Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

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

Jun 16, 2024

01:54:02

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Tanguy Crusson, Head of Jira Product Discovery at Atlassian, shares insights on the struggles of innovating and building new products in a large company, including lessons from HipChat, integration of Statuspage, and success of Jira Product Discovery. Topics cover pitfalls to avoid, protecting 'ugly babies,' lighthouse users, 'why now,' and more.

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Quick takeaways

Large companies face challenges like over-investment and super siloed teams when starting new products.

Acquisitions like HipChat underscore the dangers of competitive myopia and decision-making challenges in big companies.

Startup acquisitions by larger companies can lead to cultural shocks affecting decision-making and organizational alignment.

Articulating a sense of urgency and 'why now' is crucial to prompt timely actions in large companies for pursuing new initiatives.

Deep dives

Challenges of Starting New Products Within Large Companies

Starting new products within large companies poses challenges such as over-investment, the importance of creating scarcity like in startups, dealing with super siloed teams, and the need for autonomy to test new ideas.

Product Discovery and Validation through User Engagement

01:51

Wonder, Explore, Make, Impact

01:45

Challenges of Pushing for Innovation within an Organization

02:05

Building a Direct Feedback Loop with Customers

03:20

Intro

3min

Building New Products: Challenges and Successes within Atlassian

2min

Challenges and Advantages of Starting New Products in Large Companies

5min

Navigating Product Launch Challenges at Atlassian

19min

Lessons on Competitive Myopia and Acquisitions

23min

Lessons Learned in Product Management and Building from Zero to One

4min

Innovating Through Internal Incubator: The Jira Product Discovery Journey

27min

Navigating the Early Stages of Product Development with Lighthouse Users

19min

Lightning Round: Book Recommendations, Interview Questions, Non-tech Product Discovery, and Life Mottos

7min

10.

Insights into Freediving and Surprising Aspects of the Sport

2min

11.

Exploring Scale with Real-Life Objects and Improving Skills

2min

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

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

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Where to find Tanguy Crusson:

• X: https://x.com/tanguycrusson

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

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Where to find Lenny:

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

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

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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

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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