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Atlassian
Most startups follow a familiar playbook: raise money, hire salespeople, and chase customers. But Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar took a different route. Starting with just $10,000 in credit card debt, they built Atlassian into a global powerhouse, without a traditional sales team.
What you will learn:
The Unconventional Path to Success – How two university students built a billion-dollar company without a sales team, relying solely on great products and direct online sales.
Overcoming Skepticism and Challenges – The struggles Atlassian faced, from investor doubts to employee turnover, and how they stayed true to their vision and values.
Scaling a Global Tech Giant – The key milestones in Atlassian’s growth, from securing major investments to acquiring companies, launching new products, and going public.
I hope you enjoy it.
Atlassian
In 2002, two Australian university students, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, launched a company with just $10,000 in credit card debt. They weren’t working out of a Silicon Valley garage but rather a shared house in Sydney.
"We had a hunch early on that salespeople ruin software companies," Cannon-Brookes once remarked. This belief shaped their unconventional approach: no sales team—just high-quality products available directly online.
Their first product, Jira, emerged from frustration with existing bug-tracking tools. They built it, set a competitive price, and waited. The wait didn’t last long. One morning, they discovered an order from American Airlines sitting on their fax machine.
"Did you talk to them?" "No, did you?" They stared at each other in shock. "Holy shit! American Airlines found Jira on our website and bought it just like that!"
But success didn’t happen overnight. Many potential mentors and investors were skeptical. "Almost everyone we spoke to said, ‘Well done, but you can’t scale without a sales team,’" Cannon-Brookes recalled.
The breakthrough came in 2010 when they secured a $60 million investment from Accel Partners. This wasn’t just any deal. As Farquhar explained, "They aligned with Atlassian’s values and shared our vision for leading a company. They wouldn’t ask us to abandon our model or culture."
With fresh funding, Atlassian grew quickly. They acquired Bitbucket in 2010, launched the Atlassian Marketplace in 2012, and went public in 2015 with a market valuation of $5.8 billion.
However, rapid growth brought its own difficulties. In 2012, they struggled with high employee turnover. "We were juggling everything. It felt like there were constant fires to put out," Cannon-Brookes admitted.
They tackled this by reinforcing their values and company culture. "We want to build a company that lasts 50 years. Going public is just one step in that journey," Farquhar said.
Today, Atlassian serves over 260,000 customers worldwide, generating more than $3.5 billion in annual revenue. Its market capitalization has soared beyond $40 billion.
But for Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar, success isn’t just about the numbers. "Atlassian exists to unleash the potential in every team," they affirm.
Lessons
Lesson 1: Don't be afraid to buck convention.
Atlassian chose not to have a sales team, which was unheard of for enterprise software. They relied on word-of-mouth and a self-service model. Scott Farquhar recalled, "Almost everyone we spoke to would say well done, but you can't sustain that and grow without sales people." They proved the naysayers wrong. Sometimes, the best way to succeed is to ignore what everyone else is doing.
Lesson 2: Make big bets early
Atlassian learned the hard way that timing is crucial in tech. When they acquired HipChat, they didn't go all-in immediately. "We didn't go big on group chat right away and, in retrospect, we should have," Cannon-Brookes admitted. By the time they pivoted to build Stride, Slack had already dominated the market. Don't be afraid to make big bets early. The cost of being too late is often higher than the cost of being too early.
Lesson 3: Open up your platform.
Atlassian created a marketplace for third-party apps, turning their products into platforms. This move made their products more valuable and created a whole ecosystem of developers building on top of them. It's a win-win: customers get more functionality, and Atlassian gets a cut of the sales. As Cannon-Brookes put it, "We built a legal and finance framework and offered a native licensing system, payment, invoicing, taxes, subscription renewals, etc. so developers could focus on the things they love, like building great plugins."