Buy a better "to do" list. At least that's what Atlassian's plan is.
The Hustle
Wed, Jan 11
Atlassian just bought a $425m bulletin board
The company, which owns a slew of business productivity and communication apps, just shelled out 7.7% of its total market value to acquire Trello, a cloud-based project management app.
Trello’s software isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel. It’s essentially a bulletin board that allows teams to assign and segment project tasks into “to do,” “doing,” and “done” (as explained by Jared in “Silicon Valley”).
Actually, it’s not even the most popular project management app on the market, it’s fourth, according to Product Management Zone.
But apparently it’s not a popularity contest
Atlassian still feels it bought Trello on the low end of its trajectory, given Trello’s impressive growth rate (from 4.5m to 19m users in the past two years).
So, although Atlassian’s most successful software, JIRA, does almost the same thing with a few more bells and whistles, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes says Trello is more than meets the eye.
So what are we not seeing?
These days we’re way less willing to play around with software to make it work for us — we just expect it to work.
Trello has seized this opportunity to differentiate themselves by building a simple, user-friendly platform in a software space dominated by highly technical solutions.
This, in turn, has gained them surprising customer loyalty for a B2B company among technical and non-technical project teams alike.
And, Trello doesn’t need to be a breakout star…
It just needs to be a good supporting actor for Atlassian’s other products, and help it reach its goal of 100m monthly active users.
Trello’s platform can easily integrate with the company’s other apps to help them expand their user reach, and hopefully corner the business collaboration software market, which is expected to double to over $28b in 2020.
Trello with the assist
Did somebody say pizza?
Zume Pizza is a one-year-old pizza chain startup that wants to make the world’s most profitable pizza through robotics.
That means automating the entire pizza-making process, outfitting delivery trucks with ovens programmed to finish baking the pie right before it reaches its destination, and — you guessed it — hiring very few humans.
Sound like the dystopian future every tech blog in the world has you envisioning? Well, it’s not. Check out the benefits:
Zume uses the money it saves by employing fewer people to give the people it does employ better pay (delivery drivers make $18/hour, compared to $8/hour plus tips for places like Domino’s).
All workers receive fully subsidized health, vision, and dental coverage.
Thanks to spending just 14% of sales earnings on payroll (Domino’s spends 30%), Zume can source ingredients from nearby organic farms, even as it scales… which means more local farms will open and more people will be hired.
So, maybe robots stealing our jobs isn’t so bad after all?
A lot of people think automation is going to destroy all of our jobs, lead to rampant unemployment, and turn us into those depressing, sad excuses for human beings in WALL-E.
To be honest, it’s hard to argue with them when we’re constantly hearing about driverless cars, robot factories, and advancements in AI.
But, in reality, the relationship between automation and jobs is a complicated one, and not necessarily as negative as we think. In fact, some believe that automation will create more jobs than it kills.
And history suggests they might be right…
In the early 19th century, intellectuals like Karl Marx predicted that the automated power loom would bring widespread unemployment. The opposite happened. How?
The power loom allowed weavers to produce more cloth… which brought the price of cloth down… which caused demand to skyrocket… which meant textile shops needed to hire more weavers to meet it.
A similar thing happened when bar code scanners came out in the 1980s.
Dramatic prediction: No more cashiers ever! Actual result: Humans were still needed, and the number of cashiers grew by an average of 2% every year from 1980 to 2013.
So basically, what we’re trying to say is this:
Let’s stop worrying so much about our robot-filled future and the job mess it might cause. Because chances are, it’ll work out just fine.
Heck, thanks to companies like Zume, we’re already seeing how robots can positively impact employees and potentially create new jobs around them.
See what we mean? It’s not all bad.
Optimism people! Optimism!
Montenegro: the country that exports domain names
Montenegro separated from Serbia 10 years ago to become its own independent country, albeit one the size of Connecticut.
Since then, the country’s exports include pig meat, cars, raw aluminum… but perhaps most notably, the country’s custom domain name extension, .me.
Wait, every country has a custom domain name?
Yep, pretty much all of them. America has .us, Canada has .ca, the UK has, well, .uk. And, Montenegro has .me.
The government of Montenegro originally set up a 5-year agreement between domain registry services GoDaddy.com, Afilias Limited, and ME-net Ltd., but has extended the contract through 2023, thanks to popular demand.
It’s a global phenomenon
.me domain registrations surpassed 1m in 2016 (the country’s population is only about 600k) thanks to a majority of foreign registrars, led by the US and China. And, as of 2015, Montenegro generated about $334m from it annually, enough to make up about 2% of the country’s total exports.
And it makes sense, right? Who wouldn’t want a personal email domain with extension .me? It’s catchy, custom, and a marketer’s dream for when all the good .com sites are already taken.
In fact, .me and .co (Columbia’s domain name) are the 2 extensions credited with starting the alternate domain name marketing phase. E.g. every app buying a .io website in 2015.
Next on the market: screen names
This just in: FB commits to journalism
This morning, Facebook revealed some upcoming news features that it’s calling “The Facebook Journalism Project.” They include:
Digest packages of Instant Articles that you can subscribe to
Free trials for paid subscriptions
Tutorials and e-learning courses for journalists on best practices and how to engage and build an audience
PSAs to promote news literacy and warn people about fake news
In addition, the ‘Book is also giving away free access to CrowdTangle, a journalism tool it acquired that basically keeps track of the entire socialsphere (most engaging posts, videos about to go viral, etc).
Oh Facebook, you shouldn’t have!
Between the fake news fiasco and constantly changing its algorithm, the social network’s relationship with the journalism industry is on the fritz.
So, whether or not this has the impact they want it to have, it’s at least a concerted effort to mend those wounds.
Plus, Zuck did just hire Campbell Brown, a former TV news anchor, as the company’s first head of news… so they had to do something right?
Thankfully, it looks like Facebook’s finally serious about journalism, and its role as the “well, we’re not a media company, but we kind of are, we just won’t admit” company.
Subscribing to BuzzFeed
Let’s get to know each other
I’m 6’ tall, somewhere around 200 lbs, hate umbrellas, and can’t remember the last time I had a kiwi. The fruit, not the small bird native to New Zealand.
But enough about me, it’s you we want to hear about.
To start off the new year with a bang, we put together a quick audience survey so we can get to know you, the people who read the stuff we type.
It’s nothing crazy, totally anonymous, and will help us improve our products and services, so please take a minute to fill it out.
Ok, I'll do it →
So we made New Year’s resolutions…
And one of them was to refrain from using the word “lit.” But, just 10 days into 2017, we’re caving in… because this giveaway is LITTTTTT.
One lucky winner will receive $500 gift cards to Linjer (leather goods and watches), Ministry of Supply (performance clothes for the workday), Peel (minimalist essentials), and Smart Bedding (beds, duh).
You’ll also get $500 worth of Hustle swag and conference tickets! That’s $2,500 worth of goodness just by entering your email.
THE FINE PRINT: Gotta be at least 18 years old
This edition of The Hustle was brought to you by
Beat the second sophomore slump
Just like a jaded college kid, it’s way too easy for working adults to get lazy about learning new things, meeting new people, and pushing themselves outside of the ol’ comfort zone.
But what if you could relive your freshman year? Well, minus the failed French exam, dropped biology lab, and that time you slept through your 8am class…
We’re talking about getting back the feeling that the world is your oyster because, well, it actually is.
IVY is the best parts of college, without the dorm rooms
Just like a traditional top-tier university, IVY’s community gives people the opportunity to surround themselves with ambitious peers, have unique experiences, and learn from people who are experts in their fields.
Their curriculum encourages its community of entrepreneurs, artists, and innovators to build lasting relationships, while giving them access to in-person lessons from its high-profile “professors” like Iron Chef Morimoto, Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, and Dollar Shave Club founder Mike Dubin.
Plus, IVY’s giving readers of The Hustle extra event credits when they sign up for a membership here. No excuses people, time kick off 2017 semester by expanding your horizons.
SUBSCRIBE
JOBS
ADVERTISE
AMBASSADORS
EVENTS
Kendall "Stuffed crust or bust" Baker
WRITER
Lindsey Quinn
STOPPING THE MICROWAVE BEFORE IT BEEPS
John Havel
BACKSEAT EDITOR
O. Howard Hertz
STAFF ACUPUNCTURIST
You opted in by signing up, entering a giveaway, or through divine intervention.
1381 9TH AVENUE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, UNITED STATES • 415.506.7210
The post TO DO: appeared first on The Hustle.