The Ledger
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Simons: Atlassian never followed the 'triple, triple, double, double' growth model
“And, you know, Atlassian, you know, was never a triple, triple, double, double, double company. It was this kind of methodical, reasonable grower.”
Simons: Founders should plan ecosystem economies from company formation
“I think in the earliest days of the company, in the formation of the company, you know, as you're building the product, I think you should be thinking, What are the economies, the extensions of our business that we can invest in that will have transitive prope…”
Simons: Partner ecosystems and certifications made Microsoft a generational business
“I think if you look back on time before they had the brand and direct reach that they have today, they had reached through this incredibly durable partner ecosystem and the customer economy built around getting Microsoft certified and having that sort of crede…”
Simons: Atlassian built a partner network instead of direct enterprise sales
“We invested at Atlassian, we invested early on, we had built this self-service online e-commerce flywheel for customers to buy the product. And as we moved into the enterprise, we had an opportunity to either invest directly in building an enterprise sales org…”
Simons: Software firms need established market demand before building partner networks
“You need market there. I mean, you need market for the partners to be able to grow their businesses, and then I think you need alignment around what they do, and what you do, and where you work together, and where some of the rubs will be.”
Simons: Ecosystem extensions drive higher core SaaS product retention
“If they do get access to that and it does solve a problem, it means that both the core product is more valuable to them. And the core product from a retention perspective is even stickier because you've got JIRA and then you have three or four things that are …”
Simons: Atlassian wouldn't be the same company without an early second product
“We added a second products really early in the company's life cycle. That was a very unconventional and risky choice. But I think if I look back, had we not done that, we probably would be a very different company. Who knows? Like if we were just the Jira comp…”
Simons: Atlassian grew 40% to 50% annually for 15 straight years
“Atlassian grew between 40 and 50% for more than 15 straight years.”
Simons: Startups more commonly fail by waiting too long for second products
“I think it's more common, a more common mistake is companies probably wait too long. Versus doing it too early. I think history is littered with examples of great companies that didn't invest in, you know, a durable second act, and they're putting all their en…”
Simons: Generational companies require multi-product portfolios built organically and via M&A
“If you're going to be a big generational company, you actually have to have more than one thing, and you probably have to have the ability to build them organically and acquire them.”
Simons: Atlassian wouldn't be as successful had it targeted enterprise early
“We made choices where we could have really early on invested in the enterprise segment, and instead of selling a 10,000 dollar product, chose to sell a 200,000 dollar product. And again, the counterfactual is tough to paint what Atlassian would have looked lik…”
Simons: Capital scarcity forces early-stage companies to build ROI discipline
“Capital scarcity can also benefit you. You know, we were forced to kind of fund the business from the cash register, and I think that created, you know, a discipline. It created a compelling need to really, really materially understand ROI, and so anywhere we …”
Simons: Atlassian has over 500 partner resellers and solution providers
“And, you know, when we thought about it, even sort of one of the examples that I mentioned, a partner economy of resellers and solution providers, we, I think Atlassian now probably has over 500 of those.”
Simons: Atlassian drew inspiration from Microsoft's platform ecosystem strategy
“We drew a lot of inspiration from Microsoft, which I think is a textbook case here.”
Simons: Atlassian enabled third-party add-on ecosystems from an early stage
“And by the way, the other dimension that I mentioned was, it was important to us is we had Extensibility in Atlassian products from a really early age. And so one thing that partners could do is they could extend them and kind of build add-ons and customizatio…”
Simons: Atlassian launched its second product Confluence in year two
“In Atlassian's case, our second product, Confluence, was created in year two of the company, which was incredibly risky, I think, to diversify focus so early. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I think it was foundational to the company Atlassian became.”