Anybody seen the other one?
Amongst the subscriptions to various industry and management/leadership newsletters that arrive in my inbox at work, one in particular caught my attention recently. A weekly newsletter from Verne Harnish, author of The Rockefeller Habits (adding value and growth to your company), contained a snippet with the following:
Atlassian Valued at US$3.5 Billion – congratulations to co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brooks – now billionaires on paper after launching the firm in 2002!!
A further link to this Wall Street Journal article then explains how Atlassian, an Australian firm which develops online collaboration tools for business, is now one of the worlds most valuable venture-backed companies. The focus of the article cites how the company, now with over 800 employees, has seen an average sales increase of over 40% annually for the past 5 years, has done so without employing a single salesperson. How? An exceptional product I expect.
You will also find more on this in the The Australian Financial Review.
Yes, dept4 is far from a business news site, though articles like this get me thinking about the talent Australia has in the tech world, on both large and smaller scales. Need a great Australian made and therefore very accurate weather app (available both on iOS and Android)? Look no further than the Shifty Jelly developed Pocket Weather Australia. Not surprisingly, the developers also make one of the most highly rated podcast apps on the App Store (again for iOS and Android) in Pocket Casts 4. You can listen to developer Russell Ivanovic discuss the challenges and successes of Shifty Jelly on this episode of the Podcast CMD+Space with Myke Hurley.
Although I am not a gamer in any sense of the word, most of you would know the games Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, which were developed (amongst many other great games) just across town here in Brisbane by Halfbrick Studios.
Although I have highlighted only a small few here, there is no doubt about the quality of tech talent in Australia, nor the coverage on great sites like Reckoner (both web and podcast). Whilst it is a small few who will make their millions (or be valued in billions), there are countless others out there toiling away and demonstrating the immense talent in this sector of the country, all of whom are worthy of our acknowledgement, appreciation and encouragement.
My kids tinkering with the HTML on their Tumblr accounts? You never know.
Go little Aussies.
Pete Denison 