Amir Salihefendic is the founder and CEO of Doist — the company behind popular productivity and work apps Todoist, one of the world’s most popular productivity tools used by millions of people, and Twist, an async work communication app that helps remote-friendly teams run an organized, transparent, and balanced workplace. 

Amir was born in Bosnia where he spent the early few years of his childhood. His family fled war-torn Bosnia for Denmark. Amir grew up in rural Denmark and studied computer science at Aarhus Univeristet in Aarhus, Denmark. Prior to starting Doist, Amir was part of the founding team of Plurk, a social networking site before Twitter that continues to be one of the popular social networking sites in Asia. Before that, he created, built, and sold a successful spell-checking service, one of his many side projects. A passionate creator, Amir created Todoist in 2007 to manage his own tasks. At the time, he was still a university student juggling multiple programming jobs and side projects on the side. Todoist quickly gained popularity and the rest is history. 

Over the years, Amir and his team have built a distinct company that is well-known for its remote-first operation, excellent culture, and great products. 

I recently had an opportunity to speak with Amir about his journey, all things Doist, remote work, building products and organizations, personal productivity, company culture, and life. We talk about his early life and the impact of war, the influence of his parents on him,  his parenting style as a father of three small children, how living in multiple countries has changed his view about the world and humanity, how technology has changed our world and why our struggle is sometimes useful to make us resilient, ambition as a hedge against complacency and despair, we delve into the origin story of Doist, the upsides of adopting a creation mindset, the secrets behind the growth of Todoist, his views about the changing world of work, the state of Doist today, and ambition going forward, we explore company culture, the idea of mastery and craftsmanship, finding the right people, and reflect on why life so special and much more.

I had an excellent time speaking with Amir. I hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it. Thanks to Ayrin Saleha Ria for reviewing a draft of this interview. Happy building! 

I. INTRODUCTION, PERSONAL HISTORY, AND PARENTS 

Ruhul Kader: Thank you for agreeing to this interview. I have been a fan of your work and writing and am a long-time Doist user. This is a huge thing for me.

Amir Salihefendic: I'm happy to be interviewed and also to hear a bit about Bangladesh's tech scene and stuff. It's exciting that the world is becoming much more connected.

Ruhul Kader: Have you been to Bangladesh?

Amir Salihefendic: I have not been. The closest to Bangladesh I've been to is maybe Hong Kong. Still probably very far away.

Ruhul Kader: Since you have now teammates in Bangladesh, come over sometime. You will enjoy the people and the country.