Today TechNation Australia (TNA) has an interview with recently named World Economic Forum Global Young Leader, and Atlassian co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes (MCB).  The interview was focused on the recent milestone the company has reached – $100 Million in accrued revenues.

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TNA - First of all, congratulations from all of us here at TNA in being named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum.  Its an amazing accomplishment to be ranked beside the best forward thinking brains in the world.

MCB - Thanks, it all happened quite quickly. I got notice of it a few days ago and was just as excited as everyone else when I heard it.

TNA - So $100M in accrued revenues, do you know what time you actually hit this point and did a celebration ensue?

MCB - We reached the milestone on Wednesday.  We we’re all pretty busy and didn’t take too much time to celebrate, however we did have some champagne on Friday night instead of the usual beers, so I suppose we did have a wee party of sorts!

TNA - For those readers unfamiliar with the Atlassian story, how did you manage to build the business from nothing, to where you are now?

MCB - When we started out in 2002 we realized that there was going to be a real need for organisations to employ easy to use, cost effective enterprise software.  We also realized that the internet was starting to provide a new distribution platform to effectively build and sell software, compared with boxed software that could be bought over the counter. From the start Atlassian has focused on collaboration software, our goal is to make it easier for companies to communicate internally behind the firewall. In essence we zeroed in on the fact that software was easier to sell, easier to maintain and easier to upgrade over the internet.  Atlassian hasn’t really changed that philosophy since we started.  If you take today’s tech climate for example, software pricing is still going down and software development cost’s are still going down, this justifies what we were thinking when we first started 7 years ago.

TNA - Did you expect to reach the milestone sooner; are you surprised how quickly it came?

MCB - We thought it would be later.  If you look at our fiscal growth rates, it took us 4 years to reach $10M, then 3 years to reach $100M.  This would indicate that we are currently riding a significant growth curve.  However we’re not really too focused on how much revenue we turn over, we’re focused on building great products and services, revenue is a direct follow on from that.

TNA - Whats the next fiscal milestone going forward, based on your current growth rates and financial projections.

MCB - As a company we don’t talk about our figures or projections.  What I can say is that we are on track to acheive the goals we’ve put in place.   We did hit US$40M last year solely from the US market, which we were very happy with, the US is one market we spend alot of time and effort developing.

TNA - In your opinion, hows the Aussie startup scene going to progress this year?

MCB - I think that with the worlds current financial situation, its going to really tough for Aussie startups who have VC money and are growing.  Its going to be tough getting a strong second round of funding if cash is running out, as most VC’s will only invest in companies they see real value in.  In a bull market there’s alot of money thrown around to startups, some of which would not really be justified in getting funding.  In a bear market, VC’s will only invest in companies that know what their core proposition is and how they will use that proposition to create real value.  However, in a way, its a really exciting time for tech, some of the worlds biggest and most successful companies were founded in a down market, so i’m very optimistic that we will see some really great Aussie startups coming through on a global scale in the next 3-4 years.

TNA - Thanks so much for the Interview Mike and congratulations once again on such a significant milestone, you guys really are flying the flag for the Australian Tech scene worldwide.

MCB - Cheers