35 Side Projects From the Buffer Team

We’ve always had teammates who have side projects in addition to working at Buffer. Working on new projects, building, experimenting, and self-improvement are built into our DNA as a company. So it's quite common to be speaking with someone only to find out they own a small business outside of Buffer that started as a side project. We also have several published authors and many apps built by Buffer teammates.

We believe this entrepreneurial spirit and creative drive not only enhances our individual growth but also enriches our culture at Buffer. These passionate pursuits outside of work bring fresh perspectives, innovative thinking, and diverse skill sets back to our team.

In the spirit of celebrating these endeavors, we've compiled the blogs, businesses, books, and apps created by Buffer teammates. We hope they inspire you as much as they inspire us.

The 35 side projects the Buffer team is working on

Here’s what our team works on outside of work. Hopefully you might spot some cool side project ideas for yourself, or check out some of the things our team works on.

Apps

Andy: Alpenglow, F1 Calendar, Starglow

• Alpenglow: An app to check sunrise, sunset and golden hour times as well as quality predictions. Also sends out notification reminders and with Alpenglow Pro will notify you if the next forecast is looking good compared to your desired threshold. The app can be doing on both iOS and Android, often featured by Apple and includes over 35+ localizations.
• F1 Calendar: Taking over the development from a few friends, I rebuilt F1 Calendar as an easy way to check Formula 1 Session times in your timezone as well as making the data available via Calendar subscriptions. The site has been going for 14 years and we now have additional sites for F1 Academy, F2, F3, Formula E, IndyCar, MotoGP.
• Starglow: Essentially Alpenglow but for viewing the night sky. It’s been requested quite a bit from users and friends. It displays weather parameters for each hour, focused mostly on cloud coverage and visibility which are key to view the night sky clearly. The app is currently on the App Store for pre order, aiming to release it in April.

David: Contain
Contain is a browser-based, accessibility-first design tool. Current UI design tools like Figma and Sketch are great for visual explorations but become cumbersome with responsive design, components, animations, and user interactions. Website builder tools push too much complexity on users, and generate bloated, inaccessible code. Contain solves this by living in the browser, meaning everything you design is built with accessible HTML and CSS. This brings the design process into the final medium, making responsive design, container queries, and user interactions possible while cutting much of the waste from the design process.

Eric: PlayCraft
Platform for everyone to create web games and share it to their friends in seconds! We’ve built our own modular framework to create games really quickly for PixelBrawlGames. With today’s AI capabilities, we’re using this same framework to create new games with a single prompt.

Martin: Palabreja, Voices.ink

• Palabreja: A NYTimes Spelling Bee Game clone in Spanish.
• Voices.ink: Voices.ink is a cutting-edge application that streamlines the note-taking process by using AI to record, transcribe, and analyse audio, summarizing it directly to your Notion account. It identifies key points and actionable items, ensuring detailed yet concise notes.

Mike: Carpeta
Carpeta is a project-management tool for interior designers, architects, and industrial designers to help them centralize all their conversations, budgets, and files, and better manage their time while managing their projects.

Freelance

Karinna: Pilates Instructor
Karinna is a certified Pilates & Lagree Instructor, and teaches classes in her spare time.

Martin: Two Emotions
Street & Travel Photography

Mitra: Social media manager for The Used, Thrice, Dustin Kensrue, and robbietheused
Mitra is the social media manager for bands/artists The Used, Story of the Year, Thrice, Dustin Kensrue, and robbietheused. She’s been working with these bands since 2017.

Mitra: Mitra Mehvar Photography
Mitra does live music photography, primarily for rock bands.

Music

Brandon: Kid Lightbulbs
Brandon writes, produces & releases music under the name Kid Lightbulbs from his small home studio. He’s released 3 albums under this name, the most recent being RUINED CASTLE in December 2024.

Nonprofits

Amanda: SheSharp
Amanda runs SheSharp: a non-profit foundation based in The Netherlands that makes it easier for all women and non-binary people to enter, stay, and grow in the tech industry. We host events, facilitate mentorship programmes and give out funding through scholarships, and a plethora of other initiatives.

Kateryna: TallinnJS
It is a technical community for JavaScript developers in Tallinn

Sofia: Nosotras Hablamos Design
Nosotras Hablamos Design is a community where Spanish-speaking women come together to practice English and explore the world of design through engaging conversations and workshops.

Small Businesses

Andy: Woof Warehouse
Andy works on a Shopify store that sells dog bandanas and accessories. He focuses primarily on the tech side of things, customizing the store, plugins, and branding, while also caring for and photographing the adorable pups.

Mike S: Otter, WTC

• Otter: Mike co-founded Otter. Based in Spain, Otter helps people make custom furniture by connecting them to local carpenter’s that suit their needs.
• WTC: A hat brand