From humble beginnings in 2012, Instaclustr has grown rapidly since we met them as 4 co-founders working out of the Entry29 Coworking Space. Back then Doug Stuart, COO and Co-Founder of Instaclustr said they didn’t really have any ‘big hairy goals’ other than survival.

“I think we knew that there was something special, a genuine opportunity if we got it right.  But it also felt very overwhelming once we realized that our customer-base was truly global.”

2021, he says is a different story. Over the next three years Instaclustr have some very big goals and a mission to enable the world’s ambition through open source.

“We have always punched well above our weight on the global stage and we don’t plan on stopping.”

Now with over 250 people world-wide, with teams in India, Vietnam, and across the United States, it’s no surprise that last week Instaclustr won 2021 ACT Exporter of the Year at the ACT Chief Minister’s Export Awards.

“I have always been amazed at the caliber of companies that come out of Canberra. There are so many that just sit under the radar, but have truly amazing businesses. I am not 100% sure what the judges saw that stood out this year for us, but what I can say is that we have been an exporter from day one, the vast majority of our customer-base is international and we have customers from just about every part of the globe,” said Doug.

With too many countries to name Instaclustr have a broad reach globally but the US and Europe make up over 80% of their customers.

“We are truly a cloud-native company and our customers can come from any part of the globe.  Any company, individual, organization that has an application or business systems that needs scale and high availability, is somebody that needs our products.”

Communicating across time zones, languages and customs, understanding and being an active member of the ecosystem is what’s important for them.

“There is no doubt that tech is a universal language, and in our world, you could also say that open source software has its own language. We look at it as an ecosystem that has its own culture and accepted norms.”

As far as logistics of operating globally go, Instaclustr have a hub and spoke model of sales and marketing that allows them to be close to customer at all times (and with 24×7 support capability, of course).

Instaclustr are off to the national Export Awards now, and it just so happens to be in the same week that the Canberra Innovation Network, University of Canberra and Instaclustr are collaborating on a Hackathon! OpenSource Hack starts 22^nd of November.

Doug says that supporting the next wave of ambitious people that will be the foundation of great tech companies is a focus for Instaclustr.

“We will never forget our CBRIN and Entry29 roots. Without the support in the early days we may have not achieved our first big hair goal of survival.”