| I use Buffer as a marketer and I think I can see what keeps them from growing the number of their paid users. I have a free plan and I'm completely OK with keeping it that way. It helps me schedule posts 10 per network at a time and not knowing any better I'm perfectly happy with this little convenience it offers and they are doing very little to break me out of this routine. There is very little messaging to the user in terms of missed opportunities that a paid plan opens up. Actually even with a free plan they could do more messaging to bring me back to their product outside of my "go to schedule some tweets" routine. How about sending me an email when a Twitter account with more than 10K followers re-tweets me. Perhaps it's worth something to me to know that this has in fact happened and suggest some follow-up actions that might maximize this opportunity. That's just a small example but there are tons of other growth tactics that would communicate to marketers that Buffer can help them become not just "more efficient" marketers, but better marketers overall. I think that's where the true value of most marketing technology lies. This stage of their company evolution is notably harder and perhaps arguably more boring so it's not surprising to see people leaving. After working on the core product for a while and squeezing out all the potential growth from that, it takes hundreds if not thousands of tactics adjustments, product optimizations and management changes to fine-tune the company engine for slower but steadier growth from then on. And even then it's not an exciting roller-coaster ride anymore but a slow long-haul freight train journey. It takes a markedly different kind of employee to thrive in that kind of environment and this is what they have to optimize for going forward. ADDENDUM: There's also the added risk of Buffer's success being tied to all the individual social networks, some of which are thriving, others which may not be here tomorrow, so it would be in Buffer's interest to develop their relationships with their users outside of their interaction with those platforms they have no control over. I mean marketers will always have to find the best way to do their job regardless of whether Twitter exists or not. This is probably pretty common sense advice considering how many times we've seen the rug pulled out from under smaller tech companies who built their business around some platform created by Google, Facebook, Microsoft or one of the other big companies. |