Lessons from Jay Simons of Atlassian

On Product-Led Growth and Business Models

On the marriage of product and business model: "I think product and the business model are really married together. And that's what we got right. You know, a lot of companies worry about how to sell a product really, before they do build a practice that can sell itself." [3]
On the goal of a true product-led growth model: "The goal in a true product-led growth model is to remove as much friction as possible." [4]
On price transparency: Full transparency around pricing is crucial for a product-led growth motion because it removes friction. [4]
On the power of a self-service model: "We keep the process as frictionless as possible. Almost all of the customers we land come to us on their own." [5]
On the "Johnny Appleseed" strategy: Atlassian's initial low-price, simple-offering strategy was like planting seeds everywhere, which eventually grew into larger opportunities. [5]
On the developer as a target audience: Developers are naturally wired for product-led growth because they are self-sufficient and skeptical of products that need extensive explanation. [4]
On the economics of customer acquisition: "It is far easier to expand an existing customer than it is to find and land a new one." [6]
On leaving money on the table for market share: "If you can acquire customers even by the way if you're leaving money on the table and you're gaining market share against competition what you're winning is a future opportunity for yourself to expand it and grow your business that is way easier than the alternative." [6]
On the evolution of their sales model: "We sort of look a lot more like amazon.com than maybe a traditional enterprise software company like Oracle because with automation and growth hacking and experimentation we've had to learn how to expose a customer to product B where they just bought product A." [7]
On the importance of a multi-product strategy early on: "We created our second product in our second year...we began to build this muscle around how do you think about cross-merchandising, cross-selling, upselling?" [3]

On Leadership and Company Culture

On the prerequisite for leadership: "If someone aspires to hold a leadership role, that person should love leading people. Managing people isn't something everybody loves, so I think you have to figure out really early on if you love doing it." [8]
On perseverance: "When the going gets tough, you don't get going. You stick it out, you press and you struggle through it." [8]
On knowing when to leave: A cue to leave a role is "when you're really not having fun and when you don't feel challenged." [8]
On the value of diverse experience: "Spending time in sales made me a better marketer, and spending time in marketing made me a better salesperson." [8]
On the importance of non-verbal communication: "When you don't have the benefit of verbal communication, you have to compensate in other ways. You have to be super aware of body language and how people react." [8]
On building a long-term company: The founders of Atlassian wanted the company to "outlive us," aiming to build an "indelible, 50-year company." [9]
On the discipline of being a public company: "We believe that the best run companies are public companies. Operating as a public company applies some pressure, but also, I think, some discipline to how you run your business." [9]
On the significance of an IPO: An IPO is "just a mile marker" if you are building a 50-year company. [9]
On systemic decision-making: "We work really hard on systems. Even down to basic things like how decisions get made. Who makes them? How are they documented? Who needs to be informed of them? Can we create a system around decision-making that helps us make decisions faster as we scale." [5]
On fostering urgency and smart risks: A key focus should be, "How do we make sure that we're fast and urgent and take smart risks?" [5]

On Building and Scaling a Business

On calculated risks: "Building a business is all about calculated risk... you're taking a calculated risk that that starting something new won't pull opportunity away from the thing that you already have." [1]
On expanding to a second product: "I think the answer is like as early as you can." [1]
On the benefit of starting a second product early: "The benefit of beginning to work on a second product early is that we were much younger and so we figured out all those things like really early on." [1]
On being a global company from day one: Due to Australia's smaller market, Atlassian had to think globally from its inception, which shaped its online distribution model. [1]
On the challenges of a multi-product company: "What gets hard about multiple products is you have to prioritize... that takes coordination and thinking and planning." [1]
On the founder's role in early sales: Founders should be very hands-on in the initial sales cycles to understand what messaging lands and what pain points to address. [1]
On hiring early sales talent: Look for a "younger, scrappier, grittier, sales-oriented, customer-oriented profile person" to learn alongside the founder. [1]
On scaling the sales team: First, find repeatability in the type of person who is successful in the sales role, then hire a leader to "pour gas on it." [1]
On the importance of community: "We have really focused on on galvanizing our customers together and providing different outlets for them to to unite to give us feedback to help each other." [10]
On starting a community early: "It's never too early to start to kind of build a business case that you take to your leadership to say like hey like there's we should focus energy here." [10]

On Teamwork and Collaboration

Atlassian's core mission: "Our mission is to unleash the potential of teams. We believe transformative ideas can only be delivered through teamwork." [5]
The three legs of a team collaboration stool: Every team needs a place to organize their work (like Jira), a place to discuss it (like HipChat, now Slack), and a place to create and share content (like Confluence). [11]
On the natural network effects of team software: "There's natural network effects built into our software because we're team oriented." [11]
On how their products spread organically: "Someone in HR gets exposed to Jira, Confluence, and HipChat and says 'Man, the rest of us have to be doing what they're doing.'" [11]
The importance of end-user happiness: "End-user NPS is probably like the important leading indicator of future growth." [11]

Additional Insights

On the early days of online software sales: It was "unusual for Atlassian to distribute on-prem software over the internet, let developers download it, buy it with a credit card." [1]
On not taking venture capital early on: "If we had been venture-backed at the time, I'm certain that the guidance we would have gotten would have been different." [7]
On the long-term value of customers: Atlassian focused on achieving a greater cumulative result over time rather than maximizing the initial sale. [7]
On the role of a "Product Advocate": This role at Atlassian was a "very product-oriented person" who represented the product to customers without the pressure of a sales quota. [3]
On the power of word-of-mouth: "We all know that word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful tools, but how do you scale that?" The answer for Atlassian was user groups and community. [10]
On the inspiration for community building: The first user group was started by a customer, which inspired Atlassian to figure out how to multiply that organic enthusiasm. [10]
On the importance of executive buy-in for community: Having CEOs and leaders who recognize the importance of community leads to funding, priority, and company-wide communication. [10]
On the relationship between R&D and sales spending: Atlassian famously spent more on R&D than on sales and marketing, a testament to its product-led approach. [4]
On the decision to have multiple products: The founders started Confluence just two years after Jira to "scratch their own itch." [11]
On the challenge of focusing on multiple products: "It's a myth you have to force rank things... doesn't number four isn't number four going to fail?" [11]
On the company's growth trajectory: Simons helped scale Atlassian from a pre-IPO company to a valuation of approximately $40 billion. [12]
On his post-Atlassian focus: Simons now focuses on "emerging enterprise software companies and the scaling of modern SaaS business models globally" as a General Partner at BOND. [13]
On the value of a "measure twice, cut once" strategy: Atlassian took its time to go public, practicing operating as a public company for years beforehand. [9]
On creating long-term value over short-term gains: Pulling all revenue forward can create worse long-term value for a company. [9]
On the core of Atlassian's success: "You need to begin with what Atlassian did really well, even before I got there, which was to build an incredible product." [3]

Learn more:

Lessons from Jay Simons of Atlassian

On Product-Led Growth and Business Models

On Leadership and Company Culture

On Building and Scaling a Business

On Teamwork and Collaboration

Additional Insights

Written by Antoine Buteau

Lessons from John Gall

Lessons from Emilie Choi, president of Coinbase