Company values are weird. For one: companies don't have values, the people who run companies do. But also, company values can change – for better and for worse.
So we view this as a living document, provided with no shortage of humility, alongside the hope that as we grow together, we keep your interests in mind and don’t slowly corrode our souls in the long term.
We also hope that these values are interesting. Principles are only useful insofaras they can guide our decisions; these aren't meant to be prescriptive for every single company, but for us and our specific goals.
- We are funded by our customers. We are not funded by investors or venture capitalists. We are funded by our customers, and we are profitable on their grace alone. This forces us to make decisions that are in the best interest of our customers
- We are profitable. We never want to be in a position where our ability to serve you is threatened by our inability to pay our bills. We grow thoughtfully and intentionally in order to maintain our financial stability, so that you can trust us for decades to come.
- Our pricing model needs to be sustainable over the long term. We want to be able to offer the best possible service to our customers, and we want to be able to do so for decades to come. Part of this means shying away from things that can theoretically grow Buttondown's user base (such as very generous free plans) because it comes at the cost of our ability to serve all of our customers at a high level.
- All tracking is opt-in. Buttondown offers a variety of tracking and analytics options to help you better-understand your audience, but all tracking is opt-in.
- We don't sell your data.
- We don't use your data for any purpose other than to serve you.
- All of your data is yours. You can export it at any time, and you can delete it at any time.
- We value readers as much as we value writers. Part of our core philosophy is that the best way to build a great experience for writers is to build a great experience for readers, and sometimes that means saving users from themselves. There are many tools that might improve metrics in the short term — hiding content behind a login-wall, peppering your archives with popups, and so on — but we believe that these are the wrong tradeoffs.
- Customer support is a critical part of our business. We understand that for many of you, your mailing list is the single most important part of your business, which is why we'll never force you to deal with an AI-powered chatbot before talking to a human.
You can look at any product closely enough and figure out what its creators value, and how they treat other people. We're no different in that regard, but we've made a number of deliberate and conscious choices to align with our values.
If you have any questions about this page or anything else, we encourage you to reach out to us.