Why Did Scott Farquhar Sell $2M in Shares?

What we’ll cover today:

💥 Atlassian’s Surge: Boom or Bubble?

💡 The ‘Industry Engineer’. A New VSaaS Concept.

🌉 Is Your Story Positioning Your B2B SaaS?

🔗 The Event Roundup.

Atlassian’s Surge: Boom or Bubble?

Would you sell $2 million worth of stock when your company’s value is skyrocketing?

That’s exactly what Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar just did.

On November 14, he sold $2 million worth of shares under a pre-arranged plan, leaving him with 246,388 shares through the Farquhar Family Trust.

Here’s why this move might make sense:

• Massive Growth: Cloud revenue jumped 31%, fueled by AI tools like Rovo and enterprise-focused products.

• Big Spenders: Atlassian now has 524 customers generating $1M+ annually.

• Revenue Surge: The company saw a 23.31% revenue increase in the past year.

• Profitability Challenges: Despite growth, the company isn’t profitable yet—though analysts expect a turnaround soon.

The stock has been on fire:

• Stock Performance: Up 70% in three months, nearing its 52-week high.

• Valuation: A $62.5B market cap reflects strong investor confidence.

Farquhar’s sale could be a strategic move amidst these highs.

Here's More From The Article

1. The ‘Industry Engineer’. A New VSaaS Concept.

   

   Source: @lukesophinos (Twitter))

This is a tweet from Luke Sophinos.

With over 36K followers on Twitter, Luke shares learnings on founding, operating, & investing in Vertical Software.

In his recent tweet, he discussed the concept of an "Industry Engineer" for vertical SaaS (vSaaS) to solve the challenge of industry knowledge in sales. 

Instead of traditional sales hires, recruit industry-specific tech implementers to supercharge sales teams, ensuring faster expertise, deeper customer insights, and scalable growth without the long ramp-up or talent mismatch.

Here's The Whole Tweet

2. Is Your Story Positioning Your B2B SaaS?

   

   Source: @v_eduoh (Twitter)

This is a thread from Victor Eduoh.

In his recent tweet, he compares B2B SaaS products to suspension bridges, emphasising the need for powerful storytelling to convince buyers of their value. 

By highlighting pain points, showcasing solutions, and creating urgency, storytelling bridges the gap between a product's features and its necessity in solving current challenges.

Here’s The Thread.

1. GitHub projects targeted with malicious commits to frame researcher

GitHub projects have been targeted with malicious commits and pull requests in an attempt to inject backdoors into these projects.

Most recently, the GitHub repository of Exo Labs, an AI and machine learning startup, was targeted in the attack, which has left many wondering about the attacker's true intentions.

2. Salesforce's outage brought down several data centres worldwide for over nine hours.

Salesforce experienced a widespread outage affecting users worldwide. The disruption in multiple data centres across various regions, which has now been resolved, hindered access to the platform, preventing some users from logging in entirely.

During the outage, users encountered difficulties accessing critical data and services, causing significant disruptions to businesses that rely on Salesforce for their daily operations. The company acknowledged the issue.

3. Cornerstone Ventures eyes investments in SaaS segment.

Cornerstone Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in B2B enterprise technology startups, plans to make 3-4 new investments within this fiscal from its recently launched fund II. 

These investments will be primarily in Series A and B-stage startups, particularly in the enterprise SaaS segment, with one or two investments in the late stage.