May 10, 2019 · 22m · top-founders

1385 Atlassian Passes $1B ARR Run Rate, Thinking About Acquisitions of "System of Record" companies

Jay Simons · 12m spoken Nathan Latka · 8m spoken

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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The Top Entrepreneurs, host Nathan Latka interviews Jay Simons, President of Atlassian, exploring how the company scaled to a $1 billion ARR run rate through a low-touch self-serve sales model, disciplined growth experimentation, and strategic acquisitions like Trello.

Chapters · click to jump

2 statements ▾

Trello Sits Between Structured Jira and Unstructured Confluence open →

Trello Acquisition Exceeded Revenue Guidance Provided to Wall Street open →

1 statement ▾

Trello Required In-Office Staff to Join Zoom Meetings From Separate Rooms open →

2 statements ▾

Atlassian Had Over $20 Million in Revenue When Jay Simons Joined open →

Atlassian's Average Selling Price Was Around $1,800 Annually in 2008 open →

1 statement ▾

Atlassian Refused to Manually Complete Enterprise RFPs, Building a Self-Serve Database open →

1 statement ▾

Atlassian Consistently Grew 35% to 50% Annually Over a Decade open →

1 statement ▾

Atlassian Required Product Experiments to Show Positive Yield Twice Before Rollout open →

1 statement ▾

Atlassian Raised Zero Primary Capital Until Its 2015 IPO open →

1 statement ▾

Atlassian Achieves 98% Logo Retention on Customers Spending Over $50,000 open →

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 39.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.9 Guest teaching 1.3 Guest disagreement 0.7 Nathan pushing back 1.7

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:40 Refusing enterprise RFP demands

Simons describes having the fortitude to push back directly against potential enterprise customers who insisted on customized RFP submissions.

Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 4:48 Nathan presses for post-acquisition dead patches

Nathan refuses to accept that the Trello acquisition was purely seamless, demanding Jay reveal the unexpected challenges underneath the surface.

Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:19 Jay breaks down system of record retention

Jay reframes Nathan's question about low-priced SaaS churn by explaining that Jira and Confluence achieve extreme retention by operating as institutional systems of record.

Nathan holds their own ▶ 8:57 Nathan identifies founder dopamine pitfalls in sales demos

Nathan demonstrates operational insight by explaining why founders struggle to automate sales demos because they crave the dopamine hit of live presentations.

the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each

Topic	Nathan as informed peer	Guest teaching	Guest disagreement	Nathan pushing back	Why
Nathan Latka Promotes How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital	0	0	0	0	Nathan delivers a promotional solo intro for his book and introduces the podcast and guest.
Introducing Jay Simons and Atlassian's Low-Touch Model	6	1	0	1	Nathan introduces Jay Simons and questions him about the strategic product fit of the Trello acquisition. Simons details where Trello sits relative to Jira and Confluence in a collaborative discussion.
Navigating Remote-First Culture Integration After Acquiring Trello	6	2	1	3	Nathan pushes Jay to reveal cultural difficulties and integration challenges. Jay explains how Atlassian had to adapt to Trello's strict remote-first culture.
Eliminating Sales Friction by Self-Serving Enterprise RFPs	5	2	1	2	Jay explains how Atlassian cut sales friction by automating demos and open-sourcing RFP responses. Nathan validates the strategy with examples of common founder friction.
Scaling In-Product Growth Experiments and the Product-Marketing Pact	6	1	1	2	Nathan asks about growth experimentation velocity, pressing for specific cohort sizes. Jay explains their embedded product-marketing experimentation framework and pact.
Bootstrapping Legacy and the Decision to Go Public in 2015	6	2	1	2	Nathan queries why Atlassian chose an IPO instead of staying private with secondary rounds, and explores churn dynamics. Jay clarifies that Atlassian's products act as sticky systems of record.
M&A Strategy: Evaluating Inorganic Tech Additions vs Financial Arbitrage	5	1	1	2	Nathan asks about inorganic M&A versus financial multiple arbitrage before moving into the Famous Five wrap-up. Jay emphasizes buying for strategic capability rather than just revenue.

Statements from this episode (10)

Insight

Trello Sits Between Structured Jira and Unstructured Confluence

“If you think about what Trello is, you know, sort of like a digital whiteboard where you can kind of rearrange cards on it. And at one end of the opposite spectrum is, is Jira, a product of ours that is very structured. To manage collaborative project tracking…”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 3:42

Assertion Supported

Trello Acquisition Exceeded Revenue Guidance Provided to Wall Street

“In terms of performance, like, we've exceeded our expectations. You know, we signaled to the street what we thought our revenue expectations was, and we're in front of that.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 4:37

Assertion Supported

Trello Required In-Office Staff to Join Zoom Meetings From Separate Rooms

“They had pretty hard rules around when you joined a zoom or when you joined a meeting and there were maybe five people in a room, everybody went to five different places and joined a zoom from five different locations. And so the people that were outside of th…”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 5:27

Assertion Contradicted

Atlassian Had Over $20 Million in Revenue When Jay Simons Joined

“So when I joined, we were just a little over twenty million in, in annual revenue.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 7:31

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Atlassian's Average Selling Price Was Around $1,800 Annually in 2008

“ASP, ASP at the time was probably like 1800 bucks annually.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 8:14

Disclosure

Atlassian Refused to Manually Complete Enterprise RFPs, Building a Self-Serve Database

“RFPs is another one. You know, like, we've been selling it to the enterprise for a long time, and, you know, you often get a lot of requests for, hey, help me fill out this, you know, this RFP document or this questionnaire that I basically have to provide to …”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 9:34

Assertion Supported

Atlassian Consistently Grew 35% to 50% Annually Over a Decade

“We have pretty consistently as a company grown somewhere between 35 and 50% over the last decade.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 11:05

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Atlassian Required Product Experiments to Show Positive Yield Twice Before Rollout

“We had an agreement. We had a pact with product where if we, every experiment we would run twice, if we produce the same Positive yield twice. We had basically blood pack that said, okay, that gets written that way for everybody.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 14:09

Assertion Partly supported

Atlassian Raised Zero Primary Capital Until Its 2015 IPO

“I mean, the first time that we raised primary capital was when we went public in 2015, 13 years after founding. We did two secondary rounds. We did a secondary round in 2010 with Excel, and then we did a secondary round with T. Rowe Price in 2013.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 15:31

Assertion Supported

Atlassian Achieves 98% Logo Retention on Customers Spending Over $50,000

“You know, one thing that we've shared publicly is, is retention at a logo level for companies that spend 50 grand or more with us is 98%.”

Jay Simons May 10, 2019 ▶ 18:17

1385 Atlassian Passes $1B ARR Run Rate, Thinking About Acquisitions of "System of Record" companies

How this conversation actually went

Statements from this episode (10)

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