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Amir Salihefendić
@amix3k
, 10 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
0/ Some thoughts on metrics, and what we’ve learned over the years 📈
1/ When I started Todoist in 2007 I used to do SQL queries to figure out things. There were no dashboards. In hindsight, this might have been good because I just cared about building a great product and not about the numbers.
2/ Over the years, our metrics sophistication has grown, and we track a ton of things; too many things. We’ve even created a very powerful cohorts database that has tracked billions of events github.com/Doist/bitmapist
3/ Tracking a lot of things have not helped as it dilutes focus, and some frequent feedback I got was that people missed having a few metrics we genuinely care about. Our people didn’t want a ton of metrics, but North Star metrics 🌟
4/ For .@Doist as a company the North Star metric was easy to figure out. We picked revenues per employee as it would ensure that we don’t overhire and that we always take into account how productive and impactful we are per employee.
5/ Product North Star metrics were harder and produced a lot more discussion. .@hfauq shared an excellent essay by @bbalfour that inspired our thinking brianbalfour.com/essays/north-s…
6/ We settled to track 2 things for .@todoist and .@twistappteam
- Breadth of retention
- Monetization
We didn’t want to track engagement as we felt that today’s software is too addictive and this metric creates the wrong incentives.
7/ For .@todoist we picked following North Star metrics:
☺️ Breadth of retention: Daily actives for weekdays that exclude signups from the same day
💸 Monetization: Monthly recurring revenues
8/ For .@twistappteam we picked following North Star metrics:
☺️ Breadth of retention: Active teams for weekdays that exclude signups from the same day
💸 Monetization: Monthly recurring revenues
9/ We are still rolling out these North Star metrics, and I’ll do a follow up of our learnings as we evolve our thinking on this. You are welcome to share your thoughts on metrics below 👍
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More from @amix3k see all

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Amir Salihefendić
@amix3k
Level, a similar service to Twist, is shutting down. A thread follows with some thoughts on starting a product these days. derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05…
The easiest path is to solve a problem you have. This way, you don’t have to second guess if you are solving a real problem, and you don’t have to do user research. We started Twist to solve problems we had with distractions of Slack, I built Todoist to manage my work and life.
The days of the MVP versions are over. The expectations are incredibly high, and people will not even entertain your solution if you don’t cover all the core things such as engineering, design, support, and marketing.
Read 6 tweets
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Amir Salihefendić
@amix3k
0/ 💡 Some core things we've learned about retreats over the years. Our learning is based on 5 company-wide retreats around the world. This is a response to
1/ 💸 Retreats are expensive, most of ours have been $3000+ per employee. This cost is easily worth it, especially given that we don't spend anything on office leases.
2/ 🗺 Picking an inspiring location is critical as you want to create a great experience for people. Some of the best retreats we have done have been in Iceland 🇮🇸 and Chile 🇨🇱.
Read 11 tweets
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Amir Salihefendić
@amix3k
0/ 🔀 Some thoughts on how to build and promote an asynchronous culture inside your team. Doing this can help you produce better work while having the ability to disconnect and have a better life quality.
1/ 👏 Evaluate people differently, e.g., based on their output and results and not how responsive they are or if they are online all the time.
2/ ⏰ Abolish work hours or the need to come into an office. This will let you hire from anywhere and would force your organization towards more asynchronous communication.
Read 11 tweets

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*taps mic*

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Mike Boysen 👨‍🔧
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(1) So, the reality is that not everyone is looking for whiz-bang breakthrough innovations. After all, our economy is built on existing businesses, and sometimes that just want to figure out how to grow. The common desire is to expand geographically #jtbd
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Jeena Cho 조지현
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My family immigrated to the US in 1988 (the same year that Korea last hosted the Olympics). I was 10 years old. I didn’t speak a word of English. Neither did anyone else in my family.
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There's this bizarre assumption about the #ActuallyAutistic that "functioning levels" are:

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* There's no such thing as HFA or LFA.
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kHz / KillaHertz / TheFrequencyMan / FM
@killahertz_
yo today is depressing af so here's some 🔥 math facts to cheer you up:

the riemann zeta function is universal, which means that somewhere in it (in the complex plane) it contains any other function*

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