Many companies adhere to well-established business models; Atlassian, founded in Sydney Australia in 2002, decided to do things a little differently. 
Atlassian follows a freemium, self serve model, targeting developers as an entry point to establishing a strong foothold within their customers’ companies. Their spend on customer acquisition is extraordinarily low at 20-25% of revenue, while R&D spend takes almost 50%. These metrics are the opposite of what is expected and witnessed in similar companies, so how are they experiencing the same levels of growth while turning a profit? How is their market cap pushing $25 billion? And how does their “not no-touch, but low touch” sales model work? Mike Volpe and Rebecca Morrison, Lola.com’s CEO and VP of Finance & Operations respectively sat down.
REBECCA MORRISON:
As VP of Finance and Operations, Rebecca Morrison oversees financial reporting and analysis, forecasting, and budget management for Lola.com. Previously, she was VP, Global Finance and Operations at Midaxo, a leader in M&A software, where she oversaw all back-office operations including finance, operations, HR, and admin. Rebecca spent four years at HubSpot holding various roles with the Sales Strategy and Operations team, as well as the Finance organization. Prior to her time at HubSpot, Rebecca spent nine years in various finance and operations roles at EMC and RSA, the Security Division of EMC, including a three-year stint in Singapore. She has a bachelor's degree and master's degree in finance from Bentley University.
MIKE VOLPE:
Mike Volpe is the CEO at Lola.com, the corporate travel SaaS platform that helps companies stop wasting time and start saving money on their business travel program. He has been asked to speak at numerous conferences on sales, marketing, and growth, as well as people operations, leadership, hiring and culture and is a strong advocate for building great teams with a wide range of talent.
Previously Mike was CMO at Cybereason, a cybersecurity SaaS company, where he helped the company increase sales pipeline by 650% in a single year and grow revenue by five times during his tenure. He was also part of the founding team at HubSpot, where he spent eight years growing the company from five people to over 1,000 employees, $175m in revenue, and a successful IPO.
Mike is well-known and active in the Boston SaaS and startup communities as a member of the board of directors of Validity and Privy, and as an angel investor in more than 30 startups. He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BA from Bowdoin College. Check him out on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.