About: Buffer is a simple software toolkit that helps creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses create valuable content to grow their audience organically online.
Industry: Social media software
Location: Global, remote-first
Size: 70+ employees

Summary: As a remote-first company, Buffer prioritizes practices that help teammates stay connected beyond their immediate teams. Donut Intros provide a scalable way to support that goal directly within Slack.

A remote-first company built to last

Buffer is best known for its product: a social media toolkit built for creators, small businesses, and growing teams. But the company has also drawn acclaim for its innovative organizational culture, which is both people-centric and highly transparent.

Bufferoos, as Buffer employees are called, are encouraged to live their team values out loud, sharing everything from their salaries to their remote work routines, often on social media. Remote work has been a core element of Buffer’s operating model since 2012, and the company cites it as an important influence on everything from communication norms to decision-making.

That openness isn’t just external, it’s part of how Buffer thinks about internal culture, too. As the team has grown, the challenge hasn’t been whether remote work can function, but how to ensure collaboration, alignment, and trust scale along with it.

Staying aligned without shared space

With dozens of distributed teammates worldwide, informal conversations do not happen by default. Without shared spaces, communication can narrow to direct collaborators and task-based updates.

Buffer wanted a way for teammates to keep meeting people outside their core working groups. The goal was simple. Make it easy to stay familiar with colleagues across the company without adding overhead or pressure to participate.

That’s where Donut Intros came in.

How Buffer runs Donut Intros

Buffer introduced Donut Intros as a way to make cross-team connection a regular habit, without adding overhead. Every two weeks, teammates who opt in are randomly paired and invited to schedule a 30-minute conversation. There is no agenda and no required outcome. The time is used to catch up, ask questions, and get to know one another.

That simplicity is intentional. By removing pressure and structure, the conversations create space for curiosity and candor. Teammates swap context about what they’re working on, share challenges, surface ideas, and build familiarity that carries into future collaboration.

Because Intros live directly in Slack and follow a predictable cadence, participation stays easy. People can join when it fits their workload, step back when they need to, and rejoin later, making the program flexible enough to evolve alongside the team.

Internally, Buffer describes Intros not as a program to “manage culture,” but as a small, consistent practice that gives culture room to show up, especially in an asynchronous environment.

Participation, feedback, and what it adds up to

Since launching Donut Intros, Buffer teammates have completed 6,000+ introductions across the company. The program has become a steady part of how the team stays in touch, and a great showcase of how a team can make the most out of their Donut Intros experience.
Compared with Donut’s broader benchmarks, Buffer’s engagement stands out. In 2025 alone, the team logged 455 successful conversations—more than three times the average for companies of a similar size.

Just as importantly, Bufferoos consistently report that Intros conversations are worth their time. In Donut’s post-Intro survey, 100% of respondents said they enjoyed their conversation. That consistent positive feedback is one reason Intros has remained a steady part of Buffer’s rhythm.

From conversation to collaboration

Beyond participation metrics, the impact of Donut Intros shows up in how Buffer teammates collaborate day-to-day. In a LinkedIn post reflecting on communication in small, remote teams, Buffer Chief of Staff Carolyn Kopprasch returns to a guiding principle: “chain of command ≠ chain of communication.” In practice, remote work can make it easy to stay in your immediate orbit, especially across time zones. Intros helps create informal touchpoints across the team, so reaching out later feels more natural.

Regular, low-lift conversations make it easier to reach out, ask questions, and share ideas across teams. That matters in a remote environment where informal overlap does not happen on its own.

In a short behind-the-scenes video, members of Buffer’s creative team show how these conversations play out in Slack and IRL, complete with actual donuts. 🍩

🎥 Watch the clip below to see Donut Intros in action at Buffer.

Supporting connection as Buffer grows

As Buffer continues to operate as a global, remote-first company, familiarity across the team remains a priority. Donut Intros support that goal by creating regular opportunities for people to meet outside their immediate teams.

By relying on a simple, opt-in practice that fits into existing workflows, Buffer and Donut make it easier for relationships to keep pace with growth and change.