Episode 47: The Atlassian IPO

Ben & David venture to the land down under (and reunite
in-person!) to tell the story of the granddaddy of all
bootstrapped tech success stories, collaboration software company
Atlassian. How did two plucky college grads from Sydney,
Australia go from just trying to escape working for the man to
becoming two of the top 10 wealthiest people in the entire
country, all without raising a dollar of venture capital? We dive
in.


Sponsors:


WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25






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Topics Covered Include:


How Atlassian founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
met in college at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
Australia, and their decision to bootstrap a startup as an
alternative to finding a “real job” after graduation

Atlassian’s “no sales” model, and the resultant efficiency of
their sales & marketing spend relative to other SAAS
companies 

Organic product growth and acquisitions over the years,
starting with Jira and later adding Confluence, BitBucket,
HipChat / Stride, Jira Service Desk and Trello

Rapid revenue growth and the decision to continue as a
bootstrapped company, only raising secondary capital prior to
going public

The IPO in November 2015 and subsequent stock performance
(spoiler: it’s been good) 



The Carve Out:


Ben: Phil Knight’s memoir,  Shoe Dog

David: Bruce Springsteen memoir,  Born to Run