Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Randall Ward, Co-founder and CEO of Appfire:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Appfire?
A: Appfire is a leading platform of apps that help teams solve modern challenges with digital solutions using Atlassian products. We started the company in 2005 with the goal of building smaller software applications for customers during a time when there were no marketplaces — the Salesforce AppExchange, Apple, and Google Play app stores didn’t exist yet.
Over the years, we’ve made a name for ourselves in the Atlassian ecosystem, first for our highly respected professional services work, and then for our innovative portfolio growth strategy within the Atlassian Marketplace. We acquired the Bob Swift brand of Atlassian apps in 2014, followed by Wittified in 2015, growing each brand substantially in the years to follow. Then in 2018, we launched Feed Three, the first socially conscious apps brand in the ecosystem.
In 2020, after 15 years of organic growth and a platform thesis based on rapid consolidation of the Atlassian ecosystem Appfire raised its first outside investment from Silversmith Capital Partners, a growth equity firm. With this infusion of capital and strategic growth partnership, Appfire has completed more than twelve acquisitions over the last year, including Botron, Beecom, Innovalog, Navarambh, Artemis, Mohami, Bolo, Lizard Brain, Anova Apps, and SoftwarePlant. Most recently, Appfire raised an additional $100M from TA Associates to fuel our next phase of growth.
Most importantly, we’ve attracted an incredible team of business founders, engineers, and other professionals with unmatched domain expertise in our space, that give us the ability to both innovate and scale at a very quick pace.
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Q: Can you give us insights into your products and services?
A: We analyze product ecosystems, identifying gaps in need of filling, and build best-of-breed apps to improve collaboration. Our expansive portfolio of apps helps thousands of teams in more than 130 countries enhance their Atlassian tooling experience in several areas of strategic focus:
Workflow and Automation, Business Intelligence (BI), Administrative Tools, Developer Tools, IT Service Management, Product Portfolio Management, and Publishing. We have the largest portfolio on the Atlassian Marketplace with 170+ apps and over 185,000 installs worldwide, the most of any Marketplace partner.
As companies around the world continue to solve modern challenges with digital solutions, Appfire plays a crucial role in how software development and business teams work together. With our wide-ranging portfolio of developer and collaboration tools, Appfire offers enterprise companies solutions to enhance collaboration tools like Atlassian’s Jira Software and Confluence.
Q: Which types of businesses use your solutions?
A: Appfire’s portfolio of apps are used by thousands of enterprises including Apple, NASA, Amazon, LG, Boeing, eBay, Adobe, Spotify, and more. Companies use Appfire’s products to enhance collaboration tools like Atlassian’s Jira and Confluence and enable their teams to work better, faster, and more efficiently. For example, Configuration Manager for Jira is used by platform administrators to manage daily configuration changes across testing, staging, and production as well as major migrations within Jira. Our workflow automation products help teams customize their workflows to get work done with more consistency and efficiency.
Beyond commercial customers, our products are used by thousands of academic and non-profit organizations as well through licenses we provide for free or at deep discounts. We’re very proud to be part of Pledge 1% alongside Atlassian, donating at least 1% of our products to nonprofits as well as 1% of our profits, equity, and employee time. Appfire recently granted 1% of our equity to Pledge1Percent.
“Mat Guavin, co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Appfire (left) and Randall Ward, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Appfire (right)”
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Q: What can we expect from Appfire in the next 12 months?
A: Appfire’s goal is to continue partnering with the best founders and teams in the Atlassian ecosystem to tackle even more customer challenges. You will see us deepen our existing product integrations into popular ecosystems such as Microsoft, Salesforce, while seeking to create others. We will double our efforts to support our partners at Atlassian as they push to become the leader in IT Service Management, challenging the likes of ServiceNow. Another important goal is to find ways to monetize our Atlassian BitBucket Cloud and Trello Power-Ups. We will also continue making significant investments in our products, support, and people so customers will have the best experience using the Appfire platform.
I’m excited for the future and the continued expansion globally and within our product portfolio to meet the demands of our growing customer base. After fifteen years of steady growth, we’ve experienced very rapid growth over the past year and a half, more than doubling our staff to almost 400 teammates through hiring and acquisitions. We expect the next 12 months to bring even more exciting opportunities to help teams do better work together, and likely doubling in size yet again.
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