Buffer's Strategic Gap Analysis: Stuck in Retention? (Case Study)

case study strategic gap analysis Sep 05, 2025

Today, we are going to review Buffer's public roadmap to see if there is a strategic alignment between the items they have there and the strategies they have defined. Different studies show that the link between strategy and execution is broken, and plenty of the development done by many companies—in some cases up to 80%—is actually wasted and doesn't bring value to customers or the business. We want to see how a public roadmap is aligned with its strategic goals.

If you don't know what Buffer is, they've built a tool to help creators and marketing teams publish content to different social media platforms like Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

What Is Buffer's Strategy?

Finding out a company's strategy is never easy, but luckily, Buffer is one of the most open businesses out there, and I was able to find a shareholder update where Buffer shares some hints about their strategy. Of course, they’re never going to share their whole strategy, but it gives you a good idea of where the company wants to go.

Aiming for Profitability: They are aiming to be profitable from now on. My guess is they're focusing on how to be profitable without increasing costs so much.
"Down and Wide" Strategy: This means they're focusing on acquiring a large number of smaller customers by providing easy-to-use, affordable social media management. They want to go "down" to a deeper workflow for their existing customers and "wide" to bring in new customers by expanding their integrations.
Public API: This is a very interesting move. My understanding is that they are reintroducing a public API to enable automation and position Buffer as more of a platform that users can build an ecosystem around. This could be a very powerful move for big businesses and consulting companies that can help create different automations and workflows.

I've looked into this from a product strategy point of view. I don't know if they are focusing on specific geographies or industries—that would be part of a go-to-market strategy that I don't have visibility into.

Disclaimers (Just So We're Clear)

Before I get into my analysis, I want to say a few things:

Thanks to Buffer for having a public roadmap. It brings a ton of visibility and understanding to what's going on.
My review is based solely on publicly available information. I have not spoken with anyone at Buffer, and I don't have access to their full strategy.
I have no access to any go-to-market strategy that might be driving a lot of the growth.
The goal here is not to shame Buffer. This is just an exercise to show how the lack of strategic alignment is a problem that is present in most companies out there.

Buffer's Public Roadmap: Let's Get Into It

The roadmap is based on suggestions from the users and has different stages, from "thinking about it" to "in progress" and "released." What I did was put the roadmap into a Google Sheet to better understand the focus.

The roadmap has two main types of items: "new channel requests" and "feature suggestions." I found a lot of items that are blocked by an API limitation, which I think is a bottleneck for them. My understanding is that every time they have to add a new integration, they have to create a custom API, which is a massive amount of work and slows down the process.

When I looked at the items in the "in progress" column, I found a lot of "safe bets." Things like dark mode, which is a quality-of-life improvement, or channel groups, which are more about content management. While these are good for existing customers and support the "down" part of their strategy, they don't seem to be pushing the vision forward. It looks like the vision for Buffer has already been achieved, and there aren't many clear new goals.

What I Think Is Working

Clear Alignment with Vision: There is a clear alignment with their vision and the "down" part of their strategy, which is all about keeping their existing customers happy. The roadmap also has items that support the "wide" strategy, with highly-voted requests for new channels like Reddit and Discord.
Strategic Support for Retention: The roadmap is very focused on improving existing channels and content management, which is a good way to improve retention.
Community-Driven with Strategic Prioritization: It's great that this is a community-driven roadmap, but it’s clear that Buffer doesn’t just build the most-voted-on features. They are strategically prioritizing items that align with their goals, which is a great balance.
Transparency: It's very valuable that they share this public roadmap with their community and are transparent about their priorities.

What I Think Could Be Improved

Safe Bets: The "in progress" items seem to be a set of safe bets. They are not pushing the vision forward and seem to be focused on keeping existing customers happy, not driving new growth.
Where is the Business Impact? I don't see many items that are clearly driving growth, like new channels and new users. The way to get new users is by opening new channels, and I don't see any new integrations in the "in progress," "planned," or "someday" columns. This tells me there's not a lot of momentum for growth in the roadmap right now.
Lack of New Direction: It feels to me that the roadmap is more like a maintenance roadmap than a growth roadmap. It looks like the vision has been achieved, and there are no clear new goals.
Technology First, Not Problem First: I have to mention the AI buzz. It always bugs me when a roadmap talks about technology first and not the problem it's trying to solve. Technology is great, but it should be used to unlock real solutions for real customers.

Strategic Alignment & Potential ROI

Now, let's talk about the potential waste due to a lack of strategic alignment. Based on my review of the 19 items on their roadmap, only seven were clearly strategically aligned. This gives us a strategic alignment score of just 36%.

Let's do some quick math. Based on Buffer's estimated R&D team size of 61 people and an estimated cost per employee of $120,000, we can calculate the potential waste.

If Buffer could increase their strategic alignment to 75%, it could reinvest $2.8 million per year into other efforts. Even if we're a bit more generous and say their alignment is 45% and a realistic target is 65%, they could still be reinvesting over $1.4 million per year.

This is money that could be invested in other strategic goals that really help the company grow. This isn't about firing people; it's about reallocating focus to the right initiatives.

Final Recommendations

Strategic Focus: While there is some misalignment, Buffer has a very good strategic focus overall, and their roadmap is a great communication tool. They should continue to balance community requests with strategic items.
Integration Bottleneck: It looks like adding new integrations is a major bottleneck for them. They should be looking for a way to address this better to support the "wide" part of their strategy.
Growth Momentum: The roadmap feels more focused on retention than growth. They are staying in shape, but they aren't going after big new goals right now, at least from what is visible in their roadmap.

I'm really impressed with Buffer's transparency. I think they are a very healthy company that seems to be loved by their customers. But this is a good example of how even a healthy company can have potential for improvement by being more strategically aligned.

Turn Your Roadmap into a Source of Growth

My Strategic Gap Analysis course gives you the tools and proven frameworks I’ve used in different companies to analyze your own roadmap and identify growth opportunities. It’s a step-by-step guide to helping your teams become more focused and more strategic in the work they do.

Ready to unlock growth and stop wasting resources? Learn how to do a strategic gap analysis to turn your roadmap into a source of value.

You can find the video here:

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