[tptacek]

How exactly does offering an immediate return to those early investors throw them under the bus? Buffer put together a deal and their investors took it. For them to "buy" their equity, it had to be "for sale", and it turns out it was.

The normal story of what happens when a company takes an investment planning for hypergrowth and that doesn't pan out is that the company "pivots" to some usually-less-promising hypergrowth opportunity and repeats until it dies. The outcome here seems far better for investors, which is presumably why they took advantage of it.

[sebleon]

Ah, to clarify: Buffer threw the seed investors under the bus when they inked a deal with the Series A investors.

However, kudos to the founders for fixing this mistake later on. While their intentions at Series A were questionable (raising to pay themselves), they made things right later on, though they did pay the price of a co-founder and CTO departure. Everyone makes mistakes, but true character can be seen when you deal with them.

> Our seed investors had been supporting the company for almost six years, and several were starting to ask when they may get a return

> The Series A class of shares included a protective provision which meant that Buffer was unable to offer liquidity for other shareholders (seed or common) without approval from a majority of the Series A.

[gowld]

Seed investors offered a deal. They weren't spring chickens.