Amir Salihefendić of Doist

December 4, 2019
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Today, I’m talking with Amir Salihefendić, the Founder and CEO at Doist, the fully remote company behind Todoist and Twist.

Todoist is the top-ranked productivity app that helps millions of people organize life and Twist is a communication app for teams who want a calmer, more organized, more productive workplace.

Doist is a multi-million dollar a year bootstrapped and profitable company with more than 60 full-time employees and despite being able to command huge valuations, Amir has no plans to sell the company.

In our chat, we go behind the scenes of launching, growing, and maintaining Twist when they already had a successful product in Todoist, but where we really dive in is how Amir has balanced profitability and growth along this more than a decade-long journey.

I’m not even close to the heights Doist has reached, but this balance is still something I think a lot about. 

While we all have different goals with our businesses, even with deep savings and a supportive partner, almost all of us need to have the business financially sustain us at some point and that means taking money out of the business—but every dollar we take out is one less dollar we can use to grow.

There’s no right answer to this question, but hearing Amir’s philosophy had a real impact on my approach and I think you’ll get a lot out of it to.

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Topics covered:

  1. Company background
    1. What exactly is Doist and what does the business look like today?
    2. When did Twist come into the picture?
      1. Are the teams separate?
      2. How do you allocate your own time to each of them?
  2. Bootstrapped, profitable, and remote
    1. How did you fund getting Doist off the ground?
    2. How have you balanced profitability and growth along the way?
      1. When did you first take a salary?
    3. What would have to change for you to take funding?
  3. No exit strategy
    1. What is your philosophy around “exit strategies?”
    2. How have these beliefs evolved over time?
      1. Was this something you felt strongly about from day 1?
    3. What is your mission?
    4. How do you make sure your team is aligned as you scale?
      1. Did you make any mistakes along the way?
  4. Behind-the-scenes
    1. What has been the hardest part of building the business for you personally?
  5. “Rapid Fire” questions
  6. Where can listeners go to learn more?

Resources mentioned:

 

 

Where to learn more:

To hear more from Amir, you can follow him on Twitter or visit the Doist Blog. If you’re looking to level up your remote work game, check out the Remote Work Guides at Twist.