Archives for John Rotenstein

How does Atlassian count customers? (2012 version)

Back in November 2010, I posted about how Atlassian counts customers. We've had a few changes since then, so it's probably worth providing an update on this topic... The reason for providing the exact definition of how we count customers is to be Open and Honest with you — our customers and prospective customers. If we are going to claim to have a certain number of customers, it's only right to explain how that count is determined. Our latest definition for counting customers is: The

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Business Intelligence at Atlassian (Lightning Talk)

Information is core to our daily work at Atlassian. Our offices are filled with video screens showing software builds, sales stats, new hires and system metrics. Product Managers use data to forecast sales and justify product improvements. The Support Team continually monitors queues of incoming requests to ensure we meet service levels. Behind the scenes, we have implemented a Data Warehouse that extracts information from myriad systems and provides a single, trusted source of information for

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Melbourne Cup 2011 – Atlassian style

Australians enjoy gambling, and there's no bigger day on the Australian gambling calendar than the Melbourne Cup. This annual horserace literally "stops the nation" as every Australia citizen turns on the television to watch 3-minutes of thoroughbred action. Other traditions associated with the Melbourne Cup include partying, silly hats and office sweeps. People contribute a few dollars to a sweep and are assigned a random horse in the race. They can then cheer on their gee-gee with increased

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It’s the Culture, Stupid!

If you ask a bunch of Atlassian staff why Atlassian was voted #5 in the Best Places to Work survey, you'll get many different explanations. You'll be told about ShipIt Days, 20% Time, hiring intelligent and enthusiastic staff, information collaboration, the Founder's entrepreneurial spirit and my favorite — free food! But whatever people claim to be the Atlassian "secret sauce", it really boils down to one thing — it's the culture, stupid! Atlassian's culture gives the company cohesion and

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40,000 apologies from Kitty and friends

Have you every noticed how corporate blog posts only ever seem to be sprout joyful news, like a modern form or press release? Well, in sticking with Atlassian's Open Culture, I'll go against that trend and instead blog about something that went wrong... Two days ago, while trying to fix a problem with some of our customer data, I cleared out some information that resulted in our automated email system mistakingly sending "Welcome to Atlassian" messages to 40,000 people -- the majority of whom

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How does Atlassian encourage software renewals?

Atlassian has a reputation for doing business somewhat differently than traditional Enterprise Software companies. Examples are:Providing free 30-day evaluations (with Support!)Showing all of our pricing on our websiteHaving all of our documentation accessible online (to anybody!)Giving Source Code to our customers (no need for escrow agreements!)Having no salespeopleNot requiring customers to purchase software renewalsIn this blog post, I'll discuss those last two topics in a bit more detail.No

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