How did Atlassian build a $33 billion company?

Here’s Jay Simons, the CEO, with a gem of a response:

“The flywheel begins with creating a great product. Back in the early days of Atlassian, we talked about building a remarkable product. We chose the word ‘remarkable’ with intention. We wanted to build a product that people felt compelled to remark upon. That would then build word of mouth which would help us acquire more customers.”

That’s it. 

As Seth Godin once said, “You have to be remarkable to get people to remark about you.”

Now, this also means that Atlassian has vastly lesser sales and marketing costs (compared to its peers), because its own customers will do the job for free.

Being remarkable is a vastly underestimated marketing strategy.

If you ask most brands what their growth strategy is, the #1 response will mostly be “Word of Mouth.”

But rarely do people actually spread the word until they find something significantly valuable about it.