Post by account_disabled on Dec 24, 2023 19:44:12 GMT -8
Atlassian, an Australian project management software development company, made $320 million last year without a single salesperson (information relayed via Bloomberg ). We expect $450 million for 2016. Unlike… all companies, at Altassian, there are no sales targets, no exceptional discounts at the end of the month, quarter or year. The reason is simple: there are no salespeople at Altassian. The business relies solely on word of mouth. One of the CEOs says that the most effective thing is to offer answers on his site. According to Bloomberg, the way of selling software has evolved profoundly over the last 10 years.
The biggest (IBM, HP, Oracle, etc.) have invested in open source or cloud solutions while the Email Data startups (Slack, Dropbox, etc.) are trying to rely more on good online reviews. The idea is to do "bottom-up": convince small groups of users in the hope that the solution "comes up". Atlassian has taken the system to the extreme. Result: a valuation of 5 billion dollars in 14 years of existence, without a single salesperson on staff. More than 80 Fortune 100 companies use their solutions. So much the worse for the story-telling of visionary entrepreneurs who imagined a new business model: Bloomberg explains that this strategy is due to chance. In fact the 2 founders, then at the end of their university studies, had no idea of how professional software is sold. They even started taking orders by fax. No sales staff on staff does not mean there are no sales costs. Sales are driven by advertising and partners.
Commercial costs are around 20% when they reach 50% at Salesforce, 60% at Marketo (marketing automation) and 80% at Box (online file sharing). Fewer sales staff means better prices and more investment in R&D. This is the basis of their success: their products are good. The co-founder also indicates that he does not look at the stock price. He is working today for the course in 5 years and that is more important than keeping up with the weekly bursts. Is this success replicable? For the moment, no one has tried even if some are trying to get close. We try to convince the first users in business and the real commercial action is triggered when we reach a certain number of users.
The biggest (IBM, HP, Oracle, etc.) have invested in open source or cloud solutions while the Email Data startups (Slack, Dropbox, etc.) are trying to rely more on good online reviews. The idea is to do "bottom-up": convince small groups of users in the hope that the solution "comes up". Atlassian has taken the system to the extreme. Result: a valuation of 5 billion dollars in 14 years of existence, without a single salesperson on staff. More than 80 Fortune 100 companies use their solutions. So much the worse for the story-telling of visionary entrepreneurs who imagined a new business model: Bloomberg explains that this strategy is due to chance. In fact the 2 founders, then at the end of their university studies, had no idea of how professional software is sold. They even started taking orders by fax. No sales staff on staff does not mean there are no sales costs. Sales are driven by advertising and partners.
Commercial costs are around 20% when they reach 50% at Salesforce, 60% at Marketo (marketing automation) and 80% at Box (online file sharing). Fewer sales staff means better prices and more investment in R&D. This is the basis of their success: their products are good. The co-founder also indicates that he does not look at the stock price. He is working today for the course in 5 years and that is more important than keeping up with the weekly bursts. Is this success replicable? For the moment, no one has tried even if some are trying to get close. We try to convince the first users in business and the real commercial action is triggered when we reach a certain number of users.