social profiles via @buffer.com with the new #BufferAPI! gonna fix some annoying last things, then i'll release it on GitHub + Tangled :)

Buffer's API is here. Whether you want to build workflows and agents for your social, build social sharing into your product, or a tool on top of the Buffer platform and userbase, we've got you covered.

The Buffer API is available on all plans, including free, and includes MCP and a CLI. It's easy to get started, just head to your account (or create one for free) and go to API in your settings. You can create a personal token or OAuth app right away and make your first API call instantly.

buffer.comBuffer API | Build with BufferIntegrate Buffer's social media management into your own product with the Buffer API.

We can't wait to see what you build with the Buffer API! Learn more about the Buffer API: buffer.com/api Jump into the docs: developers.buffer.com

We're building the API to become the primary layer of the product rather than an afterthought. We believe that going forward, people want to work with Buffer through many interfaces: MCP, CLI, our official apps, and 3rd party apps. Our launch today is a major commitment to this direction.

When we chose to invest in a platform 1.5 years ago, we knew we wanted to get it right. We use the same GraphQL API to power our web and mobile apps, so you'll get the reliability benefits of our testing, monitoring, partner relations, and infrastructure, which already handles significant scale.

24 May

Within 6 to 12 months, every software product will need an API, MCP, and CLI. More and more, people expect to be able to interact with your product through automation, AI and agents. Historically, platform was a later stage play. Going forward, you won't thrive in this new world without a platform.

15 May

Today we crossed $25M in ARR at Buffer, a significant milestone for us 🎉 This one has extra meaning for me because now that we're above $25M we're closer to $30M than we are to $20M. This comes after spending literally ~8 years around that $20M number.

It's been a wild and at times very challenging journey, but I wouldn't change a thing, because we've never felt stronger as a company and this is reflected in our trajectory to $25M. If fact we only just crossed $24M two months ago.

15 May

We have a ton of good stuff coming to existing and new customers in the coming months. We're using our growth and success to make Buffer the most simple, powerful and generous product we can.

You see, at Buffer we've had a very unconventional path to this $25M milestone. This isn't your typical up-and-to-the-right success story. Our path from $20M to $25M included a detour of declining back to $18M while we found ourselves and recommitted to our mission, customers, and values.

15 May

Here's the journey we've been on: It took us 5.5 years to reach $10M Another 3 years to reach $20M Another 6 years to reach $20M.. again 🎢 😅 Just 15 months to reach $25M 🎉

9 May

For transparency to be a genuine value of an organization, it cannot simply be something you join and benefit from. It requires active participation and contribution. This should stretch everyone. It should feel a little uncomfortable because transparency is not easy, but the benefits are real.

18 Apr

People see growth and profitability as a tradeoff: when you dial one up, you turn the dial down on the other. In my experience, the times we've grown the fastest have also been the times we've been the most profitable.

10 Apr

A healthy freemium base is a growth savings account. Every month a portion upgrades. Remove the free plan and you get a one-time cash-out that looks like growth, but you're really just stealing from your future.

16 Mar

I feel like there needs to be an iOS ssh client that has voice-first input. I'd love to keep my Claude Code sessions going via mobile just by talking. Does this exist yet?

joel.isDon't backfill by defaultMarch 13, 2026

15 Mar

I send a regular newsletter with my recent posts, links I've saved, highlights from what I'm reading, the latest Buffer news, and something that's been on my mind. I sent my latest edition a couple of days ago, take a read here and subscribe: joel.is/newsletter/m...

7 Mar

Michael Porter's productivity frontier concept is playing out in real-time. We have 1-2 years where the frontier is getting pushed out by AI before it settles. We get to decide: wait for best practices to emerge, or engage in rebuilding? At Buffer we're choosing to be in the mess of the frontier.

24 Feb

I'm happy to share that the brand new Buffer API is in Public Beta 🎉 Use it for personal automations or to create enhancements to Buffer. It works via MCP, with n8n, or build with it using Claude Code / Codex. Note: this is a beta with limited functionality exposed. Much more to come!

publish.buffer.compublish.buffer.com

24 Feb

To play with the beta of the Buffer API: 1️⃣ Enable beta features for yourself: publish.buffer.com/settings/beta 2️⃣ Create an API key: publish.buffer.com/settings/api 3️⃣ View documentation: developers.buffer.com/guides/getti...

16 Feb

Something I've been having fun with recently: I've been building custom AI agents that help me with my GTD weekly reviews and my time blocking my days. I already had my GTD productivity system pretty well documented in Obsidian, and I had Claude Code create agents based on the documentation.

This has streamlined the weekly review process and reduced friction for me in a way that is helping me get back to the core principle of GTD, which is to get things out of my head and into a system that I keep updated and can trust.

16 Feb

This setup is helping me crank through tasks and be more clear minded, and it's been giving me so many ideas about ways I could extend this workflow.

The agents are just markdown files that have the weekly review process documented including using Todoist via the command line to fetch my active projects and next actions. I can just ask Claude Code to fetch and run the agent, and it walks through the weekly review with me.

16 Feb

The agents can do some pretty powerful reasoning around rescheduling, my capacity, and even things I might miss. It asks me questions and based on my answers it makes all the changes in Todoist on my behalf. This has been helping me be consistent with the weekly review, which had been a struggle.

23 Jan

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%)

A pattern I've noticed as a CEO is that people will sometimes try to save me time by presenting just the specific question or items they're hoping to get sign off on. 🧵 A few thoughts on this:

I've become better at spotting this habit and shifting the conversation. I will ask for more context and encourage us to step back to a higher level of context before going back to immediate decisions. Often we arrive at different outcomes than we would have by working only within the details.

These thoughts first appeared in my recent newsletter. Read the archive and subscribe here: joel.is/newsletter/

A pattern I've noticed as a CEO is that people will sometimes try to save me time by presenting just the specific question or items they're hoping to get sign off on. 🧵 A few thoughts on this:

Many problems arise from companies being siloed, it's natural for someone in an individual contributor position to not have the full picture of strategic choices across other areas. Similarly, I often lack the details that an individual has. Combining our forces we can arrive at optimal decisions.

As CEO I believe I am uniquely placed to keep the whole strategy in my head and draw connections where others may not spot them. My goal when helping teams make strategic decisions is that our combined efforts across the organization are interconnected and greater than the sum of their parts.

A pattern I've noticed as a CEO is that people will sometimes try to save me time by presenting just the specific question or items they're hoping to get sign off on. 🧵 A few thoughts on this:

I'm sure in some ways I've caused this pattern by presenting as busy, and it's probably a learned habit some people have developed from their career experiences. It's probably natural to try to save the CEO time, and many CEO's may be quite efficient at making decisions on much less data than I am.