Asana's (ASAN) direct listing showed how the collaborative software company plans to tackle increasing competition despite headwinds. : Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard University roommate and Facebook, Inc. (FB) co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, together with early Facebook employee Justin Rosenstein, founded Asana, Inc. (ASAN) in 2008. Launched at the end of the global financial crisis that ushered the great recession, Asana's mission is to help companies of different sizes and industries with collaboration and productivity tools.