Atlassian Bought Loom and Missed the Upsell

I use Loom for business. I show customers exactly what I mean. I hand work to my team. I walk through a technical problem on screen. It saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours.

This week I opened Loom to find a video. I could not find anything. I got an ad.

ONE PLUS ONE SHOULD EQUAL THREE

Atlassian paid about $975 million for Loom. The deal closed on November 30, 2023.

A merger is supposed to make one plus one equal three. Two companies together should give customers more than either gave alone. For me, it came out closer to one and a half. Loom was my one, and it stopped working for me. I never got to see the other half of the business, which was the whole point of the deal.

WHAT ATLASSIAN DID INSTEAD

I tried Confluence years ago, did not like it, and left. Then Atlassian bought Loom, a product I chose on my own and paid for, for years.

Atlassian already had my Loom money the day it bought the company. Its chance was to earn more from me: show me that Loom works even better with the rest of its products, and let me decide to pay more.

A better way would have been to show me the new products quietly, while I worked, and let me get curious. Curiosity puts me in a state of influence. They had a shot at capturing me. If I clicked in on my own, I might have chosen more of their products.

Instead, I could not find my videos, and the first screen was an ad. Atlassian called it a free trial. I was already on a paid plan. If I did not continue, they would drop me to a free plan, and the free plan does not give me the number of videos I need to run my business. So the choice was not free or paid. I was going to pay either way. What I could not tell was whether I would pay my old price or my old price plus the AI. That difference would make me reconsider. To me, it is a ruse, and it is a trust issue. A clear answer would have let me go back to my old plan and get on with my work. Instead, I now have a task: come back and check on them, because I do not trust them. That is what the ruse costs Atlassian. It cuts into the one plus one equals three promise, because the doubt does not stay with Loom. It follows me to the rest of the suite.

I got mad. Mad closes me down. It makes me unreceptive, and it moved me away from the whole suite. Now I am probably going to leave the product I have paid for, for years.

I am not the only one. On Atlassian’s community forum, one user wrote that their videos were gone and they were being routed to Atlassian. A Trustpilot reviewer said the new login needs an email code that never arrives. These are reviews, not a study.

VARIANCE AS A SIGNAL

In my EdgeFinder practice, I help leaders sustain competitive advantage. I do that by teaching them that variance is a signal. It tells them they may have drifted from market realities.

Variance often shows up before the financial statements do. Customers report missing videos, login codes that never arrive, and charges they did not expect. That gap between what Atlassian planned and what customers got is variance. A signal can point to a threat or an opportunity. Atlassian had the opportunity to earn more from me. It turned that opportunity into a threat.

Inside-out thinking jumps straight to three. It puts the two products together, accepts that some customers will leave, and moves on. Outside-in thinking asks how the customer gets from one to three, so that the customer trusts and respects the company along the way. A company that cared about my trust would have walked me across, one step at a time.

I cannot see inside Atlassian, so this is my read from the outside. If you lead a company, log in as a customer this week. Find one old file. Try to cancel. Count the steps.

FIVE TAKEAWAYS

One. A merger should make one plus one equal three, and a customer who loses the first one never sees the rest.

Two. Inside-out thinking jumps to the result. Outside-in thinking walks the customer there.

Three. Curiosity opens a customer to influence. Anger closes them down.

Four. Atlassian already had my Loom money, so its chance was to earn more by showing me the suite, not forcing me into it.

Five. Variance is the signal, and it often shows up before the financial statements do.

READY TO FIND THE VARIANCE?

If your company’s plans and your customers’ experiences are drifting apart, let’s talk. Schedule a call to identify the variance before it shows up in your financial statements.