How Atlassian was built with $10,000
Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar met as computer science students at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Keen to set up their own business, they started by building their own third-party support service.
While completing their own projects for the service, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were forced to acknowledge just how messy development work could be. They also knew first-hand that using email and personal productivity tools was a less than ideal way to collaborate and see across a project’s progress.
Initially, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar built software on the side to track their own issues and bugs, while providing their teams with a synchronised workspace, but then had the lightbulb moment of realising it could be used by paying customers. Switching from offering a service to a product, they took out a $10,000 credit card and used it to fund Atlassian’s first offering, Jira.
Jira was a breakthrough product and Atlassian’s potential was clear from the beginning. Throughout the early years the founders turned down multiple offers from would-be buyers and investors, all of which fell drastically short of the business’s true value. This included an abruptly ended meeting when a potential US buyer realised that Atlassian was worth much more than his own company!
Atlassian’s rags-to-riches tale made mainstream news as the bootstrapped startup finally accepted its first ever injection of investment capital in 2010. Accel Partners poured US$60 million into development, which at the time was the US venture capital fund’s largest ever investment in a software company.
Twelve years on and Atlassian has become a tech industry rockstar, but hasn’t lost sight of its founding principles. In true Aussie style, Atlassian’s no-nonsense company values still read:
- Don’t #@!% the customer
- Play, as a team
- Be the change you seek
Atlassian’s 20 year story proves patience is a virtue when it comes to scaling a company that’s going to have a lasting impact.