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Buffer raises $3.5M
- nedwin 12y agoBold move to take most of the round off the table for founder liquidity. Edit: I think this is great for the founders and I hope they gave a similar option to their employees who have been with them a long time. High fives for the massive transparency success of the business while maintaining a positive work culture.
- skrebbel 12y ago> and I hope they gave a similar option to their employees who have been with them a long time. Looks like they did. Up in the article they say they're splitting $2M among the two founders, and later it says that they're taking in total $2,5M for cashing in founder and employee equity. I assume the $0,5M is the employee part. Seems like a small fraction, but I assume most of it goes to the earlier employees (and then only those who opt for it), so it might be a year's salary right there anyway.
- joelgascoigne 12y agoThat's right, good eye Egbert and thanks for chiming in with the details! Interestingly, Leo and I have been doing this for almost 4 years, whereas most of the team is much earlier in the journey. We have a couple of the earliest members of the team taking some liquidity, however most chose not to at this stage (we offered it to everyone). Thanks, guys!
- skrebbel 12y agoJoel, I like seeing how well you're doing. I truly wonder how much of it is luck, but I really hope that only very little of it is.
- joelgascoigne 12y agoOh, I think most if it is :) Lots of right time right place.
- skrebbel 12y agoHa :-) Ok, well good for you then!
- wastedhours 12y agoI assume they'll load their shares onto a secondary marketplace, and then sell off at set intervals during the day ;)
- sunils34 12y agoYup, that's right. I'm an early Buffer employee/cto. I also wanted to confirm that I had the option of receiving some liquidity in this round by giving up some of my options that have vested. I chose not to sell them at this time as did most of the employees that had vested shares. Great thoughts guys!
- ecesena 12y ago[OT/Ask HN] Is there something wrong with the check for duplicates? I sent the same post about 25mins after [1] (clearly, I didn't see this one) and I was able to post it. Just reporting the issue. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8517105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8517105
- dang 12y agoThe urls were slightly different. The duplicate detector is porous in this way by design, to allow good stories multiple cracks at the bat. We do intend to replace it with something more sophisticated, but in the meantime a small number of reposts is ok.
- ecesena 12y agoCool, just wanted to report the case. (got downvoted, not clear why, I'll maybe delete the comment if this continue)
- porter 12y agoPretty awesome watching these guys grow. I also love how they question the norm in the VC/startup world of being poor until you hit a real homerun. You only get one life. Don't let a VC dictate how you live it just so they can hit their IRR projections.
- porterhaney 12y agoI'll second my name-twin's sentiments and add: It's fantastic to see a dividend based model being introduced into early round VC fundraising. It's an alternative to liquidity and something that should/can move upstream. Bravo to Buffer for leading the charge.
- mingabunga 12y agoThey're doing pretty well for how much little info is on their website. What do they do? Apparently they're the easiest way to publish on social media...but there's not much more info
- hisabness 12y agois this an offer to sell a security?
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- leowidrich 12y agoYup, it is! We've filed for general solicitation, which the jobs act made possible last year! Let me know if I can answer any questions about it!
- UnethicalHacks 12y agoI'm curious on how the process works.
- sah88 12y agoCongrats! Just a comment. Your landing page seems very sparse. I hadn't heard of you before and from that landing page I had no good idea of what your app does or how popular it is. I feel like adding your blurb from the about page + including something about who uses your website along with a bigger button for businesses would at a minimum be worth A/B testing. Also it seems a bit awkward to navigate with no navbar at the top and for the business landing page you have to go all the way back to the first landing page to go to any of the other pages.
- leowidrich 12y agoGreat point! We A/B tested a bunch of different ones, we haven't managed to outperform the current one. We'll certainly keep testing it. I like your hypothesis!
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- sashagim 12y agoIf one of the founders is reading - why not taking the money in the bank as dividend right before the fund raising (with full disclosure to the future investors, of course). You get a similar amount of money (although sharing it with the early investors), but all the money you're raising goes to the company, which I assume is a simpler model. Wouldn't that be simpler? Best of luck with completing the round, and with future growth!
- leowidrich 12y agoYup, great questions! We considered a number of things: dividends, loans, buying back shares without raising money, debt. Dividends for a c-corp are taxed super high (big fan of paying taxes, but you end up paying something like 60-70% tax, not a good idea!). So raising extra cash with minimal dilution (2.5% for this round) was most efficient. Right now, all money raised goes to company, then company buys back shares from early team members - investors still get preferred stock. We're not selling our common stock directly to investors - you're right, that'd be too complicated and not in investors interest. Would love to answer more questions on this, keen to explain our full thinking!
- sashagim 12y agoInteresting, thanks!
- jeffisabelle 12y agoI've learned about buffer while looking for job. (probably from who is hiring threads) Since then, I've been reading their medium posts.[1] Their values, hiring strategy, salary transparency and managing remote teams seems perfect to me and I really liked reading their posts. (Highly recommended) [1] https://medium.com/buffer-posts https://medium.com/buffer-posts
- minimax 12y agoThis is our intention with this new round, to really set a precedent for multiple liquidity events going forward. Different investors will have different stages at which they’d like to get liquidity, and now they’ll be able to cash out at the time which is comfortable for them. New funds which are more focused on later stage capital can invest as we grow more and become more stable and predictable with our growth and revenue. The same applies for team members: if someone wants to put their kids through college or buy a house, they can choose to sell some of their equity. Others might not have as many commitments and may choose to keep their shares. So basically the Silicon Valley VC ecosystem is reinventing secondary markets for equity shares. This scheme has the same basic purpose as traditional stock markets (i.e. capital formation for companies and liquidity for investors), but is limited to a restricted set of participants, and price formation occurs only during specifically timed liquidity events (rather than continuously). I wonder if investors and founders are really happier this way than they would be on the public markets. If you are an early employee and you want to buy a house (or whatever), would you rather be able to sell your shares at any time to the best bidder or be stuck waiting for the next liquidity event at who knows what price? I think this is an interesting development for a couple of reasons. First it probably is indicative of the huge regulatory burden involved with going public (Sarbanes Oxley &c). Second it shows how much capital really is available in SV VC these days. There is so much money that founders and early investors don't even care about access to capital available in the public markets because they can get all the cash they want without having to leave the VC world. I wonder if we will see a shift back to the public markets if the VC money ever dries up for whatever reason.
- hkmurakami 12y agoYour last point reminded me of this: "Smart entrepreneurs have often used this competition / appetite to invest in prorata rights to their advantage. How? Have you noticed the increase of founders selling their personal stock in what is known as a “secondary?” As in – the company may or may not ultimately succeed but I’m going to take $2-5 million off of the table now to derisk my personal situation. This is a direct result of the prorata shuffle more than just goodwill by investors. Truth lives in subtleties and nuance. Understand trends more intimately and you can use them to your advantage." http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/10/12/the-authoritative-guide-to-prorata-rights/?utm_content=buffera5a54&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/10/12/the-authoritat...
- patio11 12y agoGood on them. Secondary sales are, anecdotally, getting more common these days, despite the fact that many VCs dislike them. They're so obviously in the best interests of founders and early employees, and the VC arguments against them are frankly odious, that I'd wager we see a realignment on how acceptable this term is seen to be. The argument advanced against secondaries is, phrased to be maximally charitable to it, that having founders and employees in the same boat as having to wait for an exit to really reap the rewards of the company keeps everyone's interests aligned and avoids causing any bad blood at the company caused by founders getting a very happy outcome prior to employees having gotten one. Phrased less charitably: rich people (VC partners) think paper-rich-cash-poor people should continue being cash-poor so that rich people have better negotiating leverage over them.
- zaidf 12y agoPhrased less charitably: rich people (VC partners) think paper-rich-cash-poor people should continue being cash-poor so that rich people have better negotiating leverage over them. Doesn't this work against the VCs when the startup with cash-poor founder gets a subpar M&A offer? I thought VCs had become accepting and even encouraging of early founder liquidity.
- leoncrutchley 12y agoI think Buffer is creating a third way for startups in general. Everything i've seen and heard these guys do since launch has been unorthodox. They're outliers and I mean that as a big compliment!
- hkmurakami 12y agoMy sentiments are: (1) love what they're doing and the path they're trailblazing (2) unsure how replicable it is for other companies (3) hoping for more companies/founders that leverage their initial success (combination of luck and skill) to further push the envelope on what is accepted and possible in this little corner of the world if ours. The best leverage is to not need the financing, and one you get to that point, all sorts of possibilities open up. Great to see a wildly successful company show us what's possible if you have leverage.
- leoncrutchley 12y agoI agree their financing path is unique to the way they've built their product and team, but I think parts of it can still be replicable to other startups. ie not gearing the whole future of the company towards the big exit, but using VC money to create a more organic route..
- rdlecler1 12y agoFYI: This was all over TechCrunch, so if someone knows the BufferApp team, please tell them they'll need to file a Form D 506(c) exemption with the SEC.
- leowidrich 12y agoyup, we will, thanks!
- rdlecler1 12y agoSorry, forgot to mention. It's going to also force you to to acctedited investor verification on each investor. I'm the CEO of AgFunder (and also a Buffer user) and I can send you a guide to AI verification if you need it.
- mblevin 12y agoThis is an interesting and unusual (but not unprecedented) move that actually aligns interests. 99% of founders have a goal (it may not be the primary or secondary, but trust me it's there) to be "F you" rich. Maybe 99.9%. This move doesn't make either of the founders remotely close to that. If the founders checked out now, they wouldn't be able to retire - they certainly won't worry about paying for college for their kids, but they're sipping pina coladas on the beach either. Taking "just enough" money off the table de-risks the whole operation for everybody. The risks in a startup this size are a) Founder fallout / burnout b) Running out of enough runway to really scale the biz and make the right long-term product investments (being cash-flow positive doesn't mean you can do this - plenty of breakeven startups out there just treading water who are one bad product cycle or market shift away from biting it) c) Inability to hire and retain the right people This helps tackle all three. Win-win for everyone.
- sreyaNotfilc 12y agoI've been hearing a lot about Buffer lately. I'm about to release my project and wanted to earn some money with affiliated marketing. Everywhere I turned, people mentioned Buffer so I grabbed an account a couple of days ago. Its a great service that falls in that "why didn't I think of that?" category. Really cool. I'm happy for them and I hope they can go very far with this venture. They have paying customers and as word spreads around more and more about the need to utilize social media to market your online business (There's a CNN article recently released about it http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/world/europe/bloggers-six-figure-salaries/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/world/europe/bloggers-six-figu... ), the need to organize content release is essential. So, congrats guys at Buffer!
- jeangenie 12y agoCommenting so I can find in the future.