What's up everyone, this is Cortland from ndhackers.com where I talk to the founders
of profitable internet businesses.
My goal, as always, is to get a sense of what's going on behind the scenes, how they got to
where they are today, and the lessons that we can learn from their experiences.
Today I'm talking to Amir Saleh Fendik.
He's the founder of a company called Doist, which makes a popular task management app
called ToDoist.
Thanks for joining me, Amir.
Thanks, it's awesome to be here.
It's really great to have you here.
We've got a lot that we can talk about.
First of all, ToDoist is massive.
It's one of the most popular task management apps that exists, which is no easy feat to
build.
And the company that you've built to build ToDoist is itself pretty interesting.
I mean, it's completely remote, and you describe yourself as a remote-first workplace.
So I would love to talk about that.
And you also grew up in Bosnia, which is pretty cool because it proves that anybody from anywhere
has a shot at starting something successful online.
But maybe the best place for us to start is kind of on your origin story as a founder
and as an entrepreneur.
And generally people fall in one of two buckets or somewhere in between.
The first half is the people who know from a very young age that they want to be an entrepreneur,
that they want to be a tech founder, and they're super driven from the start.
And the other side of the spectrum is people who kind of just fall into it.
So I'd love to hear your story and how you decided to become a founder.
Well, you know, my parents were entrepreneurs their whole life.
And I actually, I hated having like your own business.
I always end with like other kids that have normal parents, you know, because they would
kind of like get like normal work days, they would get vacations.
And for me, like it was like work a lot of the time with my parents.
So you know, I really didn't imagine myself actually growing up and starting my own business.
And like the same fate has happened to my brother.
So I think it kind of runs in the family.
But they said like, I've never actually grew up imagining working for others either.
So like from the very early age, I kind of like had side project.
Like I think the first like gig I had was when I was 15.
I sold like a website to the local library, and I kind of earned enough to buy a make
book back then.
So I was like, you know, already starting something there.
And then it just like during high school and university, I even did like a lot more projects
and kind of started to do that.
And then I kind of had like some part time jobs working for others.
But I didn't really imagine myself doing that.
When you were in high school or college, what would you have said to me if I could go back
in time and ask you what you thought your career would look like 10 or 15 years later?
I mean, what did you imagine your life being?
I mean, I basically knew I would like do some kind of development.
I really love like programming and you know, creating stuff.
So yeah, that basically but like I never actually imagined myself to be like a owner of a business
or a leader and stuff like that, like, yeah, it didn't really like appeal that much to me
at the beginning.
Yeah.
So that's basically like the start of it all.
When was the first time it started to really appeal to you?
And you thought, you know what, maybe instead of just doing like these projects as kind
of a hobby, that maybe I'm cut out to actually be a tech founder or to be an entrepreneur.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, it wasn't like really a day where that happened.
It kind of like happened gradually, I kind of like just get got pulled into it.
I'm actually unsure how much you know of my story, but like, I started to do it as a side
project, like, you know, I was 22 or something 23 when I started it.
And I basically started inside my dorm.
And I basically wanted a test management app for myself.
So there wasn't like a grand scheme of things like, oh, I'm going to start this startup,
you know, and raise money or something like that.
I just wanted to create something for myself.
And then once I did that, and I actually built the product, I launched it, I got a bunch
of users using it, I kind of got like a very, very good offer to co-found another startup,
which was a clerk.
And I'm not sure if you know, clerk, but at the time, we kind of had competition with
Twitter early on.
Of course, like we got very beaten up in the like European and Americans market, but we
kind of like grew a lot in like Asia Pacific.
Honestly, I think a lot of people, I think more people follow that type of path where
they don't have a super detailed plan or strategy in the beginning for exactly how they're going
to start a business.
And they kind of just fall into it because one thing leads to another.
And I think the other thing that you did that's also super common is to build a product for
yourself.
And then only months or years later, realize that it has the potential to be a solid business.
But it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Todoist was doing
actually very well in the beginning and that it had potential, but that you stopped to
work on clerk.
So is that correct?
And if so, why did you make that choice instead of continuing to work on your own thing?
Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing for me is like, I never actually sold the huge potential
into do it early on, like for me, it was just like a side project, and even actually getting
it validated and like early on, I also created like a business model for it, so people will
pay like $3 per month to get like reminders.
I don't know.
I got some people to pay for it, like not a lot, but you know, it was kind of like a
business model and people were very passionate about this.
But I could not really see like huge potential needed.
So that's why, you know, like when the social network came along, and I was kind of going
to be a co-founder, like it was well funded, you know, I could learn a ton doing this.
So I was kind of like, okay, let me just do this.
And I think that basically I maybe did it because I wanted to learn, like become a better
programmer, you know, better product designer.
And I think actually also it had helped me a ton do like this side gig of doing that.
But for today's self, like basically the whole project was like a side project for four years
before I committed full time on it.
Can you give me a sense of who these early Todoist customers were?
I mean, who was paying you $3 a month to use this app?
Were they just people that you met in your dorm at college or people that you met online?
And also, how long were you working on Todoist before you decided to switch and work on Plurk?
So basically, I think like initially I developed Todoist for like six months and released it.
And then got like, I had a very popular development blog, which a lot of people followed.
So via that, I got like a lot of early users, maybe like a few hundred or something like
that.
And basically they spread it around.
And it was like featured on the life hacker back then, which was pretty big blog.
So basically like, you know, it grew very fast.
But then like, I stopped like six months in.
And then I went like full time on this social network called Plurk.
And then I worked on Plurk for like three or four years before I returned back to Todoist
to work on this full time.
Yeah.
So I mean, I think, you know, in most other settings doing this, what I did like would
basically have been like a death sentence, but it kind of worked out somehow.
So let's talk a little bit about Plurk, because Plurk sounds like a very traditional tech startup,
one where you might not care all that much about having a business model, but you've
got investors and you're trying to grow as large as possible and you've got co-founders
and the whole nine yards.
How did you come to get involved and Plurk in the first place?
Well, I got like a cold email from one of the other founders.
And he basically wanted me to go on board on this.
So that's basically like, yeah, it was via my blog that I got into contact with this.
And like on this blog, I kind of like wrote a lot of stuff.
So he kind of liked it.
And he wanted to have me as like a CTO of this startup.
That's cool that your blog seems to be like the channel from which you did everything
early on.
Because that's also how you got your first users for Todoist.
Exactly.
Like, I mean, you know, I was like a very active blogger.
Like I blog for many years and I kind of like build my own little audience.
Well, maybe that's like where the real story is because I think a lot of people listening
in have tried to launch things in the past.
And I've been in this situation where I've been trying to build and launch something.
And I haven't found any success at all.
And it feels like, you know, how do people get this momentum where they launch something
and people care or where they get asked to become a co-founder of a promising company.
And it really helps to build an audience.
So let's shift gears for a little bit before we get into Plurik and talk about your blog
and how you started blogging and how long it took you to get to the point where your
blog was actually popular and it could help you do all these other things.
I actually like I started very early because I started on the internet very early to create
websites.
And most of them were kind of like personal websites where you know, you would throw in
some gifts and make some articles and you know, do some random stuff.
And then time went on, I kind of like built more and more of this.
So in the end, like I kind of had like my own personal space where I would post stuff.
And I mean, a lot of it was also like very embarrassing because I was like, like it was
like a personal blog and like it had programming.
It had like, you know, if I had like a hangover, I would kind of like do some random posts.
So I mean, it was just like, I mean, actually there's like still an archive of it, but like
you just like random stuff.
And yeah, I mean, it had a lot of followers, but I'm actually I'm sure I think like in
this whole history, it had like over 1 million unique.
Wow.
And so why did anyone even care about it if it was just you posting kind of like your
personal stuff and about your hangovers and your interests?
Because some of the posts were like very insightful, like, for instance, I did like an analysis
of Redis, not of Redis, of a Redis algorithm.
Because Redis was kind of like open source, so you could go in and like analyze it.
And I did like a post and basically it was like very insightful, so it got shared.
And yeah, so like some of the posts were actually very good.
And there was like a lot of random shit in between.
When you were writing all this stuff, were you kind of thinking about it strategically?
Like, hey, you know, I'm writing this stuff and it's kind of fun, but I'm going to collect
people's email addresses and make sure that I can use this as kind of a distribution channel
later on.
Or you're just writing and hoping things took off, but not really having a future strategy
or plan for your blog.
I mean, I didn't have a strategy at all, like it was not very strategic planning.
Like I didn't even have like a newsletter I sent out.
It was just like RSS feed.
This is just a mere straight from the heart, no plan, just writing.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I'm actually also I'm sure why I did this in the first place.
I think like maybe it's just like fun and I mean, a lot of the posts I also did is like
I went into a technology and I basically learned a bunch of it.
And then I wrote down like what I learned.
So it was kind of like also useful for myself.
And how long had you been running your blog before you got to the point where you used
it to help you with Todoist?
That's a good question.
I mean, the thing is like I'm actually unsure when my personal side turned into a blog.
But I kind of like always had a personal side that I just did random stuff on.
So if this is like many years, I think maybe at least three before I actually use it to
promote Todoist.
I think it's funny because one of the things about being an entrepreneur is that, as you
well know by this point in time, it takes a long time to get something off the ground.
Even a blog where you can just start writing from day one, it takes a while to build up
an audience.
And it's kind of advantageous that you were just writing things without any particular
strategy or goal in mind.
You're just writing what you're interested in because I don't know if you would have
been able to keep it up for three years if you were trying to see results immediately.
You know what I mean?
If you were trying to do it for some extra purpose besides just being interested in it,
you know, would you have kept writing regularly for years and years?
I mean, that's a very good point.
I think a lot of the stuff that you do, like even the project that you pick should be something
that you're deeply passionate about and that you would actually do without any kind of
external motive to do it.
I mean, I think the same thing happened with Todoist.
Todoist was never really launched to be this major task management app that would just
take over the world.
It was just me trying to do something for myself.
And I think if you look at other interesting stories, I mean, for instance, Dropbox is
a great example.
It's basically the same storyline.
So I think there's something very powerful to kind of do stuff for yourself and not be
motivated by external factors.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And it's funny because when you do things for yourself, it's not always obvious how
it's going to turn into some sort of successful business.
Even though you were charging for Todoist pretty early, you didn't necessarily believe
it was going to be successful.
And even though your blog was getting traffic, you didn't necessarily have a plan for building
an audience, et cetera, but you still did it because you liked both of those things.
And they still ended up both being super helpful for you from a professional standpoint.
So I think people who discount doing the things that they're interested in and say, oh, yeah,
I like that thing, but it can't turn into a real business, would often be surprised
at how things work out down the road if you really put your focus on something that you
like and do it at a high level for long enough.
Exactly.
And I think also something that happens, if you kind of look at stuff in a long-term perspective,
let's say riding, if you do riding for five years and you're very consistent, you will
become pretty good at it after five years.
If you do it for 10 years, you will become even better.
The problem I see, especially just looking around for the stories I know, is that people
kind of want to get amazing results, putting in a few months of work or doing something
for a bit and then expecting amazing results.
At least for me, I always try to look stuff at a longer perspective and also do long-term
investments, both personal but also company-by.
I think that's a smart way to go about it.
Even though that can be discouraging for a lot of people to hear, the way that I look
at it is, that time is going to pass anyway.
If you want to start a company that's successful and you want to have it successful now, today,
here, well, that's probably unrealistic.
But if you just work a job for the next three years, that's still three years of working
a job, three years that you could have been putting into building an audience or starting
your blog or building your company, so the time is going to pass anyway.
You might as well have a long-term outlook.
But anyway, this has been a huge digression from the story.
I was just very curious about your blog and what that was like.
Let's get back into talking about how you got started working on Plurk.
It sounds like your goal and your motivation, really, was to learn and pick up new skills
as a developer and kind of have a real job.
How did that work out exactly?
Yeah, I think we built one of the largest and fastest-growing social networks in the
world.
It's actually still ongoing, so it's very big, especially in Taiwan and Philippines
and Indonesia.
I learned a ton about this because the problem with social networks is the growth is usually
exponential.
So this means that you need to scale very fast, and it was actually my first real development
job.
I was the CTO of this thing that was adding tens of thousands of people per day.
Just keeping up with that and handling all that pressure taught me a ton of stuff.
But it also taught me what not to do and what path not to follow.
For me, not sleeping well and working 80-hour weeks, I was just very, very miserable.
I hated my life.
On paper, I was a multimillionaire, but inside, I was just shitty because there was so much
pressure and there was no room for relaxing or reflecting.
It was just ongoing all the time.
Yeah, I bet on that position as well.
Without the traffic, but with the 80-hour work weeks, and it's pretty depressing.
I'm curious about the story of how you got Plurk to grow so humongous, because when you
joined, how many people were at the company?
Was it just you and the founder?
I mean, we were three people in the beginning.
I was there from the start and I built it from the ground up.
How exactly do you create one of the fastest-growing social networks from a small team of a few
people?
Yeah, I mean, the thing with all of these things is that there are so many variables
and you can't really pinpoint it to a specific thing.
I think with social networks, it's like maybe timing, like being at the right place at the
right time.
Basically, we started out where Twitter started out and we were also like a micro-blogging
platform.
The timing was very good and then I think also we had a very good collection of people
and we complemented each other's skills very well.
We had a very good designer and a very good business person and maybe product person.
Then I had this technology skill set and we combined it into something that's quite powerful.
Another thing is also like Plurk was actually also a remote first company.
One of the founders is like a Canadian Indian and he worked from Toronto and another one
is like a Chinese Malaysian and initially he also worked from Toronto, but then he relocated
to Taiwan and I was in Denmark doing this stuff.
We also had a very unique team with very unique insights into the world, I think.
Was it your goal from the beginning to start some sort of humongous social network when
you guys first started working on Plurk?
I mean, it was.
One of the guys, one of the founders, he had already done something very successful and
he was already a very wealthy guy and it was basically his money.
We kind of burned in the beginning, so I mean the plan was to build something huge.
What kind of evolution did you go through as both a developer and a co-founder of this
company?
Because I imagine that by the end when you have this massive social network and you have
this complex app that you've worked for years to build, that you're probably a completely
different person than you were at the beginning before you knew any of this stuff.
So what are some of the steps that you went through and how did you grow?
I'm actually unsure how many of you listeners are very technical, so I'm not going to go
very on-tech, but I think something that's very important, like if you know that you're
actually going to build something that's significant, it's very hard to know this, but I kind of
repeated this both with Todoist and Plurk, is we didn't think things through properly.
So I think you kind of need to think far into the future and see how things will evolve.
Because in Plurk, we kind of made a lot of decisions that were final, that for instance,
like the database in the beginning wasn't sharded.
So the problem is, I'm not sure if you know what sharding is, but basically it's like
splitting data up into multiple databases.
So in the beginning, we just had this one database and it was a huge database, and it
at some point it just couldn't grow anymore, like we couldn't buy bigger hardware for it.
So we had to split data up.
If you have a fast-moving social network that adds tens of thousands of people per day,
and you need to do a sharding strategy, and then you kind of are very tired, and you work
a lot, it's a very, very non-trivial thing to do.
So I think a better thing is that from the initial design to kind of imagine, okay, we
are going to grow a lot, and then building a sharding strategy from the get-go.
I mean, that's like one example.
I mean, in Todoist, I can also give you another example, it's like the whole first app was
just built for the web, there was like no API.
And I didn't like even imagine, yeah, I kind of thought a bit about it, but I'm like, okay,
like this is just like a personal project.
But then like later on, you know, building an API for Todoist was like a huge challenge
because everything was kind of just like built for the web, and like built for like page
views, like not really a RESTful API.
And I think like you pay a lot of like, you can move fast in the beginning, but then later
on you pay like a huge price for doing these shortcuts.
And of course, I think like premature optimization is a huge issue.
So basically, you should be very careful, I'm not doing this, but like for some things,
you should like really think things through before you commit to them.
Yeah, it's such a hard tightrope to walk, because I remember starting startups back
in 2008 and 2009, and just trying to find like wherever I could online, just guides
and documentation to how to shard a database and how to deal with runaway growth.
Because back then, everybody wanted to build a massive social app.
It's funny looking back on it and how much time I spent thinking about how to scale up
to a company size that would be that big and yet never built anything that ever got that
many users, so it's basically wasting my time.
Yeah, that's basically like the first thing about premature optimization.
But I think like for some things, it's very important.
And I think actually, what's more important, maybe product decisions, especially like maybe
on the model level, or just like the core product level, because once you get like a
critical mass of users, it's incredibly hard to change stuff.
And it's very, very costly, like both in terms of just like a linear linear dating your users,
but also like in terms of changing stuff like changing models, changing the API, changing
the design.
Yeah, I wish at least like we if I could go back in time, you know, I would actually have
done something differently to do is to kind of like, it would have made stuff much easier
later on.
And of course, like, when you do this, and especially for me, it was a side project,
I didn't really think much about stuff.
And maybe that's why it moves so fast.
So you know, it may be like a like, you know, balance.
Yeah, it's a trade off for sure.
And, you know, like you said, maybe if you'd spent all your time in the beginning worrying
about how to scale and grow, you would never have built such a successful product to begin
with, you just wouldn't have had the bandwidth.
And I'm really interested in hearing about why you went from having this gigantic social
network that's that's doing well, how you decided to quit that and go back to working
on to do list, which is just this tiny, you know, to do list app that you'd built as a
college student in your dorm room.
How did you make that decision and why?
The thing is, like, after doing clerk for like three years, I was like very burned out.
And basically, like, I mean, we both had like offers of selling the company, we were closing
like VC deals and stuff like that.
But the thing is, like, I kind of just got like very burned out by the whole social networking
market.
I mean, the thing is, like, I'm not a very social person.
And like, it didn't like it's not something I wake up in the morning and say, Oh, my god,
I want to make, you know, the world a bit more social.
I was like more I want to make the world a bit more productive.
And I kind of want to find ways to like empower people and like find ways of how to optimize
to waste their time.
Because if you look at all of these social networks, and even right now, like, with Facebook
and others, like, their optimization strategy is basically, you know, wasting as much time
as possible.
Because that's the business model.
It's like ad based, you know, attention, getting your attention.
So I mean, that was basically the reason is like, I didn't really want to be part of this
market anymore.
And then I kind of like randomly, like one day, like, I saw on Hagen News, a post about
startup Chile, and I applied there.
And I actually forgot everything about applying for like a month or two after I got accepted.
And I was like, holy crap, like I'm going to Chile, and I didn't know anything about
Chile.
Yeah, so basically, I got into this program, and I went to Chile, and then I kind of applied
with another project called we do ist, which was basically a project management tool similar
to base camp.
So I didn't even apply with to do ist.
But after doing like this new tool for like six months, I was kind of like, why not just
go back and work on to do is because it already has like a bunch of users, it already has
a business model kind of works.
And that's when I decided to actually go back and work on it full time.
So back in those days, there weren't very many companies, especially tech companies
that were putting products online and just charging money for them.
I mean, that wasn't a very fashionable thing to do to build a product management tool.
Who was inspiring you and besides just not wanting to be just another Silicon Valley
company that's soaking up everybody's attention?
Why did you think this was a path that was worth following?
I didn't really think much about it.
The thing is, like, I didn't want to pay for the server costs.
So the business model was actually basically like, I don't want to pay for the server costs.
So let me just like build something that I can charge for.
So there was like, and I did like basically zero, like analysis of like pricing or like
test of pricing, I just like said, okay, what is kind of like fair to do.
And you know, that's basically what I charge.
And actually, the funny thing is like, you know, today's was one of the first in this
market.
And a lot of others have kind of like followed our pricing strategy, which is kind of like
not because, you know, it's kind of like based on nothing like that.
It's a funny thing about copying competitors, you know, you have no idea, like, oh, it seems
to be working for them.
But when you look at how the sausage is made, it's like they have no idea what they're doing
either.
Exactly.
So like, yeah, I was like very ignorant about this.
So I could probably have made like a bigger business if I actually had done some pricing
analysis in the beginning.
Well, let me ask, what do you think was more valuable?
Like, if you could only have one, would you pick the development and programming knowledge
and skills that you gain while working on Plurk?
Or would you pick kind of the softer skills you may have learned about marketing and fundraising
and product design while working on Plurk?
Which one helped you more to do it?
I would definitely say that the later, like, you know, getting a sense of design.
And I mean, Plurk didn't have like a very pretty design, but it's just like product,
you know, it's not really how it looks, but like how it works and how to actually create
an engaging experience, how to track stuff, analytics.
I mean, I was actually a very good programmer before I joined Plurk.
I got a lot better, but like, it wasn't really the core advantage I learned.
It was basically like the other stuff that is part of like building great products.
And it makes a lot of sense to to be a founder after that, because I think when you're an
early employee at a company or a founder, what you really need to do is have a super
well balanced skill set, because you're going to be doing everything.
Your job is really 10 jobs.
And so if you're super good at programming, but you don't know anything about marketing
or you don't know anything about how to build a product, then your company is probably gonna
fail unless you learn that stuff super quick.
So it makes a lot of sense that you choose the skill set that kind of made you more well
rounded as a founder.
I fully agree with that, Kordland.
And I think something that a lot of people, especially developers, they do is they kind
of like just focus on one thing, like, you know, becoming a good developer, and then
they forget about everything else.
But like building, you know, a successful product or like a successful business requires
a lot of, you know, knowledge about a lot of stuff like marketing, sales, design, you
know, even customer support, like leadership, I mean, there's like a shit ton of stuff that
you kind of like me to be good at, if you kind of want to be a founder.
And even right now, like I spent a ton of my time of actually just learning stuff.
So like, you know, learning stuff does not really never stop like, it just keeps going
on like, yeah.
I think one big thing that holds a lot of people back is that they're afraid of learning
something new.
They're afraid that they won't be able to learn it.
Has there ever been a time where you've been in this situation and you're afraid of learning
something or afraid of taking an approach because you don't know very much about it?
I wouldn't say so.
But I think like something that was kind of like unnatural for me, was basically the whole
like, becoming a leader and like leadership, like we are right now like 53 people.
So it's kind of like I need to brush out these skills and it's not something that has really
interested me much in the past.
So I wouldn't say I was afraid it was just not very something that I kind of like was
very passionate about, or like something I really wanted to do.
But the thing is, like, you kind of find out that in order, you know, to build something
even greater, you kind of like need to work with people and like get a bunch of people
together and work towards the goal because, you know, at some point, like being just one
person or a few persons isn't enough.
So I was kind of like forced into this other role.
Yeah, I think it's interesting to hear about how people approach these situations where
there's something that you're not good at or something that you're not interested in.
And yet you, it's kind of the biggest obstacle in your way.
So you don't have a choice, but to face it or to quit.
What is your management style been and how has it evolved as you've grown to this company
that now has dozens and dozens of employees?
Yeah, I mean, I think like it's very hard for me to say what my leadership style is.
But generally, like I have a huge shock in people.
So for instance, like we don't really track people inside a company, you know, we don't
have work hours.
The stuff that we do is basically people doing like an amazing job, like delivering stuff.
But like how you actually do it and when you do it, like we don't really care much about
that.
So like just a lot of other stuff, like just maybe trusting also the goodness in people.
I think trust is like a huge issue across the world.
And I grew up in Denmark.
So like, I think also I brought a lot of like Scandinavian venues into the into the list
that kind of like has shaped the company.
Yeah, it almost sounds like you guys have it all figured out at this point.
Was there a time where you felt like your management style was just off and that you
guys are running things a little bit wrong, or maybe that the company suffered because
of your inexperience with management?
I mean, the thing is, like, you never really, like, we have not figured stuff out, like,
and the problem with with starting a company, and growing it is that you kind of like need
to change everything once you hit certain milestones.
Like in the beginning, you know, you're a few people, or like you're just maybe yourself
doing something and that kind of work, then you maybe, you know, bring some other people,
you probably need to change some stuff when you do that.
But then, like, maybe hit 10 people, 20 people, you know, 30, 50.
And on each of these things, you kind of like need to reimagine everything and like, we
structure everything is basically like, you know, taking stuff apart.
And even like yourself, like, my role has changed significantly, you know, since the
beginning.
So give me an example of some of these things that you've changed, or maybe a point at which
things were too painful to keep doing it the same way you were doing it before.
I mean, right now, like, we are kind of like trying to synchronize, you know, the work
of 50 people, and we kind of like have tried many different systems that we like.
So that's like a huge challenge right now, at least.
And the problem with these things is, there's like no handbooks, like you can read about
how others are doing it.
So for instance, like we tried to follow Google's OKRs, but like it didn't work for us at all.
So then we kind of like tried another system and stuff like that.
So that's like on the company level.
And on a personal level, I think, like, for instance, like one on one, like providing
people radical candor, like radical feedback, like that's something that I had to improve
and we had to improve like collectively, because in the beginning, you know, we knew each other
very well.
So like, you didn't really need to think that much about like being candid and providing
this critical feedback and advancing people forward and stuff like that.
But right now, like, it's a huge part of my job.
Yeah, and it's challenging because you have to do all of this stuff to run your company
and make sure that everybody's effective and communicating well and successful.
But at the same time, you actually want like your product to be good, right?
You want your marketing to go well, and you actually have this challenge of building this
product in this competitive marketplace, because let's face it, there's a lot of to-do list
apps out there.
I mean, you guys have a ridiculous amount of competition.
So I'm really curious about how the early days went to like, how did you get to the
point where this to-do list app that no one had really ever heard of became such a massive
company and in such a popular application today?
A lot of the stuff is maybe ignorant.
So for me, I was like very ignorant about the competition, because, you know, it was
a side project.
So I didn't really care about the others.
Also, like just being like a beginner and not really caring that much is maybe helpful
because I think like if you just, if I did some market research, I would probably never
have started to do it.
Was to-do list growing while you were working at Plurk, or was it kind of just steady and
stable?
I mean, the thing is, I didn't even have like a proper analytics.
So basically like a few months would pass on, would just like do a query on like my
SQL to see how many signups there were.
But I didn't have any idea of like how many users were actually actively using the product.
That's hilarious.
When did you start getting serious?
And how did you pivot from this product management tool that you started to going back to to-do
list?
The thing is, once I returned back to-do list, I had like learned a ton of stuff.
So for instance, like analytics, like analytics are very useful.
And they can kind of like guide you and show you how healthy stuff is.
So I kind of added that and that gave me insight.
And then also just like optimizing landing pages, optimizing CEO, optimizing flows.
So like the funnel, the whole thing, I mean, those were very, very useful.
Like before that, I didn't like really know anything about it.
So I didn't really do that thing.
And I think like one of the major things was like the CEO element, because that brought
in like customers every day that kind of just search via Google to find like this task manager
of an app.
So that's one thing.
And the second question is, how did I figure out that I kind of wanted to kill this project
manager in the app and go back to-do list?
Is that I did this project manager in the app in like 2010 or 11.
And we built it for like desktop first.
And I could feel that mobile was like very, very, very important.
And there's like no way in hell we could actually take this desktop application and turn it
into a good mobile app.
So I was kind of like what I'm going to do like right now.
So I just start from scratch or not, and then like to-do list, like I could actually see
a very easy way of turning to-do list into a mobile app.
So that's basically I think maybe some of the motivation behind doing this.
That's such a funny reason to switch and get back into to-do list.
And it's actually a great reason, because it just means that you were paying attention
to the market forces.
And you wanted to be riding a wave that was going up instead of down, which is a surprisingly
simple thing to get wrong.
And it really worked out for you.
I've been following to-do list for years now.
I've started my own fair share of to-do list apps, just like every other developer.
And I looked at what you guys have been doing.
And one of your big, big strategies seems to have been being available on like every
single platform.
So you guys are like to-do list for iPhones, to-do list for iPads, to-do list for Safari,
to-do list for Chrome, to-do list for the web, to-do list for whatever.
You guys have got a million different versions of to-do list.
How early on was that part of your strategy, and how did that factor into you guys achieving
such massive growth?
I mean, it was actually very early part of the strategy, because I kind of like wanted
to have a tool that was with me everywhere.
So it was, again, like my own use case, like, you know, this having to list everywhere wasn't
like some kind of insight I had, just like I wanted to have this, because if you don't
have your task anywhere you go, then it's kind of like not super useful.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So we've talked about the challenge of learning how to be a manager, and how to grow a team
and grow with your team.
We talked about some of the more technical challenges of putting together a high growth
startup where the decisions you make early on don't really stand the test of time, and
you end up having to rewrite a lot of code.
Are there any other challenges you can think of that were really tough to overcome with
to-do list?
I think like something that really opened my eyes.
I mean, I have like always been like a lone wolf kind of developer, but I kind of like
figured out that in order to actually achieve amazing things, you need to have a very strong
team that kind of complement each other.
So I would definitely say that it took me some time to actually figure this out, because
I thought like I could basically do stuff on my own.
And you know, this works at some point, but like, if you really want to push the envelope
forward and like do amazing stuff, it's basically like teamwork, like there's very little one
person or like a few person shows around.
Is this a realization that you had when you were just working by yourself, or was it something
that occurred to you after you'd made your first few hires?
I'm actually on show.
I think like it came very late into this.
So like in the beginning, actually, my whole plan was to kind of like create a product
that generates about $30,000 per month.
And then I would, you know, be set for life, if I could do that.
So that was like my initial vision.
But the problem is like, well, once I started to do this, like the money element wasn't
really a huge motivator, it was basically to do better stuff.
And like, for instance, like, I know a bit about design, but like, I'm not the designer.
So like hiring a great designer was like a huge priority.
And you know, finding somebody to kind of like, make this amazing, or look amazing and
feel amazing, was very important.
I like what you said about your plan to be to make $30,000 a month so that you'll be
set for life, which honestly, I think people don't talk enough about their monetary goals,
because it really plays into why a lot of people start businesses, I mean, it's an extremely
difficult thing to do.
It's very risky, you know, it's much easier to get a normal job.
And so there's a lot of feel good stuff about starting a business and making your own projects.
But it's usually not worth it in the end if you don't have some sort of financial security
built into it.
So can you elaborate a little bit more on what your goals were financially and how long
it took you to get to the point where todoist was paying for your rent and paying for your
lifestyle?
I think it didn't really take a long time for it to pay my salary, I think maybe like five
months or something like that.
And then I could kind of like live very comfortably about with with the money I was making.
But the problem is, like, I kind of like took another pet and just started to hire people.
So I never really had like, you know, like a huge cushion.
I mean, the thing about this is like, I kind of like wanted to create something that kind
of like could generate some passive income, so I could kind of like do my own stuff, do
side projects, you know, write on my blog or whatever else I wanted to do.
But like, as I began to kind of dwell into this, I kind of figured out that, you know,
it was much more fun to actually just build products, build a company and, you know, be
like build something that you're proud of and not really focus that much on the money
aspect.
Yeah, I mean, once you dive in, and there are actually people who are using and depending
on what you've made, it's difficult to just walk away from that.
I mean, you've got people saying, hey, you know, can you add this feature?
Can you improve this design?
You're using it yourself too.
And you're thinking the same things that your customers are thinking.
And so I think that's why it's so rare for people to say, well, I'm done with this and
to just throw their hands up and walk away.
You know, as a luring as passive income is, that's just not something that that happens
very often.
Yeah, I mean, I think that it can work for some people, but like, I would personally
get very, very bored, because it's kind of fun to just have something that's growing,
that's changing, that kind of like changes you that, you know, you can let stuff with
them just to have like something that kind of like creates this passive income.
So nowadays, you guys have, I think you said like 50 something employees, I'm sure you
have millions of users and your revenue is probably looking great to be able to afford
all those employees.
How have your goals changed?
And how do you look at the future in terms of what you want to accomplish personally?
Initially, you know, when you start something, you kind of like I mean, from my my story,
is basically I started something to create something for myself.
And then you kind of want to create this better.
But at some point, like your ambition level kind of rises.
So suddenly, like, right now, like my motivation is that we are going to, you know, create
something that's like going to have like a global impact.
So we really want to, you know, build something that kind of like can help the world.
And I mean, yeah, we have like three different things, but we're kind of working on like
one is to do it itself, the other is like the whole remote first philosophy and like
building, you know, a strong remote first company is showing that you can actually build
something that spreads around the world and that has like all kinds of cultures and people
in it and you just do like outcompete, you know, Silicon Valley companies or whoever
else you're competing with.
And the third thing is based like team communication, like, right now, you know, there's like a huge
attack on our attention.
And we kind of like want to make more mindful products and especially like team based stuff.
And yeah, so, you know, we are like huge enemies of slack and like, you know, real time aspects.
And just like products that kind of just waste your time.
It's got to be hard as a remote first company to be anti slack, because it's one of the
tools I think that helps people who have distributed teams to be able to stay in touch.
What do you guys what's your alternative?
Well, we have our we have our own tool, it's called twist.
And it's basically asynchronous communication.
And we have actually like we use slack for two years.
But it does not really work greatly for remote companies.
And the problem is that really the real time aspect of it and like the one line aspect
on it.
So like, if you have very different time zones, like you kind of like need to have asynchronous
communication where people can leave comments, and you know, go do something or like go sleep
and then come back and respond again.
So slack is kind of like I think a lot of remote companies kind of using it right now.
But like, it's just a horrible tool for remote companies.
Yeah, I don't really understand how people are using it.
You know, that's our fight and we will see how it goes.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
That's a really great point that if people are in different time zones, it's kind of
crappy to have like, these chat based communications where the second someone talks about something
it scrolls up.
And by the time you wake up on the other side of the world, that conversation is already
gone and you've missed it and you're not going to reread the entire log to catch up.
Exactly, and like you can even like reset back the conversation, because that will probably
like be rude or whatever.
So like, you know, very important decisions can be made and this creates like this funnel
where you basically need to be connected all the time.
I mean, we are very happy that we kind of like created our own thing and we are working
on it right now.
So we will see.
Oh, I think what you guys are doing is the future.
And it's pretty cool to see how early you got into building a remote first company because
you were saying that Plurk was also remote first.
And that was back in like 2008, 2009 when it wasn't very common to start a company that
way.
And there weren't very many tools to supplement that lifestyle, but it's certainly the future.
And I'm looking forward to seeing more companies start the way that you guys have and continue
to kind of build these businesses and products without anyone having to be located in one
specific spot because it's just so limiting and it's just, it's not as fun to be honest
as being able to be remote.
I mean, I fully agree with this, Colin, and something I can actually recommend for people
that are starting out is like relocating to somewhere cheap because like there's a huge
amount of difference, you know, in prices that you pay.
So for instance, like once today's wasn't really big, like I lived in Porto in Portugal
for a few years and you know, we saved like a ton of money doing that.
I mean, for instance, like if you compare a portal, like a rent compared to like big
cities in Europe, it's probably like four times less or something like that.
So you can save like a huge amount of money to like, why would you be actually New York
or like San Francisco when you could be somewhere else and you know, save a lot of money and
like kind of do your own thing.
And I understand like all of these like network effects and like being part of a community.
But I think like on the internet, you can actually learn stuff and you don't really
need to be part of a hub to actually do stuff.
Yeah.
Or you can be part of an online community.
But I really feel you about the pricing because I started Indie Hackers in San Francisco and
it's like paying thousands of dollars a month just for rent compared to, you know, somebody
living in Bali, which is like the other extreme where it's like $500 a month for groceries,
rent, internet, cell phone, transportation, all put together, you're just more much more
likely to build a successful company.
But anyway, we're running toward the end of our hour.
And so to finish things off, a lot of people listening in are people who haven't started
a company yet are people who are at the very early stages and are maybe, you know, blocked
by some difficult challenge.
What's your one tip that you would give to somebody listening in who's very early on
for how they can succeed and keep going?
Yeah, I mean, what I would actually recommend is think a long term and optimize for the
long term.
Like I really hate these tips that kind of tell you like, you know, quit your job and
work on this for three months and see how it goes.
Because I don't really think like you can build anything, especially in the current
climate in three months, like you must be able to like, think much longer and like invest
for much longer than that.
And if you see like my story, like my story is basically like how we succeeded in like,
10 years.
It's not like how we succeeded, you know, in a night or whatever.
Like it's basically 10 years of hard work.
And of course, like it sounds a bit depressive, maybe or like a lot of work.
But I also don't really think like there's any shortcuts you can really make.
And I mean, one of the articles that I can really recommend is Peter Norvig, who is like
the I think the head of Google research, like he has an article called Teach Yourself Programming
in 10 Years.
And it's not really about programming, but like it's learning anything like you can't
really just pick up a book and learn something, you know, in a few hours or a few days, like
you must actually be willing to invest like 10 years in something.
So that would be my tip.
That's great advice.
And I wish people said that more often, because it's so easy to only focus on the art of
articles and the interviews and the stories you hear about somebody succeeding after a
month.
But the vast majority of the time, that's not the case.
And even people who do succeed after like a month or two, that's because of the work
that they put in for years and years before that.
So I think that's a great note to end the episode on.
Can you tell listeners where they can go to find out more about you, Amir, and about the
things that you're doing at Todoist?
Sure.
So like, I have a very active Todo account, it's Amix AMIX 3K.
And then we also have a blog where we kind of like share our philosophy and stuff.
And you know, it's very radical.
So I would actually recommend checking that out.
And it's at blog at Todoist.com.
So that's about it.
All right.
Thanks a ton for coming on, Amir.
It was a pleasure to have you.
Thank you, Kordland.
And it was amazing to be on the show and, you know, good luck with everything.
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