Prompt Cast
The Journey of Atlassian Founders: From College Friends to Building a $50 Billion Software Company
TLDR Atlassian founders, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, started their journey as college friends with different backgrounds, eventually pivoting from a tech support business to creating Jira, a project management software, through hard work, creativity, and a focus on empowering employees. Despite early struggles, they declined acquisition offers, believed in their vision, and continue to reflect on challenges, growth, and the importance of human connection in their distributed work model.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
Two friends from college founded Atlassian, a software company valued at over $50 billion, with collaboration tools used by various industries.
06:51
Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes had different upbringings, with Scott's dad working odd jobs and Mike attending boarding school in the UK before meeting in a computer science scholarship program at the University of New South Wales.
12:36
Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes met in college, where they worked on group assignments together and shared an interest in computers, eventually leading Mike to drop out of a scholarship program to start a web app startup called the Bookmark Box.
18:02
Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes decided to start a new business together after Mike's first company was sold, with their initial idea being to provide support for a software company's product.
23:36
The initial tech support business model was not successful, leading Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar to realize their true passion was in building software, prompting them to start exploring software development.
29:07
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar realized the need to pivot their business model towards selling software applications after recognizing the scalability issues with providing tech support, leading them to develop tools for online businesses, with their Atlassian support system evolving into Jira, a project management software.
34:39
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar developed Jira together, with the first version taking about three months to create and six months to reach a 1.0 version, all while keeping costs low and working tirelessly on their business.
40:55
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar initially struggled to sell their product, Jira, resorting to creative and low-budget marketing strategies to attract customers.
46:13
Jira's pricing model in the early 2000s involved selling updates for one year at $800, with a hope that customers would continue buying maintenance contracts for subsequent years, a strategy that was uncommon at the time but aimed at providing continuous value to users.
51:33
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar learned about leading people and running a business through first principles, focusing on creating a workplace where employees felt empowered and aligned with the company's values.
57:15
Atlassian's revenue was around $20 to $30 million a year in 2006-2007, and despite early acquisition offers, they were confident in their abilities and business trajectory, leading them to decline such offers.
01:03:05
Atlassian founders took a moment to reflect on potentially selling the company around 2009-2010 but ultimately decided to continue building it, believing that the next decade would be even better.
01:08:32
Atlassian founders reflect on the challenges of growing their business, becoming visible figures in Australia, and adjusting their perspectives on time and money as their wealth increased.
01:13:49
Atlassian founders discuss the shift towards a distributed work model, emphasizing the importance of human connection and social bonds in meetings.
Categories:
Business
