What Remote Work Looks Like in 2021 (and Beyond) with Doist CEO Amir Salihefendić
With 2020 and (hopefully soon) the global pandemic coming to a close, both existing and new companies everywhere will soon face a choice of how to operate going forward. Embrace the "future" that was pulled forward by the pandemic and remain remote? Or return fully/partially to a physical office environment? For those who choose the future (and investors who are considering betting on them), Doist and its CEO Amir Salihefendić provide a 10-year case study of both the challenges that arise and the opportunities unlocked by embracing the internet to its fullest extent in growing and running an organization. And oh yeah — along the way they built a profitable, double-digit $m ARR business with 100 employees, that's been completely bootstrapped on $0 capital invested. We dive into it all!
Sponsors:
Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra
Topics Covered:
Amir and Doist's journey from side programming project to bootstrapped, double-digit million ARR global business
How they've operated as remote-only company for the past 10+ years, with 100 people across 35 countries and 10+ time zones
Why just going remote but keeping the same tools and culture as in-person doesn't solve any problems and just creates more
Why the temporal nature of work is just as (if not more) important than its physical location, and how the new modality of "asynchronous" work takes advantage of that
How remote + asynchronous unlocks massive opportunities both for new companies and the tools to serve them
Links:
Doist: https://doist.com
Doist's "remote setup guide": https://twist.com/remote-work-guides/remote-company-setup
"The CEO with an Empty Calendar": https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/the-ceo-with-an-empty-calendar
Packy's "We're Never Going Back" post: https://notboring.substack.com/p/were-never-going-back
Amir on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amix3k
#039 – Success Ten Years in the Making with Amir Salihefendic of Doist
When he wrote the first lines of code in his dorm room for his personal to-do list app, Todoist, Amir had no idea that it would eventually become one of the most popular apps of all time. Learn about his winding path to building a successful company, and how he got there by doing things he loved.
Scaling SaaS: 200K to 4M Users With No Marketing Team
Todoist grew from 200,000 users to over 4 million in three years - and Amir Salihefendic did not hire a marketing person until a year into that growth. The key to scaling SaaS was not campaigns or PR. It was nailing app store distribution: Google search, the App Store, and Google Play drove all product-led growth.
In Part 2, Amir explains why building an MVP too quickly can kill your startup, how weekly OKRs keep a 40-person remote team aligned with almost no meetings, and the productivity system he uses to manage 100+ projects. Scaling SaaS through distribution channels instead of marketing spend is the core lesson for founders here.
Amir also challenges the standard startup playbook on MVPs. He argues that building a dummy solution in a week is not simplicity - it is laziness. Todoist had subtasks and natural language date parsing from day one. This approach to scaling SaaS through product quality proved more effective than any remote team management meeting.
🔑 Key Lessons
🚀 Nail distribution channels before hiring marketers when scaling SaaS: Todoist grew to millions of users through App Store and Google Play rankings before hiring a single marketing person. The product itself drove product-led growth through quality and discoverability.
🛠️ Build powerful products, not quick MVPs, for sustainable scaling SaaS: Amir argues that coding a dummy solution in a week creates weak products that cannot retain users. Real simplicity means depth disguised as ease - like Todoist's date parsing and subtasks.
🎯 Use weekly OKRs instead of meetings for scaling SaaS with remote teams: Each Monday, Doist team members post objectives, last week's accomplishments, self-ratings, and blockers. This remote team management approach replaced most meetings while giving leadership full visibility across 40+ people.
Chapters
Introduction and Part 2 overview
What drove explosive growth after returning in 2012
Hiring marketing late - PR came in 2013
App store distribution as the primary scaling SaaS channel
Supporting every platform from Android to Mac
Complex synchronization and natural language parsing
Why MVPs built in a week can kill startups
Subtasks and date parsing as day-one differentiators
Amir's typical day - coding in the morning
Waking up at 8:30 and working from an office
Separating home and work to prevent burnout
A typical week with very few meetings
Written communication over real-time collaboration
Using Todoist to run the entire business
Email management - Gmail plugin and batch processing
Managing 100+ projects with date assignments and priorities
Filtering tasks by day and priority level
Zooming into specific projects for deep work
Saying no and focusing on essential work
Weekly OKRs for team alignment and reflection
Where the team posts OKRs
Reading all team OKRs every Monday
Why written proposals beat meetings for product decisions
Common productivity mistakes entrepreneurs make
Making tasks actionable and splitting them into small chunks
Lightning round begins
Best advice - follow your passion
Book recommendation - Jony Ive biography
Persistence as key entrepreneurial trait
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/85
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
SaaS Distribution Channel: Abandoned for 4 Years, Still Grew
Amir Salihefendic built Todoist as a student in 2007, launched it with a single blog post, then abandoned the SaaS distribution channel for four years to work on a social network. When he came back in 2012, it still had 200,000 users - and he grew it to over 4 million. Todoist became a SaaS distribution channel success story through pure product-led growth.
In Part 1 of this interview, Amir reveals why he walked away from a product people loved, how he set freemium SaaS pricing at $29/year without any market research, and why he believes founders should build products for themselves instead of letting user feedback design them. The organic growth during four years of neglect proves a real SaaS distribution channel survives without marketing.
Today Todoist is a freemium SaaS with over 4 million users, 40+ fully remote employees, and several million dollars in annual revenue. Competitors later copied Amir's pricing model exactly.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Build your freemium SaaS for yourself first, not for customers: Amir used Todoist every day for 9 years and built features based on his own needs. The product attracted 4 million users because solving your own problem creates authentic product-led growth.
📉 A real SaaS distribution channel survives neglect: Todoist retained 200,000 users through four years of near-zero development. If your product loses all users the moment you stop marketing, the product itself may be the problem.
💰 Set pricing and ship fast instead of over-researching: Amir picked $29/year with no market research and launched the premium tier in weeks. The price worked well enough that every competitor copied it, proving speed matters more than precision for a SaaS distribution channel.
🧠 Filter user feedback instead of following it: Users often propose solutions that only work for their specific workflow. Amir's team evaluates what problem the feedback reveals, then designs a broader solution the user never imagined.
Chapters
Introduction and Amir Salihefendic's background
Why having a mission matters more than a great idea
How great ideas look stupid at the start
Born in Bosnia, built from Portugal - the global journey
Why Doist has no headquarters
Remote work philosophy and evaluating output over hours
Building Todoist as a personal tool in 2007
Why Amir builds for himself, not for users
The danger of building for customers you do not resemble
Launching Todoist with a single blog post
Why Amir would not recommend the organic-only SaaS distribution channel today
First revenue - covering server costs as a student
Setting freemium pricing at $29/year without research
Why the same pricing approach might not be optimal
Competitors copying the freemium model
Abandoning Todoist for a social network in 2008
Four years of flat growth with zero active development
Returning full time in 2012 driven by mission
Mobile revolution triggers bigger vision for Todoist
Generating salary-level revenue within months
Hiring the first employee for support
Managing passionate user feedback on the Todoist forum
Filtering user feedback and not letting users design the product
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/84
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email