Atlassian
Smart50 rank: 17
Revenue: $35.50 million
Growth: 74.50%
Founders: Mike Cannon-Brookes, 28; Scott Farquhar, 28
Based: New South Wales
Employees: 110
Industry: Information technology
Website: www.atlassian.com
Winner:
PricewaterhouseCoopers Top Exporter Award
Atlassian aims to be Australia’s great successful software story. And it’s on its way, achieving 74.5% growth rate with revenue increasing to $35.5 million from $22.5 million in 2006-07.
The company also has some very smart young founders behind it, who seem able to transform the company from a startup in 2002 to an international success with more than 80% of revenue coming from overseas markets. The company that started from home has been profitable since day one.
Back in 2002 Mike Cannon-Brookes (pictured left) and Scott Farquhar, both fresh out of university, made a decision – rather than taking graduate positions and working at large companies, they would have a go at running their own business.
They quickly realised there was a market gap they could fill for enterprise software. Atlassian's first product, JIRA, was developed, because the founders couldn't find an affordable issue tracker that did all the things they wanted.
Their second product came about in the same way. They kept breaking wikis and so they developed their own: Confluence. The timing was perfect. Businesses across engineering, biotech, transportation, logistics and hospitality all needed to collaborate on knowledge effectively, which has led to an explosion in the wiki market.
The company has no sales force, relying entirely on online techniques, which generates 80% of sales. Organisations can download the software, install it and then purchase it online.
“We have targeted staff levels and office premises that exceed our current requirements but meets our future targets. We are always looking towards building our future rather than investing in flashy offices and expensive overseas trips that don't really add any value to the company,” says Farquhar.
This year the plan is to push into Europe, opening an Amsterdam office. The company is also moving to the “hosted” software as a service industry, which will provide customers with a completely hosted environment in which to use its tools. “This is an increasing trend among software companies and our 'hosted' product offerings are a huge step for us,” he says.
