The Ledger
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Farquhar says raising Silicon Valley capital would have made Atlassian less disruptive
“I really think if we had grown up in Silicon Valley and had venture capital around us, that we would have built a very different company that wouldn't have been as disruptive as ours has been because we didn't have venture capital.”
Cannon-Brookes says demonstrating direct product value eliminates the need for sales reps
“If you can demonstrate value to someone
We had to figure out how to sell things online.
And once we had done that and saw the effect of that patience, all we did is kind of continue to double down on that model every year, right?
We would hire more engineers i…”
Farquhar claims starting in Australia is the only reason Atlassian became successful
“Starting Alassian in Australia is the only reason we're successful.”
Cannon-Brookes explains how enterprise software virality spreads through cross-functional team members
“We want to get one team to solve one problem with our application brilliantly, because most people in companies don't work on one team. They actually work on three or four different teams and different projects, different things.”
Cannon-Brookes argues distributed teams should use in-person gatherings exclusively for social bonding
“Do the work at home when you're remote from each other, and when you're meeting, build the social bonds, go out to dinner, like run exercises, whatever you're going to do, but don't meet to do work.”
Cannon-Brookes argues startup leaders must scale their capabilities faster than company growth
“If our business is going to double every two years, as individuals and as leaders, we can only justify our positions if we are more than doubling our capabilities every two years. Because logically, otherwise, you end up with a kind of constraint at the top, r…”
Farquhar notes Atlassian bought early Google AdWords for 10 to 20 cents
“Things that would now cost you 10 or 20 dollars for a click would cost us 10 or 20 cents, and I always wish we had more money to spend on that.”
Cannon-Brookes says developer tools provide an entry point to larger enterprise markets
“It turns out there's way more non-software developers in a company to sell to than there are software developers, but this is still a great sort of entry into the company, if you like.”
Cannon-Brookes says Atlassian remained completely founder-owned with zero funding after eight years
“We had taken no, no, no capital, no investment.
we still owned a hundred percent of the company.”
Cannon-Brookes' father passed on investing in Atlassian after an early startup underperformed
“The worst, or the funniest part about that story, my dad would hate me saying this, is he, I think my dad put in five or 10 grand, and you know, barely got his money back kind of thing, and decided that maybe I wasn't worth backing, and so he never invested in…”
Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes originally just wanted a $48,500 salary without wearing suits
“The thesis was if we can earn 48,500 dollars and not have to wear a suit to work and a tie to work and work with, you know, kind of average people, then, you know, we've won.”
Atlassian's first shareholder agreement designated rock-paper-scissors to resolve founder disputes
“And we put in Rochambeau or rock, paper, scissors into our shareholders agreement. And so it's changed now. We're a public company. We can't solve problems like that anymore. But you know, for the first few years, if we disagreed it would have ended up at rock…”