Marketplace Partner Spotlight: Jexo
Marketplace Partners are innovative problem solvers building companies of their own to support teamwork in Atlassian products like Jira, Confluence, JSM, and Bitbucket. Atlassian's Marketplace is made up of over 1200 of these partners!
This spotlight will be the first in a series of partner spotlights to help you get to know the partners in our Ecosystem. For our first spotlight, we caught up with Biro Florin, co-founder and CEO of Silver Marketplace Partner Jexo.
^ The Jexo team (Biro is the one in sunglasses)
Atlassian: How was Jexo started?
Biro: Nikki and I started Jexo as a side project because we really enjoyed working together at a previous company. We wanted to create a workplace playground where we could grow following principles we believed in. It has never been about "revolutionize," "disruption," and other fancy mission statement words (ie this clip from the show Silicon Valley), but about being the best version of ourselves while working in a positive and fun environment and building delightful solutions.
A: What's your role there?
B: I'm a co-founder along with my partner Nikki, and I also act as CEO, to put it in traditional terms. I basically let folks practice what they're good at and cheer them on. Apart from that, I also take care of operations and partnerships.
A: How does your team come up with ideas for new apps?
B: We usually look at what pushes Jira users to acquire external Product Management tools, like gaps in functionality, usability, or experience. Then we assess if we can deliver something on par with these external tools and save Jira users the hassle of acquiring and setting up solutions that don't feel native.
A: Tell us about your most popular app. Why do people love it?
B: Our most famous app today is our flagship app, Swanly. Swanly is a modern roadmap solution that makes Monday.com users want to move to Jira. A simple, well-designed tool that helps you plan and track Jira work across projects. I compiled a list of reasons why people love Swanly here: https://youtu.be/vLw6xv_yJ2Q
Of course, because apps offer a free trial you can also try it yourself.
A: What's your favorite thing about working at Jexo? What's your favorite team ritual?
B: I'll cheat and add multiple: I love the fact that we're a team of creatives not only building apps but creating a lot of valuable content for the community. For example, our weekly Morning Coffee with Jexo podcast where we talk about news from the Atlassian ecosystem. I also make videos giving advice to other startups in the ecosystem, and we have a podcast called Agile Stories. And of course, we’re always producing and sharing a lot of articles for Atlassian customers.
Secondly, we're simple, transparent, and flat structured. Everyone understands how they impact the overall growth and how that contributes to everyone's share options.
As for my favorite ritual, hands down our monthly Pizza & Games afternoon, where we spend time with each other outside the work setting. Eating pizza, having a drink, and playing Among Us, Exploding Kittens, and other fun games.
A: Think back to when you were developing your flagship app, Swanly. Did you see yourself here now?
B: I think we did pretty much see ourselves where we are now. Since the early days, we knew we wouldn't settle for only having one app (don't put all your eggs in one basket). And today, we have 3 apps on the marketplace for project and product management: Swanly, Foxly, and Octo. With a fourth in development, "Hedge," for mitigating project risk in Jira.
A: What do you think has been the secret to your success so far?
B: In a fast-growing and ever-evolving environment like Atlassian, what massively helped us succeed is a mix of being bold and diverse. Having the courage to do things differently and not settling for one way but constantly exploring and trying new things.
A: Do you have any new apps or projects you want us to know about?
B: Not super new, but our fastest-growing app Foxly just turned one year and is close in user count to Swanly. Foxly helps teams make work prioritization inclusive and transparent with tools that are good-looking and helpful but also fun! For example, you can vote on priorities with a game of prioritization poker. Give it a try!
Also, we started working on our fourth app, Hedge, for mitigating project risk in Jira. We're building it using Atlassian’s Forge cloud app development platform. It will probably be amongst the more elaborate apps created with the new framework so far.
Explore Jexo's apps ➡️
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Maggie Norby Adams
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Product Marketing Manager, Ecosystem
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