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Scott Farquhar has just celebrated his 40th birthday and he has said himself that he has always been an organiser.
Atlassian have seen a rapid amount of growth since the year 2015. A Nasdaq floatation raised the $462 million required to fund expansion and it also propelled Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, who founded the company right onto Australia’s very own rich list. The company ended their first trading day with an overall evaluation of $5.8 billion. Ever since then, the market capitalisation has soared to over $37 billion and they have also tripled their workforce. The software, which helps IT teams and developers to collaborate, manage and even share content has been very popular amongst global customers. It has not been an easy journey for them though.
They managed to fund their start-up in the year 2002 and they had over $10,000 in credit card debts. They also had hardly any business experience either. Their success is even more striking when you look at the fact that they originated in Australia, which is known for more coal mining as opposed to tech start-ups. This is one of the many reasons why tech start-ups often thrive in the UK because there are so many support networks available to fuel growth.
Tej Kohli is a billionaire with years of experience in business and he believes in giving back to the UK tech scene. Australia might be making waves with their tech scene right now and this alone is going to attract more investors, like Tej Kohli to the market. End result? More companies like Atlassian who are able to get the funding they need to make it big.
When Atlassian started up, they had a very stressful experience. They went from two people to 4,000 in nearly 20 years. In the last two years, they have added more people when compared to the previous 16 and they are doubling every two years. Learning quickly on the job has been critical to their overall level of success and they have had to work incredibly hard to get to where they are today.
Atlassian’s hiring policy has changed a lot since they hired their very first employee. In fact, their first team member was a backpacker from England and he was hired in a pub. Nowadays the employees undergo a rigorous recruitment methodology to try and make sure that they are able to fit the corporate culture and that they are also able to meet the needs of the people who they work with. This is what makes the company stand out and it is also the reason why they are able to go on to change the AU tech scene without having much prior business experience.
Could Atlassian be paving the way for even more tech start-ups? Only time will tell, but right now they are certainly having a big impact.