5min chapter

Hard-won lessons building 0 to 1 inside Atlassian | Tanguy Crusson (Head of Jira Product Discovery)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

notes

CHAPTER

Challenges and Advantages of Starting New Products in Large Companies

Exploring the strategic advantages and obstacles faced by large companies, like Atlassian, in launching new products. Discussing the company's diverse market presence, organizational structure, and innovative approaches to foster growth and encourage employee empowerment.

00:00

Transcript

Episode notes

Tanguy Crusson is the product lead for Jira Product Discovery at Atlassian. In his more than 10 years at the company, he has been instrumental in taking several new products from zero to one, including HipChat, Statuspage, and Jira Product Discovery. In this episode, we dive deep into the struggles of innovating and building new products inside a large company. Tanguy shares candid stories about what worked, what didn’t, and his many hard-won lessons learned about how to successfully build 0 to 1. We cover:

• Why large companies with so many advantages still fail at creating new products

• Lessons learned from building HipChat

• How to avoid common pitfalls like competitive myopia and premature scaling

• Lessons learned from the acquisition and integration of Statuspage

• Insights from the success of Jira Product Discovery

• Tactics for protecting your “ugly babies”

• The power of “lighthouse users”

• The importance of having a “why now”

• Much more

—

Brought to you by:

• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security

• WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs

• Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace

—

Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-0-to-1-inside-atlassian-tanguy-crusson

—

Where to find Tanguy Crusson:

• X: https://x.com/tanguycrusson

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanguy-crusson-99832a

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Tanguy’s background

(02:30) Tanguy’s journey at Atlassian

(07:03) The challenges of innovating in large companies

(10:42) Atlassian's high bar for excellence

(12:58) The HipChat story: successes, failures, and lessons learned

(20:47) Lessons learned from building HipChat

(33:49) Statuspage: a journey of perseverance

(39:48) Acquisition challenges and lessons

(47:22) Strategic decisions: build, buy, or partner?

(48:17) Learning to articulate "why now"

(54:08) A quick summary of lessons in this episode

(55:40) The success and pain of launching Jira Product Discovery

(58:10) Incubating new products: the Point A program

(01:00:13) Failure is the most likely outcome

(01:04:15) Atlassian's four-phase approach to launching new products

(01:09:20) Breaking rules without breaking trust

(01:16:16) Early success and team autonomy

(01:17:22) Innovating without disrupting existing customers

(01:23:17) The Lighthouse Users program

(01:30:00) Protecting and nurturing new ideas

(01:36:14) Balancing innovation with personal well-being

(01:38:17) A reminder to look after yourself

(01:42:06) Lightning round

—

Referenced:

• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/

• HipChat: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Hipchat/ct-p/hipchat

• Stride: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Stride/ct-p/stride

• Statuspage: https://www.atlassian.com/software/statuspage

• Opsgenie: https://www.atlassian.com/software/opsgenie

• Jira Product Discovery: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/product-discovery

• HipChat billboard: https://x.com/HubSpot/status/654696998126272512

• Announcing our new partnership with Slack: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/new-atlassian-slack-partnership

• Slack shows it’s worried about Microsoft Teams with a full-page newspaper ad: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/2/13497766/slack-microsoft-teams-new-york-times-ad

• What Is ‘Dogfooding’?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html

• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

• Confluence: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

• PagerDuty: https://www.pagerduty.com/

• New Relic: https://newrelic.com/

• BigPanda: https://www.bigpanda.io/

• Transparent Uptime: http://www.transparentuptime.com/

• Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/vision-conviction-hype-mihika-kapoor

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-atlassian-launching

• Noah Weiss on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahw/

• Tanguy’s LinkedIn post about “lighthouse users”: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tanguy-crusson-99832a_lighthouse-users-one-of-the-pm-techniques-activity-7176654510801502210-hWNi/

• Pixar Chief: Protect Your ‘Ugly Babies’ (Your Unsightly Ideas): https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyboynton/2014/03/17/pixar-chief-protect-your-ugly-babies-your-unsightly-ideas/

• Atlas: https://www.atlassian.com/software/atlas

• Point A: https://www.atlassian.com/point-a

• Scott Farquhar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottfarquhar

• Who: A Method for Hiring: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Method-Hiring-HC-2008/dp/B004C79SRS/

• Hakim’s Odyssey: Book 1: From Syria to Turkey: https://www.amazon.com/Hakims-Odyssey-Book-Syria-Turkey/dp/1637790007

• Living with the Earth, Volume 1: Permaculture, Ecoculture: Inspired by Nature: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Earth-Gardeners-Permaculture-Ecoculture/dp/1856232603/

• INRIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Institute_for_Research_in_Computer_Science_and_Automation

• How a Hydrofoil Works: https://web.mit.edu/2.972/www/reports/hydrofoil/hydrofoil.html

• What Is Kitefoil or Foilboarding?: https://www.whenitswindy.com/wp/?page_id=534