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Cycle was born from a simple question Mehdi Boudoukhane never stopped asking: “why?” As a product manager, he quickly grew frustrated, designers had Figma, engineers had GitHub, but PMs had no single source of truth. In 2019, at Hexa (then eFounders), Mehdi teamed up with Thibaud Elzière. Their ambition soon crystallized: “Let’s go after Atlassian.” ProductX - later Cycle - was set in motion.

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To validate the idea, Mehdi went to San Francisco, interviewing PMs at Dropbox, Figma, and Superhuman. The message was clear: to be world-class, Cycle had to work with world-class teams. With Hexa, he published a bold manifesto and began pitching investors and customers. Meanwhile, the first prototype shipped, and during a flight home, Mehdi secured Cycle’s first term sheet, leading to a $6M seed round.

Cycle grew through early adopters who became champions and even investors. The team split its time between San Francisco and Paris, building community, refining the product, and experimenting with bold branding. But the journey was tough, survival often meant entering “cockroach mode,” powered by persistence and hunger. That grit paid off as Cycle won clients like Brex, Alan, and Qonto, eventually drawing the attention of Atlassian.

Six years later, Atlassian acquired Cycle - the very company the founders had set out to challenge. Today, Cycle’s technology strengthens Jira Product Discovery, with the full team on board. For Mehdi, the acquisition date held double meaning: it was also the day his daughter Emna was born, symbolizing both an ending and a new beginning.

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