Timing is everything! Introducing Buffer
Next catch in our startup fishing net is Buffer. This is an interesting startup founded by Leo Widrich from Austria and Joel Gascoigne from the UK. They started in Europe, raised $400K in the Silicon Valley and moved to Hong Kong to continue building the business…a very simple business: they help you tweet when it matters. You may get inspired at 4:30 am and write 20 tweets. You don’t want to send them all out right then. You send it to Buffer and they’ll be scheduled to be tweeted throughout the day right at the times people are actually reading tweets (there are proven statistics for this).
My questions were answered by Leo.
What’s your background?
My background is easy, there isn’t really one. I was in university studying for a business degree in my 2nd year, when I got involved with Buffer. I started a small Social Media consultancy in my first year, but never really got anywhere with it. What I did though whilst in my first year in university was to play around with a few startup ideas I started to develop. None however got me anywhere.
How did you hook up with Joel?
Joel and I first met at Warwick University when we were organizing an entrepreneurship event there. Since then we continued to stay in touch, brainstormed on a few ideas and I also was always very interested in Joel’s previous startup OnePage.
Who’s doing what?
Sure, so Joel always took on the technical aspect. That meant coding and sys admin operations. I am doing all the marketing. That is blogging, getting press and working with users on Twitter and Facebook. There are also a lot of biz dev/hustling deals involved for us, where we are working with web apps/websites to integrate the Buffer button. That’s another fun task for me.
Why did you decide to go to the Silicon Valley to raise money?
That’s an interesting one. We didn’t actually go to Silicon Valley to raise money. We were determined to bootstrap all the way as we were already pulling in some revenue. Yet, when we arrived, we had a super steep learning curve and the idea of raising money to accelerate our growth become a lot more appealing. So we went for it.
Silicon Valley is just the place to be for any startup I believe, the community, the pay it forward culture and the focus on building great companies can’t be found elsewhere I believe.
Have you tried to raise money in Austria, the UK or elsewhere in Europe?
No, we haven’t actually tried that at all. The investor scene seems to be quite different here in Europe.
Why $400K?
Great question. So initially, we aimed to raise more, closer to $700-800K. However, as we are already pulling in significant revenues of around $25K/mo we decided to shoot for less. The money mainly goes into hiring new people to help us make Buffer more awesome.
Why Hong Kong as opposed to somewhere in Europe?
Haha, you will laugh. We always felt that we already knew Europe and it didn’t really motivate us to spend our time here. We wanted to be somewhere buzzing, where new things are happening and where we felt we are more of the pulse of innovation. Hong Kong felt a lot closer to this.
What’s the future for buffer app (product development, additional rounds, team)?
Sure, so right now, we are mainly focused on product. We are looking to add other Social Networks in the future, such as LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+. We are also working on an algorithm that is smarter for figuring out when your posts are being sent out with Buffer, this could be a huge aspect for future success I believe.
We don’t want to take any additional funding if possible and are also keen to keep the team small. It feels we can focus a lot more through this.
Thanks and good luck!
CHINA SCORED THIS ONE!
Company info:
Buffer
Founded: 2010
Location: Hong Kong
Employees: 5 currently
Current Revenues: $25K/month
