Tomislav Car
| Tomislav Car | |
| Nationality | Croatian |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Software entrepreneur, businessman |
| Title | Co-founder and CEO of Productive |
| Known for | Co-founder of the software agency Infinum and co-founder and chief executive of the agency-management software company Productive |
| Website | https://productive.io |
Tomislav Car is a Croatian software entrepreneur and businessman. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Productive, a software-as-a-service company that makes agency-management software, and the co-founder and former chief executive of Infinum, a software design and development agency he started while still a university student. Car built Infinum from a two-person startup into an international agency of several hundred employees without raising outside investment, and later helped spin Productive — a system first built to run Infinum's own business — out into an independent, bootstrapped software company.
Early career and Infinum
Car co-founded Infinum in 2005, at the age of 19, with Matej Špoler during their freshman year at university.[1] The company began as a small web and software development studio, and Car has cited its first software sale, for US$5,000, as an early milestone.[1]
As chief executive, Car led Infinum's expansion into mobile and web development for international clients over the following decade and a half. The agency grew to roughly 250 employees across offices that included locations in Croatia, Slovenia, and the United States — a scale Car has said the company reached without external funding.[1][2] By the company's account, Infinum received more than 150 industry awards during its first fifteen years.[1]
Car has repeatedly pointed to Infinum's bootstrapped model — reinvesting revenue instead of raising venture capital — as central to how he builds companies.[1][3] He later stepped back from day-to-day leadership of Infinum to concentrate on Productive.[4]
Productive
Origins as an internal tool
Productive began inside Infinum as an internal system for running the agency's own operations, bringing the management of sales pipelines, client projects, time tracking, and profitability into a single tool.[5][4] An early version was built around 2014 to address Infinum's own need to track time and the profitability of its projects.[5]
Spin-off and growth
Car, together with co-founders Jan Varljen and Ivan Lučin, decided to spin Productive off from Infinum and develop it as a standalone product, with Car moving over to run the new company full-time as chief executive.[5][4]
Productive develops what is described as agency-management or professional-services-automation software, used by agencies and consultancies to manage projects, budgets, resource scheduling, and profitability. Consistent with the approach Car took at Infinum, the company has remained bootstrapped, without venture-capital funding; by 2024 it was reported to have reached annual recurring revenue of about US$6.8 million.[6] Although the product was first developed in Croatia, the company operates with a base in San Francisco.[6][4]
Public commentary
Car has discussed agency economics, project budgeting, and software-business strategy in industry interviews and on podcasts, including The Digital Project Manager podcast, where he spoke about managing project budgets and profitability for agencies.[3][2] A recurring theme in these appearances is his preference for building profitable, self-funded companies over pursuing rapid, investor-backed growth.[1][3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Tomislav Car: "Size, experience and longevity are why we stand out"". 'Top Interactive Agencies}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Interview with Tomislav Car, CEO at Infinum". 'BugTrackers}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Managing Project Budgets and Profitability (With Tomislav Car From Infinum)". 'The Digital Project Manager}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "About Us". 'Productive}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Productive". 'Tomislav Car}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Productive Revenue: $6.8M ARR". 'GetLatka}'. Retrieved 2026-06-22.