Inside Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus | Karri Saarinen (co-founder, designer, CEO)

1. 0:00 – 4:25

   Karri’s background

   1. KSKarri Saarinen0:00

      My belief is that, like, any domain or industry, the more it matters, the more the design matters. What happens is, like, whenever there's, like, a new paradigm, I don't know, it's like the mobile or the web or something, the first iterations of those products existing there, they don't have to be like super well-designed necessarily because they are the first. But then like as, as you build the 100, like, thousand, like, different email clients, any email client now has to be like pretty good to be, be even considered like reasona- like an email client. It's like that the bar is so high. So I think like today it's almost like a very basic thing now, pretty much from the very beginning you need like pretty high level design for people to even like pay attention or consider you seriously.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky0:44

      (instrumental music) Today my guest is Karri Saarinen. Karri was the founding designer at Coinbase, principal designer at Airbnb, co-founder of two previous startups, and most recently is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, which I am fairly confident is the fastest growing and most beloved issue tracking tool in the world, and something that a growing number of product teams are using to build their own products. Karri and his team are building their company and their product in a really unique way with a huge focus on craft and quality, no A-B tests, no metrics-based goals, instead a focus on taste and opinions. Also, no durable cross-functional teams. Instead, teams assemble around a project and then disperse once it's done. Also, they have just one product manager as the head of product, and that's it. In our conversation, Karri shares how he built a culture around quality and craft, how he makes trade-offs, and how he operationalizes quality and thoughtfulness, where design can be a differentiator in competing against incumbents. We talk about something called the Linear method of building product, which is big on building opinionated software, working in consistent cycles amongst other principals. We also get into Linear's unique hiring approach, which involves a paid work trial where candidates work alongside a team for a number of days instead of just having an interview. Also, a glimpse into how Linear got their first 10 customers, found product market fit, and scaled their growth engine. There is so much gold in this episode. I am very excited for you to hear it. With that, I bring you Karri Saarinen after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Mercury, who I also happen to use for my business checking account. I've tried a lot of business banks, and there is nothing even close to the experience you get with Mercury. I moved cash over from another bank and it literally took less than half an hour to set up the account and wire money over at no cost. They kind of make you want to use the site more often, which I've never felt with another banking site. Mercury is banking engineered for the startup journey. A modern solution to help your company become the best version of itself. And Mercury isn't just a place to hold and send money. It's software built to help you scale with safety and stability, whether you're a team of two or a team of 1,000. Mercury also goes beyond banking to provide you with access to the foremost investors, operators, and tools. Visit mercury.com to join over 100,000 startups on Mercury, the powerful and intuitive way for ambitious companies to bank. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank and Trust, members FDIC. This episode is brought to you by Composer, the AI-powered trading platform now with retirement accounts. Algorithmic trading has historically been reserved for the hedge fund elite. Now with Composer, you can automate your trading with a library of over 1,000 strategies that are easy to understand and tweak using an AI assistant and visual editor. Composer is the first ever algorithmic trading platform where you don't need any coding experience, and includes a full range of trading indicators for you to get creative, and a Discord community of 2,500 traders to discuss your ideas with. Composer also has a powerful back tester to see the historical performance of your strategies, and you can then invest with a single click. Once you invest, Composer will automatically trade for you based on the logic of your strategy. With one billion dollars in trading volume and over one million trades executed, Composer already has many big time investors using the platform regularly. Head to composer.trade and use the code Lenny for an extra week, a free trial on your Composer membership. That's composer.trade.

2. 4:25 – 6:43

   Overview of Linear

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky4:25

      Karri, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

   2. KSKarri Saarinen4:29

      Well, thanks for letting me in. It's great to be here.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky4:31

      Maybe to start, to set a little context, can you just explain, what is Linear? What does Linear do? And then share maybe a few stats of just the scale of Linear at this point.

   4. KSKarri Saarinen4:41

      So Linear is the project and issue tracking system that software companies and technical teams love to use. We help, like, software companies to, to build software. We started 2019, um, today some of the top gr- growth companies like Block, Vercel, Ramp, Retool, uh, Mercury, and Substack are, are building with Linear. We also additionally have lots of other companies, like thousands of other companies using, using Linear. These companies can be like very early stage team, like some, some company just graduated from YC or, or, or a public company. And just like briefly why we created Linear is, is that like, like you said, like we... I worked with you at AirBnB and, and before that I, I worked at Coinbase and I... Before that I had my own startup and all of us ju- founders, there's three of us, we had a, like a similar past where we worked in multiple different companies in different stages. And what we saw often is that like the, the tools available for managing software projects weren't that, like, really cutting it. I think like a lot of them felt very clunky or complex or, or just like they had this kind of legacy way of thinking about software development. And so we just felt like we should do something about it and that's... So with Linear we, we set out to do, like built this like most frictionless and streamlined-... um, system for, for modern software element. I'm also happy to share that we, we've been profitable the last two years. Um, and we also have this thing where we actually have this net negative lifetime burn rate. Um, which means that like we just have more cash in the bank today than we have raised. I think a lot of startups, like usually the normal way is, is that like you, you spend, you raise money and then you, you need to spend it to, to build it. But I think we... since we were able to build a business pretty early on, we've been able to be in this position that actually we haven't spent any money on, on building the business.

3. 6:43 – 12:25

   Linear’s design process and its focus on quality

   1. KSKarri Saarinen6:43

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky6:43

      That is insane. I didn't even know that. Okay, so for all those reasons, a lot of founders and a lot of product leaders look up to the way Linear's built product and the way you think about product. And so to kind of frame this conversation, there's three areas I want to dive into. One is just how you approach building product. Two is how you go about building the team and the business in general. And then three is just how you grow Linear. And to start, I wanna talk about craft. Clearly one of the biggest reasons that people look up to Linear and use Linear is the quality of user experience and the product. And I know that your team puts a lot of emphasis on craft and user experience. I imagine that also comes at the cost of some trade-offs. Like takes probably longer to get stuff out the door. You're probably losing sales because people are waiting for a feature and you're not ready, ready to launch it yet because you want to make it better. What have you learned about creating space for craft and building product that is really, really great?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen7:40

      Yeah, and I think it's interesting that those things we mentioned like hiring, building business and building product and craft is like... I think that all of those are, are somewhat related to, to each other but... So what, what I can say about the product craft per se is like, it, it's definitely like starts with the people that like on the, on the hiring front we always look for people that care about it. As a business, like why we really care about it is, is that like we see that cooperation only happens if people use the product and, and like our product which is supposed to help the cor- cooperation and coordination. If there's friction or the, the experience isn't that great or there's these little paper cuts, I think it's gets annoying for people to use. And so we think like for the business to be successful, the qualities is... and the craft is very important. There's definitely like trade-offs sometimes. Like there can be like, for example, timelines like we, we are about to launch something and then for example I or someone else goes to look at it and, and sees like, "Oh this, this doesn't like feel right." And we says like, "Should fix it so I don't think we should launch this now." So sometimes like it, it does definitely push the timelines but this, this might be like days. It's not like we need to like redo everything. The other way we think about it's like we are actually very okay like pushing things out to ourselves and into... for like a small group of customers like if, if they opt in to that. So when wherever we build a new feature, one of the things is like we don't want to spend tons of time upfront just like designing it and polishing it perfectly. Because we actually believe that when, when you start building the thing, you actually start realizing more like how it could... how it should work and how it should be better. So a lot of times with the teams we tell them like, "Just, just put it there." And like, I don't know, the first week almost like after you have some kind of designs in place or some kind of design ideas. Just like put it into the app and like ship it to production, but only visible to us so we internally can test it out. And then I think the next stage is like we look for like a customer that could be interested in this feature or, or we just like ask people to opt in to like some kind of beta program. And in those stages the experience can be a little like janky or it's not that like polished. But we're okay with it because we are saying, "It's not finished, like we just want to get your feedback early so we can make it better." But like once we get to the kind of like the, the full general release, then we like sp- pay more attention to the actual like polish or the, or the craft.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky10:11

      That is so interesting. I didn't know you do that. So you actually go ahead and launch things really early to a select group of people that want the early stuff. And then did you say that you find one customer to kind of co-create and help evolve the feature and change with?

   5. KSKarri Saarinen10:25

      Yeah. Usually it's... it can be one or it's like three or five or 10.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky10:30

      Mm.

   7. KSKarri Saarinen10:30

      So it's, it's often... especially with the larger company, like larger company facing features, we usually do try to find a large company because it's... sometimes it's hard to like imagine these things, how they should work. And so it's better if, if someone is willing to work with us to like explain, "Okay, this is how we, we do something." And something like for example we, we worked this way with Vercel that there was some, some changes they wanted to see in the, in the Roadmap feature. So we worked with them to, to like improve it then and then they could like give us feedback along the way.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky11:02

      That is so interesting because I think people seeing Linear from the outside, it feels like you just take the time it need, you need to build something awesome and then it launches and it's amazing and it's great. But turns out that isn't exactly how you build. It's, you actually do launch things really early and people don't necessarily see it until it's done. That there's this whole process behind the scenes.

   9. KSKarri Saarinen11:21

      Yeah, I think like sometimes people can believe- like think that craft is about perfecting things and like perfecting them in a, in a very like organized way or like very early on. The downside with this like perfection mindset is that it can be sometimes hard to like put anything out because nothing is ever like fully perfect. And so we try to like balance this thinking with the fact that we should be always pushing things out very quickly, but then like also fixing them, like improving them very quickly. So it, it's almost like the opposite ideas. Um, but then we, we try to like kind of combine that and, and I think it's been... it's been working well to have that. Generally in the company, there is not necessarily like a lot of reviews or something that we, we always like review everything that like-... gets shipped this way, um, because we do want people to, like, feel that they can, like, put something in the app and then we can try it out. So it's more like, let's just, like, try it out and then... But then, like, yeah, we do need to look at it again when, before we release it to everyone.

4. 12:25 – 16:41

   Building a craft-oriented company

   1. KSKarri Saarinen12:25

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky12:25

      A lot of founders, a lot of product leaders, a lot of designers, uh, definitely want to create space for craft and making products really great, something they're really proud of. But in practice, it's really hard. Very few teams and companies do this. Is there anything else you've learned about creating space for this sort of thing and prioritizing it for founders that are listening that are trying to instill more and more of this? Or do you have to be a designer-CEO like Ari and there's really... It's hard to do otherwise?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen12:53

      Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't think... Actually, it's, it's, it's not, like, purely coming from me. So I think that all of the All of Us founders, like Jori and Tuomas additionally, their background is en- engineering. But I would say, like, they actually have almost, like... I think they, they spend even more time on the details than, than sometimes I do. Like-

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky13:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen13:09

      ... um, I think, like, very early on when it was three of us, I, I would be the one, like, kind of g- doing the broad strokes designs. Like, this is how the UI works and this is how the, some of the things work. And then they were the ones that like, "Oh, there should be animation here and there should be, like, this kind of thing here." So I think it's, it's got like that DNA I think come from, comes from all of us. And I think, like, with, with the craft, it always starts with, like, people need to care about it. Like, if it's not valued in the company, then it's, it's very hard to do, for anyone to do because no- if people don't feel like it's, it's valued. And I, I ha- I gave this advice to some founder. He was asking me about it and, like, in their case, like, their founders were coming from different companies. Like, maybe this one founder came from Airbnb and then the other ones came from, like, Facebook and, and Amazon. And I think, like, these, like, for example, I think Facebook and Amazon have very different culture on quality or craft or, or shipping. And I think, like, I s- where I said to them, like, "You just, like, you need to align on it." Like, it's, it's like you cannot run a company with multiple different kinds of cultures. And I think I, I made some points like why the quality is important for certain kind of products and, like, you should all kind of believe in that and then, like, instill that with everyone you hire. The other thing I would say that, what we like to do is we actually don't have much BMs in the company. We only have one. And, like, we can talk about, more about it. But the, the... One of the things I think that happens is, like, when, when you build a team and you start creating these very specific roles for everything, um, where, like, I think that often the BM can be the one that, like, figuring things out and, like, making decisions and guiding the team but they're not the ones, like, building the feature. So they're not there, like, looking at it, like, the whole day. It's like, "How is, how is this... Where does this button go or how does it work?" And I think, like, a lot of that, like, this graph for us happens when we give the project team this, like, ownership and the project team is just engineering and design and then when they start building the feature, they start seeing these opportunities that this thing could be better. Like, a good example of this is, like, we, one of our engineers, Andreas, like, when we were building this right click menu in the app, like, so you can right click different things and under that you have sub-menus. Like, Mac OS does this well where it's, like, when you, when you open that menu, you hover on the menu and then you wanna go to the sub-menu so you hover to the right. You don't have to go, like, exactly, like, horizontally to get into that menu. You can actually go kind of, like, diagonally or, like, you don't actually have to hit the menu exactly. There's, like, this kind of safe zone. But, like, a lot of software, like, just implements, like, "Hey, let's do this menu. Let's make the sub-menu." It only works if you exactly hover over the menu and, and then, like, what happens is the user often, like, misses, like, with few pixels what they were trying to, like, do. So what Andreas did, like, which we didn't tell him to do, is like, "Yeah, this kind of sucks and, like, we should make this better." And so he figured out a way to, like, create those, like, safe areas that are dynamic based on, like, like, the sub-menu positioning and everything. So it's much easier now. Like, you can go diagonally to the actual thing you wanna go to. So I think, like, these kind of things, like, happen when you give people, like, more of the ownership of the project and also, like, the space to do that and, and, and then you also have, like, leadership or, or generally the company culture that, that values the quality or the craft.

5. 16:41 – 18:37

   Product management at Linear

   1. KSKarri Saarinen16:41

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky16:41

      All right. Well, I gotta follow this thread. There's a couple questions I want to ask. So you have one product manager. W- would you call him the head of product?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen16:48

      Yeah. Uh, Nhan Yu who is, who is the... Yeah, he is the head of product.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky16:52

      Awesome. So what made you decide to hire him and even have any BMs?

   5. KSKarri Saarinen16:56

      We, we started to see that, okay, we, we have (laughs) enough features and, and, and, like, s- like, areas of the product and also, like, the team is bigger that it's hard to keep kind of, like, aligned on all of these things or, like, even keep track of things. And, like, initially we actually hired Nhan as a contractor to help us with this, like, insights data tool. So we have this, like, data do- tool feature built in Linear so you can get, like, data on what's happening in, in the workspace. And for us, like, founders, we realized, like, none of us are, like... We are not super experienced in, in data tools so we need someone to help out and luckily Nhan was, like, we kn- knew him and, like, he actually worked at Mode, which is a data tool. And so we initially hired him, like, "Can you help us figure out, like, what exactly should this data do- tool and how should it work?" Because I think there's different ways of doing that and I think al- always the easiest way is, like, "Let's just copy what some other company's doing." But we didn't wanna do that so we wanted to, like, figure out, like, what is actually, like, useful way to, to use this data or, like, get this data? So he, he helped us with that and then we kind of saw, like, yeah, this could be, like, useful in other larger areas or overall with the whole product. It's like we might have these kind of questions, like, "What should we exactly be thinking around here and, like, why? And, like, how would we, like-... define this direction and then, like, help the teams to also, like, align on it. So like, it, to us, it's more like he's kind of like the, figures out the direction of the product and, and, and like steers the, some of the efforts and not like he's there in every meeting and like making every decision or writing every spec or, or something

6. 18:37 – 21:16

   Strategies for launching a startup without a dedicated PM

   1. KSKarri Saarinen18:37

      like that.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky18:37

      Another question along these lines, 'cause there's a lot of PMs listening and they're gonna be like, "Oh, shit. These guys don't need PMs. There are PMs to p- is over. Product management did." And so just another question along these lines. Somebody needs to do the work that a PM does basically, right? There's all these things that is on the plate of a product manager when they're at a company and if they're not there, other people have to do those things. And what I'm hearing is basically you give those responsibilities to the engineer, designer, and maybe other functions within the team. Is that right?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen19:06

      Yeah. So I mean, definitely I think what it means is, and there is definitely like trade-offs so like I think sometimes when companies specialize roles a lot, it's like because of it's more efficient. Like, if the engineer just spends 100% of their time, like, coding something, then it's like they're using their skillset to the max. But then we just think that in, in order to, like, build quality things or build things in a certain way, it's actually better if people actually also spend some time thinking about things and not just, like, executing. So yes, like for every project, there is a project lead. That lead can be engineer or designer. It's not like a formal role or it's not based on a, like a, like your whatever level or, or it's just like you need to be certain title to d- you can be that. It's more like a assignment that, like, okay now you are responsible, like, getting the projects started and working with, together with the team, like, figuring it out and then, like, communicating when changes, uh, or like communicating how the progress happens. And, and so it's definitely, like, it- it means that the, the engineers and, or designers also have to, like, do this things and, like, they do need to, like, communicate and they d- need to think about, like, the scope or, or things. It's a different way of doing things and, and, um, also not everyone wants to do that, which is fine. But we w- in the hiring front try to hire people that are kind of interested in the broader scope than just like the, that they're like specific skillset that they have.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky20:35

      Yeah. I think those last two points are really essential, is one, people often don't want to do this work and they kind of are happy to offload it to a potential product manager. So the fact that say engineers have to do all these boring PM things like communicate timelines and keep PR specs aligned and make sure timelines are hit and all that stuff and run meetings, a lot of people don't want to do that. A lot of times they do, and I think in this case people seem to really want to be doing that. The other is I think you need a really high caliber team that's very product minded and the hiring bar needs to be very, very high for say engineers and designers to want to do all these things and be good at them. And so I think, I think those are two necessary ingredients for this to work out.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen21:15

      Yeah. For sure.

7. 21:16 – 23:46

   How Linear assists PMs in their roles

   1. KSKarri Saarinen21:16

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky21:16

      For teams that want to try this sort of approach, especially startups that are kind of starting out and maybe not excited about hiring product managers, is there anything else that you think is essential or important to functioning well without any product managers? And you're at around 50 people at this point?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen21:32

      Yeah. We are around 50.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky21:34

      Awesome.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen21:34

      And probably the only thing I would say it's, it's like the hiring front that like you- you really need to spend more time on it and like basically you cannot really interview engineers only for the engineering skills. You also have to interview them for like the product skills. And it's like, it's like obviously like you cannot I think expect that people have some like if you do some kind of PM interview for them, it's- it's not, they're not gonna have the same kind of skillset or the same understanding of the concepts or something. But like the way we've done it in the past is like basically I might interview them about the product. I'm not a technical person per se, so I will just like ask them questions about like how did they do something or like how do they think about something. And it's similar to other roles too. There's like, we- we just look for like, do this person have like opinions about, about products and how they- they work and- and like can they form opinions and- and can they kind of use their own judgment in, at times? And then, um, like can they communicate or articulate those things as well?

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky22:30

      Awesome. I was just thinking, it's interesting that a tool that I don't think is designed specifically for product managers, but essentially for building products like the infrastructure for building product in a team is built by a company that has one PM and very few PMs.

   7. KSKarri Saarinen22:43

      Yeah. I mean, I- I think like in some ways I would say that like w- with Linear we are trying to help the whole company and like I think engineers is probably like the largest user, user group of the, of the product. And like I think in some ways we want to make the, the PMs job easier or like a that like they- they have to spend less time on like managing everything or like where like the day-to-day, because like the- the engineers are actually using the product and they're like updating the things. It's okay, for the PMs it would be much more easier to like get this like what is the state of things and, and like maybe trust that much more because people actually use the product. So in, in some ways like I think we, we're trying to like kind of like make it easier for everyone and easier for the engineers like they, they can focus more on their work and then for PMs I think like we're trying to make it so that, that they can also focus on more on other things than just like, I don't know, managing the tool that they use. Like I think that's not the most important job of a PM. I think it, they should be like thinking more of the, I don't know, bigger picture or like other problems or like figure out like the next like features or- or

8. 23:46 – 24:58

   Linear’s potential expansion in PM roles

   1. KSKarri Saarinen23:46

      something.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky23:47

      Just one more question along these lines. There's other companies like Stripe I think who waited till 200 employees to hire I think their first product manager. Snapchat I think is famous for something around that. Do you have any sense of if you think this might change? When you think you might hire more product managers, is there a kind of plan here or is it just kind of see how it goes and- as you grow?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen24:05

      I think we will definitely hire more. Um, it- it's like I think like what I said before is like I think we like to see m- the PM smarts like operating on a higher level. Like the whole company like I think the way we...... trying to build it is like we have less people but people who are more high caliber and can think about like certain, like larger scope than what their current role is. So I think like it's, we're just like trying to build this like a smaller units but more effective units, which I think like where the PMs go in that would, that they, they, they would be also less of them. Like and they are not there in every level. But I think in the future as the company grows and the team grows and the product grows, we might have like several PMs that are focusing on or looking at specific areas or specific types of things of the product, or specific customers or, or something like that.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky24:57

      Awesome.

9. 24:58 – 29:08

   The importance of design

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky24:58

      Okay. That was a tangent because I couldn't not go in that direction. But I want to come back to design again and craft. So it feels like Linear, one of the reasons you guys have been successful is design and experience is basically a huge differentiator from other products. And there's always this question of can design be enough of a differentiator in specific markets? Is there always an opportunity to build like a significantly better product experience and have a real shot at disrupting an incumbent? Do you have any sense of when design can be enough of a differentiator? And this is coming from like a founder trying to decide should we go big on design and experience or should we invest in like distribution or new technology or something along those lines. Any thoughts there?

   2. KSKarri Saarinen25:41

      My belief is that like any domain or industry, the more it matters, the more the design matters. And I think like it's kind of like it, it's fairly easy to see in different like if even in software or in other industries, it's like what happens is like whenever there's like a new paradigm, I don't know, it's like the mobile or the web or something, the first iterations of those products existing there, they don't have to be like super well-designed necessarily because they are the first. But then like as, as you build the hundreds, like thousand like different email clients, any email client now has to be like pretty good to be, be even considered like reasonable, like an email client. It's like that the bar is so high. So I think like today, the startups like, I don't know, if you look at (laughs) like the webpage Google launched with or like the webpage YouTube launched with or so- some of these like older companies, it's, it, they were very basic. Li- if you launched that kind of website today, it's, it, no one would really pay attention. Uh, so I think like the design is always like, it's almost like a very basic thing now that like you from pretty much from the very beginning you need like pretty high level of design for people to even like pay attention or consider you seriously. And I, I think it's like it's not necessarily fair because like sometimes it's like maybe the product is really good but they didn't have a designer or they didn't have like time to do it, and then people just kind of like dismiss it because it doesn't, doesn't seem like something that it, that interests them. So I think like that, that's the first thing is like I think it's, it is, and it's gonna be more and more important. Um, but I would also say like design is never gonna be like, uh, the reason or like the, the, the reason why a company is successful. It's like, it's like the company still has to have some other things, the like that the product still needs to be something. It needs to be better in some ways or it needs to be different in some ways. And then like a design is just like enabling some of these things, like ena- en- enable, similar to technology.It's like if you have good technology, it's like easier to do certain things and like it, the product works better in some ways than you having like a bad technology or bad, bad like infrastructure. So similar to design, I think like if you're, if you have a good design and like people are, or even like a good brand, like people are like drawn into it and then it like makes like some like user acquisition or user retention or just like even people perception of the product better. I think like an example is like packaging and products. It's like Apple or a lot of companies spend a lot of time, like effort into the packaging because it's kind of like already sets the ex- the expectations for the user who is receiving the product. It's like even before you use the product you like start thinking that this is a high quality product and like I'm gonna love it. And then like when you actually have it then you actually like might feel that way, unless the product is really bad and then like you, you wouldn't feel that way. So I think similarly with startups or like SaaS, it's like your landing page or some of the other things, it's like they are already like communicating something to the user and they, they're setting, setting the expectations and then I think that that can be like very useful thing, especially early on when no one really knows you or, or knows the product or cares about you. So I think like especially I feel like design can be very good leverage in the, in the beginning.

10. 29:08 – 30:48

    Utilizing design and brand as distinct competitive advantages

    1. KSKarri Saarinen29:08

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky29:08

       I think that's such an interesting insight, especially that, that first thing you said around how the more, uh, often and the more crowded the space is, the more opportunity there is for design to be a differentiator. Is that roughly how you think about it?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen29:21

       Yeah. So I mean like just think about like, I don't know, any, any product category. It's like basically people, people have then like lower choices and then they like how do they make choices? Like maybe there's a specific thing they want but like a lot of people don't necessarily know what, what is this basic feature I want from this software. So it's more like well, what is the best one? What is the highest quality one? And if you put things side by side and you just people see things, people are visual. So like then like the design can be one of those things. It's like stands out. It's like well that looks the best or that looks the most like quality product to me so I'm gonna use that one. Like when people have a lot of choices they probably will pick the one that like looks most in- most in- interesting. And then I think there is the second part is the brand which is something that you, if you can build a brand then I think it's like it doesn't really, even the product almost (laughs) doesn't matter. Like it's, it's be- it's, it becomes this kind of default like, I don't know, like again like Apple or Nike. It's like yeah there's all kinds of shoes you can buy.... but there's a reason for someone to buy Nike shoes other than some, some random brand. Even if the random brand would be actually a better shoe, they still buy Nike because they, like, I don't know, like the brand. So then I think, like, both the design of the product but also the design of the brand can be, like, like very strong, like, kind of things that, like, pull people to your company or to the product.

11. 30:48 – 33:08

    The importance of authenticity in branding and messaging

    1. KSKarri Saarinen30:48

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky30:48

       Is there anything you've learned about just building a brand over the course of building Linear? Something you find to be really important and actually building that perception that Linear is really great and amazing.

    3. KSKarri Saarinen30:59

       To me, I think, like, the brand should be always, like, authentic and, and, like, it should kind of, like... I think even people... If people can articulate it, um, it, it... People start to feel like something is off. Like, like I think there can be, like, companies or startups, they, like, think about brands like, "Oh, brand is the logo or the colors of the website or something," and then they, like, do the same thing and some, some other company does and then they, like, think, like, "Okay, now we have a brand." But, like, you actually didn't, like, think about, like, what's your brand. Like, what is the message or voice you, you want to talk about? And it, it doesn't ha-... Also, like, the brand doesn't happen overnight. So it's basically just, you start in the beginning, like, and, and, like, when you start a company, you don't have no brand and so you have to create it so... And, and you, you create it over time by the, the things you do, the things you say, like, how you say them and, like, what, what kind of... How do you approach things? How do you treat customers? How do you build the website or the product? Like, all of these things starts to, like, build this, like, idea, like, what does this company mean to me in people's heads. Um, I know, like, we both worked at Airbnb and, like, I think Brian Chesky is, like... I think the brand was probably, like, the most important thing for him and, I, I don't know how many hours or meetings or conversations there was about the brand and it's, like, the brand was always, like... It's, like, part of everything the company does 'cause it's true. It's like, yeah, you can, you could book things like places to stay in a lot of places on the web, but when people think about, like, "Oh, I wanna, like, stay in some cool place," they're gonna think about Airbnb. It's, like, they're not gonna, like, think about those other places. So that's, like, the power of the, of the brand. They're like, "People stop thinking about the other things," or, or they start understanding like, okay, this is the thing for this.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky32:43

       That's part of the reason Airbnb has been able to build a direct destination where people aren't, like, Googling, "I wanna stay in a home." They're like, "airbnb.com," which gives Airbnb such a massive advantage, not having to run ads on, you know, Facebook and Google or SEO. It's just, like, people know Airbnb and they just go straight there and there's very few sites where people go, "I'm gonna go straight there and look for somewhere," knowing that they can also compare hotels on all these other sites.

    5. KSKarri Saarinen33:07

       Mm-hmm.

12. 33:08 – 38:34

    How design reviews are conducted at Linear

    1. KSKarri Saarinen33:08

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky33:08

       Coming back to design briefly, just, like, very practically, how do you guys do design reviews? Just, like, how do you actually go about reviewing what's going at? And then two, this may be too big a question, but just whatever you can share here is just, like, what do you... How do you know when it's done? How do you know when it's ready and approved, Karri sealed, checkbox, ready to go?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen33:26

       We've been doing, like, exploring different ways of doing this. I think, like, today, I, like, I, I still run the design team so I do see some of the designs, like, on a, on a weekly basis and, and then, like, I, I, um, or one of the other co-founders or one of the... Or the head of product, we are basically the, the sponsors for the projects. So then, like, we, we are kinda, like, responsible, like, check-... Like, reviewing the, reviewing the work. And so we might just have a meeting where we go through, "Okay, let, let's, let's go through the demo," and, like, people can explain what's, what's going on and, like, how they think about it and why and then we might have, like, feedback. "Okay, this seems, like, strange," or, or, or something and then I might... Just after that, I might just, like, go into the product myself and, like, try it out. And then what happens sometimes, like, it's like... I- in the in- initial stages, like, obviously we're not gonna, like, start fixing everything. It's more like let's try to get the, like, the main concept there and, like, figure out how it works. But then, like, before we are launching it, I might just go in and, like, try it out and, like, try the different states and click it, click it around and, and sometimes I find things, like, like we, we were building this threading to comments and, um, and then, like, when it looked all good in, in the demos and stuff and then, then I went try it and, like, try different lengths of messages and stuff and then I started to see, like, oh, sometimes the animations are kind of janky or it's just, like, off. Like, they don't go the right way. The... No, no, the screen doesn't scroll exactly right. So then I, I just, like, I kinda, like, captured those things and, like, send it to the team and so we had to, like, kind of pull back the release a little bit until those things were fixed. That one was, like, it's, it's very, like, I think, like, a simple concept and it's, like, very known concept. Like, "Okay, this is how threading comments works." So that, that was mostly about, like, okay, what's the execution of this? But then we have projects where we are, like, not sure exactly how this should work and, like, we can't really, like... Like, we can try it ourselves. We also have to see how, how companies use it. So something like we, we built this feature project updates and it's, like, a common thing companies do is, like, you, you need to write a update on your project. Is it yellow, green, red? And, like, companies have many different ways of doing this in different tools. And we just thought, like, "Well, it, I think it would be, like, really cool, really nice if it's just, like, in- inside Linear and you can... The team, when they work on a project, they can w- write the update. Linear can also capture some of the stats, like what actually happened." I think with that feature, it's, like, it's been working well, but then also now we've been, like, exploring. Like, it's like after using it a while, we think, like, "Oh, actually there, there could be, like, more robust way of following these updates." Maybe people could... Maybe the leadership could just, like, get these updates over email or, like, maybe so when you have a lot of updates you should have a search or, like, a filtering system or something. So I think a lot of times we just think like, okay, this is, like, the scope of it for now and we are okay, like, launching this and the execution is good.... but we know that, like, this is not the, like, fully figured out version and we just need to see people trying it out and, like, see the, see the feedback.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky36:36

       So it sounds like on the decision of whether it goes out or not, it's kind of this intuitive feeling from your actual experience trying it out, feeling, gut level, this is ready or this needs a little work.

    5. KSKarri Saarinen36:46

       Yeah. I would say, like, a lot of things that w- we do is, is, is more like that, that we don't do A/B testing or we don't do... specifically go follow, like, certain metrics or something. We might sometimes... We do have telemetry or, like, we can look at, like, how people use certain things and we sometimes do that. But, like, that's not usually the call. We have in mind, it's like, "Yeah, we should move this number this much." So it's more about, like, based on the understanding of the problem we have and based on the, like, what we think is right, is this the right solution and is this a good enough solution to be, uh, released to, to the customers?

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky37:24

       One more question along this thread is how do you actually structure these reviews? It sounds like you go straight to prototype. Is there, like, a design review phase? Is it all kind of informal and people just review, "Here's what we need your feedback on"?

    7. KSKarri Saarinen37:38

       Yeah. So there, there isn't, like... Projects don't necessarily have, like, specific states to them. But, like, I would say, like, roughly usually we do start with design so there's, like, the... some explorations on the design. Like, okay, there's, like, different ways of, we could, like, approach this or sometimes there's just one way because it's, like, pretty clear, clear. But then, like, I... Mo- what I said before is that, like, we do try to, like, get it into the building phase as quickly as possible because then we can also, like, see is this, this, this direction actually, like, reasonable and, like, what, what else does it cau-...like, is there some problems it causes or how does it just generally feel here? So I think, like, that, that there isn't, like, specific, like, review stages. It's more like, yeah, let's check, like, if... Let's check on this project, like, every week or every two weeks and then before releasing, let's also make a, like, a review of it and, like, really test it out, that, like, is it the, is it the quality we want?

13. 38:34 – 40:07

    The Linear method for modern software development

    1. KSKarri Saarinen38:34

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky38:34

       Awesome. So that's a good segue to another area I wanted to spend some time, which is the Linear method. You espouse this way of building a product that you call the Linear method, which you publish online and will link to in the show notes. And I just wanna ask a few questions around this way of building product. One is, you are big on this idea of building opinionated software. Can you talk about just what does that mean and then maybe give an example or, or two of how you actually have done that at Linear?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen39:02

       So first, like, with the Linear method, what we... wh- why did we create it in the first place is, like, we just believe that there is more of, like, this modern ways of building software and thinking about it and we wanted to, like, share some of our, our thinking on it. Um, and that's kind of, like, also... It, it relates to how we built Linear as well, like, so y- you might, like, understand why we make some choices because this is, like, the way we think about making these choices. So we're trying to, like, share our thinking behind the product and not just like, "Here's the product and, like, figure it out." Yeah. So, like, the opinionated piece, like, I personally have, like, this belief that productivity software should be... and, and especially company software should be opinionated. I think that, like, what the productivity software is trying to do is, is, like, make people productive. And I think, like, what, what productive means is, like, you actually do something that matters for the company which is, which is, like, I don't know, build some new feature or, like, fix something or design something. Like, all of those things are, like, eventually they provide some kind of value for the customer.

14. 40:07 – 41:23

    Why productivity software should be opinionated

    1. KSKarri Saarinen40:07

       I think there is this, like, ideas or notions in the world that, like, flexible software is great and, like, I think it can be great sometimes but, like, what happens is, like, people start spending a lot of time, like, figuring things out. Like how, how does, how does this feature work? Like, you can use it in 10 different ways and then everyone, every team or everyone figures out a different way of doing it. So our thinking is, like, we, we like to provide this, like, good defaults or good opinions. Like, this is how the feature works and this is how the workflow works so you as a user or as a team don't have to think about it and you can focus on th- the work you do. And the other thing is, like, my design mantra is always, like, design something for someone. Like, it's, it's very hard to design everything for everyone because there's... you, you just end up with a very generalized solution. So then what we're trying to do with the opinionated solution is that, like, that's the best solution or the most optimized solution we think of. And then, like, when you use it, like, hope- hopefully you agree and, like, you can feel that it's more optimized. So being opinionated, it's like the... I think the value it provides people is, like, you don't have to think too much, like, or spend some more time on the tool than you do on your actual work.

15. 41:23 – 43:27

    Why Linear created “cycles” and how it works

    1. KSKarri Saarinen41:23

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky41:23

       And then another core element of the Linear method is something called cycles. I know Linear is all around this idea of creating cycles and working in cycles. Can you talk about what is a cycle and how it works at Linear?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen41:35

       So for example, like, the cycles is, is, it's optional. Like, not every team has to use it or not the h- the whole company has to use it, but it's there as, as... You can turn it on or off, but basically I think the... why we created cycles is that I, I think any team that works on software or, or some other products, like, you always have almost, like, infinite list of things to do and th- that list gets longer every day and it can be sometimes very distracting for the individual or for the team to, like, decide, like, what, like, there's a new thing coming in. Like, should we wor- work on that or should we work on this other thing we decided in the past? So the cycles is just a way to say that, like, like, for the next week or the next two weeks or whatever timeframe, we are gonna work on these things and, like, these are the things we, we think, like, are the, are the priority or the focus for this, this timeframe. And then the team can, can try to focus on those things. Now if, if something happens, like...... like, I don't know, we really need to jump on this other thing. At least there was, like, some kind of initial state that, like, we, we decided before we wanna do these things and then now something else happened and so now we have to go on this thing. So, so you have, like, a answer when someone comes to you to ask, like, "Why didn't you do this other thing before?" Then you can say, "Well, we did decide to do that, but then something happened and we had to do this other thing." So the cycles is, so the, uh, it's very similar to sprints, but we like to call it cycles because we are not really sprinting anywhere. The cycles also run on a, like, automated schedule so it's, like, you don't have to think about, like, which day does it start or, or, like, uh, every, every time, like, set it up manually. So it just, like, runs automatically. And so it's, it's n- just meant to, like, to help the team to focus on, like, let's just, like, focus on these few things and forget about the infinite list of other things that are, are, um, (clicks tongue) in the background.

16. 43:27 – 45:07

    Why Linear doesn’t have metric-based goals

    1. KSKarri Saarinen43:27

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky43:27

       You mentioned earlier that you don't set metrics goals, and so let me dig into that a little bit. Is that true? You don't really have number goals for features, for launches and things like that? And so let me, let me start there and then I have a follow-up question.

    3. KSKarri Saarinen43:40

       Yeah. So we might have, like, a company level goal sometimes, like, for example, like, weekly active users, like, that's, like, a metric we wanna, wanna increase or, or something. But in terms of, like, specific features, we don't have goals for those. And the reason is that I think, like, a k- a product like us or, like, a system that is used by different kinds of companies and, and kind of... It, it's like a system made of multiple different parts and it, it's not like a very... It's not necessarily, like, you wanna optimize any specific thing about it. It's, like, and also companies are a little bit different, so, like, their usage of different features can, like, differ because they just operate slightly differently or their team size is different or the setup of the team is different or the culture is different. So there isn't, like, a... I think, like, for example, I don't know, some, like, Instagram or some of these apps, it's like, "Yeah, we need to drive engagement," and that's, like, the, the main feature. Like, that's the main metric for every feature. Like, we don't actually... We don't have that. Like, we, we just think that, like, there should be (laughs) features that help companies and sometimes we can look at the metrics before s- we start working on it that, like, s- let's see what's the state of things are. But we don't necessarily wanna set, like, "Oh, we need to increase this specific metric by, by X." It's more like, "We wanna solve this problem," and ideally the success way looks like the pro-... Like, customers agree that the problem was solved or they, they enjoy the solution. And it's not like that the metrics went up.

17. 45:07 – 48:04

    How a business can thrive without metrics, PMs, and A/B testing

    1. KSKarri Saarinen45:08

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky45:08

       So just to summarize so far, uh, you have no metrics, you have no experiments, you have essentially no PMs, just one product leader. You spend a lot of time on design and craft and making things awesome. I'm curious just what you think it takes to make a company work in that way, because this is pretty different from how a lot of other founders think and a lot of other product teams work.

    3. KSKarri Saarinen45:32

       Yeah. We, we like to, like, talk about this internally, like, this, like, uh, mixture of, like, magic and science and, and, like, how we describe this, like... There's always some level of science that we do, and I think, like, some companies are very scientific on their product management that they, like, they like to measure everything and they, they do, do a lot of tests and things. But, like, we, we just decided, like, I n- we don't think that's necessary, um, or that's, that's a good for us. So the science for us means that, like, we, we do talk to users a lot and, like, the whole, whole, like, the, uh... Any project we start with, we do some, like, level of user research and as founders, like, different people on the team, like, we might have, like, weekly calls with customers or users. We also en- encourage everyone in the team, like, go to the customer Slack, they, they answer people questions. Like, we have shared Slack channels with customers. We go... Anyone, like I sometimes go answer the questions there. Uh, I also see when they complain about something. I think, so I think the first part is, like, the whole team kinda has to be really understanding the product and the, the customers and the, the problems people are facing and kinda have that, like, empathy and as well as, like, the understanding, like, what is the state of things today? And then we, we talk about that. And then sometimes we, we di- might pull up stats and see, like, oh, wonder, like, is there so- some kind of patterns we see? Like, okay, this kind of companies are using this thing more and what do, w- what, what do we think about it? But usually we have some kind of question we wanna answer. It's like, I wonder what, wha- what is going on? And then we look at it versus, like, let's just pull some metrics and then decide that we should increase this metric. And then the magic part is, like, what happens when you kind of build this understanding. Like, everyone in the company builds... It's not like everyone has the same understanding, but, like, everyone builds more of that customer and product understanding. Then, like, we have discussions like, what should we be doing or, like, how, what decision we wanna make here? Then everyone is much more, like, kinda informed of the actual reality of the, the customers or the, or the product. And then we think, like, you can much more, like, use your intuition or, or thinking to, to do those decisions so you don't have to use data or metrics to, to back those things up. So that's, like, I think the main thing is, like, the whole company kinda has to, like, be with the customers or, like, un- like, talk to them and, and then, like, understand, like, where the product might work well or m- may... Where it might fall short.

18. 48:04 – 50:02

    A customer-focused approach to building product

    1. KSKarri Saarinen48:05

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky48:05

       That's what I imagined you were gonna say and I love hearing that. For someone that wants to create a similar culture, is there tactically anything you find just understand if your employees and engineers, designers have enough of that context and really understand the problem?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen48:20

       I mean, I think it's always look at different people. Like, different people in a company will have different understandings. I- it's not like you can expect, like, everyone, like, will every day, like, go to see everything and, like, uh, has, has this.... but, like, we, we do sometimes, like, sessions with the, with the team or we do record videos with the customers. We kind of write notes and we share thi- this with people. I feel like, again, it's, like, fairly apparent, like, if people, uh, like, if you know your customers or the product, like, it's, it's very different way you can talk about it versus, like, if you don't have any idea. Like, I think, like, if you don't have any idea, you probably don't even know what to say.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky48:59

       (laughs)

    5. KSKarri Saarinen48:59

       Um, so I think it's, like, kind of apparent if people have that and it's not like every project, like, we need, like, everyone to have this, like, understanding. Um, it probably usually enough is one or two people have that understanding or have different understanding of different things. So I think it, again, is I feel like it's, like, a culture thing and I think the other thing is, like, you kind of have to have the... You just have to kind of believe in it. Like, I think sometimes people use data a lot or too much because they just are, they're worrying or they're afraid that will I make a wrong choice and, and, like, I'm using data to, like, make the choice for me. But then, like, you might still feel like this is not the right choice but the data is telling me it's the right choice. And then turns out maybe it was the right choice or not, but the- it's more like, again, like a practice thing. Like, you need to be, I think, the company and you need to be okay that, like, sometimes we make mistakes and, like, we made the wrong choice and then we just can fix it. But at least we made that choice and the data didn't make that choice for

19. 50:02 – 53:05

    Adapting strategies for diverse products and domains

    1. KSKarri Saarinen50:02

       us.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky50:03

       What's interesting about this is if you've heard the ru- episode on Ramp and how Ramp builds product with Jeff Charles, there's such different ways of building product. Ramp is all about velocity, shipping all the time, metrics, measuring everything. And your approach is almost the opposite and I think what's interesting there is, as a takeaway, is just there's many ways to do it.

    3. KSKarri Saarinen50:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky50:22

       You just have to do it almost fully and you have to have really specific people. It feels like the people want to work in a certain way and a lot of it, I think, also is the founder has to... It has to be, like, natural to the way the founder operates and thinks about building and building a company.

    5. KSKarri Saarinen50:39

       Yeah, and for sure, and then, like, if you look at, like, successful companies and, like, Amazon is very different than Apple and, like, how they operate and I think both them are successful, um, but not in the same way. So I think it's, again, it's like a, yeah, it's a decision you make as a company or as a founder, like, what kind of c- company you want to build. I do think there is, like, some aspects of, like, the domain that you're in. Like, what, what does that domain and the problem space require from, from that company? And for us it, I think it's like we are in the... I think we are in the retention business. Like, it's, it's, like, and the trust business kind of that ideally we have a company starting to use Linear very early on and then they stay with us forever. And I think the only way we can do that is, like, we need to continuously kind of deliver them, like, good quality product and, like, kind of maintain that trust that we are the, that, that we don't, like, fail them or, or somehow otherwise, like, mistreat them. And I think, like, some businesses are much more, like, transactional where it's like, yeah, we just need to make this e-commerce sale and then once it's done, like, we don't care what happens. So in our case, it's more like we, we really need to, like, build this relationship over time and then that's why, like, I think some of the choices we make are also, like, kind of, like, more about respecting the customer versus, like, we're just wanting to drive the revenue of the company.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky52:02

       Awesome. Such an important point. This episode is brought to you by Pendo, the all-in-one platform for product led companies building breakthrough digital experiences. With all the tools you need all in one simple to use platform, Pendo makes it easy to answer critical questions about how users are engaging with your product and then turn those insights into action. With product analytics, low-code in-app guides, user feedback and session replay, customizable roadmaps and AI generated insights and campaigns, Pendo is the only solution you need to build, ship and optimize a successful product led motion. But don't take my word for it. Create your free Pendo account today and start building better experiences across every corner of your product. PS, want to take your product led know-how a step further? Check out Pendo's lineup of certification courses led by top PLG experts and designed to help you grow and advance in your career. Learn more and experience the power of the Pendo platform today at pendo.io/lenny. That's P-E-N-D-O.I-O/lenny.

20. 53:05 – 56:47

    Three techniques Karri uses to maintain focus

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky53:06

       Something you're really good at personally is focus. I find that just trying to get you on this podcast was a lot of, like, "Hey, Karri. Hey, have you thought about this yet?" And I know that a lot of VCs are just, like, reaching out to you all the time, all these really fancy VCs that are just, like, trying to talk to you and get close to you and I just know you're really good at avoiding shiny objects and staying really focused and really heads down. And I've always wanted to just ask you, what do you... How do you do that? Do you have any tricks, systems, processes, approaches to staying focused other than just ignore, ignore the inbox mostly?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen53:39

       Yeah. I don't, I don't think there's any, like, complicated, like, processes and so I think, like, one of the things, like, I, I was in YC in 2012 and one of the, like, things, the main thing they say there is, like, what you should be focusing on when you build a startup is, like, talk to customers, build the product, exercise and, like, if y- if you're not, like, if you find yourself doing something else than those three things, it's probably, like, the wrong thing to do. Um-

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky54:01

       And third when you said exercise? Or...

    4. KSKarri Saarinen54:03

       Yeah. Yeah. And the, the exercise is that, like, it's important for you to be healthy-

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky54:09

       Oh.

    6. KSKarri Saarinen54:09

       ... or just not just to, like, burn yourself out so I think there is, like-

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky54:13

       Okay. Interesting.

    8. KSKarri Saarinen54:13

       ... uh, it, it was, like, a balance, like, adwise to, to that.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky54:16

       Mm-hmm. Love it.

    10. KSKarri Saarinen54:17

        Um, so, so I'm doing those three things and, uh, but I, and so, so I think the thinking there is like, I think w- we often as a company also talk about this and, and, like, very early on and, and I use this the same way and, like, I think the company can use it the same way as like...I think there's always things that you're supposed to do, or like, it sounds like a good idea to do. And like, it could be like, yeah, like, come to this podcast. And I actually think like before it wasn't like... or like I always have these questions like, is this important to do now? Or is it important to maybe do later? Um, so I think like for example, the question on this podcast is like, I didn't feel like it was important to do it earlier because we weren't at that stage or scale or something that it, I think would be like as interesting or, or, or something. So I think like it was a better timing to do it later. Similar, like when we built the product, we all, like initially we were just very like focused on like, is this really important thing to do? There's always like, yeah, like you could get like SOC 2, like security kind of certificate, but... and we know that like eventually we need to get it, but we don't need, need it today. Um, so we just say no to that. And like if customer ask for it, so we say like, we don't have it and we will have it one day, but not now, and see like... and a lot of times people are like, "Okay, like, that's fine." And then like internally we also talk about this like, you know, in like RPG games you have the main quest lines and then you have the side quest lines and, and we often talk about the companies like avoid the side quests. Like, like there's always like ideas people have and, and the... and it's a good thing and it's like people have ideas, but then it might be like, yeah, let's make like this t-shirt or like let's make this thing. And then we're like, "Well, is it... does it help the customers? Does it help the product? Like, this sounds like a side quest to me." And like basically it means like we shouldn't do it. Like, this, this doesn't progress the main quest line, which is like building this product and, and like making it awesome for, for these customers. So it's similar to me, it's like I, I operate this way personally too, that I think about like is this important for the main quest line in, in, in building this company for me or, or is this something that, uh, I can ignore for now or something I can do later and it makes more sense then.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky56:35

        That is such incredibly good advice. Basically, ask yourself, how important is this to do now? And is this the main quest or is this a side quest?

    12. KSKarri Saarinen56:45

        Mm-hmm.

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky56:45

        Amazing.

21. 56:47 – 1:02:10

    Linear’s hiring practices

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky56:47

       Okay. So let's talk about hiring. As with most areas, you're very, very, very deliberate about hiring. The bar is so insanely high at Linear and, uh, you also hire very few people. So just a few questions along these lines. Just one is, when you're hiring people, what do you look for that you think maybe other people are not looking for enough and where do you spend a lot of time?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen57:09

       I think one of the things we, all of us founders kind of saw in this high growth company is that sometimes like the, the high growth is like, especially on the employee side, is not that great. Uh, it, it can create a lot of kind of chaos or just messiness or, or just generally like in my past on working in companies, it's almost never... it was always easier to work with a smaller team of very high qua- quality people than with a very large team of like more average people. It's like almost like it's always faster and better output when you have like more, much more like smaller team. So that was kind of like the thing with Linear too, is like we, we just believe that you can actually build better with less people than you can with more people. So that's like just a basic belief we have. So then when it comes to hiring, we, we've been like taking very like kind of like slow steps on it that like in, in the almost like the first year we didn't hire anyone. Then like the second year we hired like a couple people and then the second year we hired more, few more. We never dou- more than doubled in a year and that's kind of like been our like guideline that like we shouldn't more than double. Uh, and, and this might be something we change in the future that we actually might do less than that. But like when we look into hiring, it's, it's, it's like a couple things. Like, one is also the w- wait, it obviously depends on the role, but basically I would say like every, with every role we often talk about like the, there needs to be some taste or some like this kind of understanding of the, like how things are done or how, how... what's the, like people have more like a broader perspective than like whatever their role is. So when we talk about the engineering before that like they, they do need to do some of this BM type of stuff and, and so what we look for in them like is that like they have some of this like skill set or product thinking or they can articulate why some, some choices are better than some others. Or like in their past, like did they disagree with some of the company's choices or the team's choices or like, so we want to have this like, uh, obviously they need to be good developers, but also like do they have this like a product sensibility or, or can... do they have like a judgment around that? And this goes similar to like, like for example like a marketing hire is like we, we think about like yeah, we do need the marketing skill sets, but then we also want to see that this person also like, like maybe is a good storyteller or like they have like this like kind of appreciation for, for, uh, writing or stories or like they have a taste of what's, what's like interesting and what's not. So I think like with... or like when we hire like operations person, we also like to see that they, they maybe like have understanding on HR and maybe th- it's not their role, but they, they understand it. And what happens is like when you have these people that are little bit more than their title, it's like the company is I think much more easier to manage because it's like people can like pick up things more easily or they can like work together more easily because everyone has more like a share... like, uh, more like a shared areas or, or it's not like, it's not... you rarely get to the point like people say, "It's not my job." It's, it's more like people understand, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm kind of in operations, but today I kind of need to help on this HR thing, so... which is okay. Um, and so that's kind of like what we look for people is like they, they are more than their, um... they can take more scope than their skill set would assume or like wha- what normally is expected from them.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:00:45

       So essentially you're looking for kind of these Venn diagram overlappings across different functions and teammates.

    4. KSKarri Saarinen1:00:50

       Yeah. And then I- I think it's... The other thing is, like I said before, is like we wanna build much... I think like a company that has less employees, which means that it's, it's like, like I said before, we don't want that many like specialized roles or like two specific areas of ownership or something. We just think that, um, we could build this... Like, we could have less people and those people can take on more scope and they can own more scope. I think like traditionally I feel like in companies like how do you get more scope is that you advance in the levels of the company because there's like a lot of different teams and different levels and then to get any kind of scope you need to like rise in- into these like higher levels. And what we try to do is like you don't actually... You don't have to have that many levels, but like people can just like already when they... When they start, they can start like owning more areas and I think that can be like much more like... Also like interesting, not to everyone, but like I think interesting to many people. And it's kind of like how I also like always felt about... As being a designer is like I don't... I didn't feel like my job is purely like just looking at the designs. I also felt like I- I actually need to be helping this business or helping this other area as well. So I think it's just kind of like... Also like natural to me.

22. 1:02:10 – 1:04:31

    Paid work trials

    1. KSKarri Saarinen1:02:10

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:02:10

       Awesome. Uh, so one thing you did mention is you have a really unique way of interviewing, which is a paid work trial. Can you just talk about what that is and also just while you're in that area, you talked about testing for product sensibility, so whatever you can share how you actually do that would be awesome.

    3. KSKarri Saarinen1:02:27

       Yeah. So we- we do with all of the employees, we've done like a paid work trial and depends on the role what it looks like, how long it is, and depends on... Also sometimes on the person, but basically like we do fairly like standard like interview loops where, where we test like... We have some li- hiring manager interviews and then like skill interviews and/or tests and then, and then the last step of the process is the work trial. And basically, yeah, we, we... They basically come as like a mini contractor to the company and we give them a very like... Usually fairly (laughs) vague problem statements. Like if your engineer is like, "Hey, there's this feature that needs to be built, like, how would you build it?" Then like go build it. Um, and so basically they need to first like understand the problem then they need to, to scope it down to something that they can do in the timeframe that they have and then they actually like go, they get the access to the code base, they can actually go and... Go and like build a version of it. And then like at the end they can present the work they did. And y- why we do this is that like we... Just seeing that like it's a very good way to see like... For both of us, like both for the company and the candidates to see like how we work together and like for... I think for the candidate what they can see is that, like, what kind of company you're joining, like what is it like to work here and how are the... What is the mal ownership or like how do I approach this? Like, I think a lot of engineers also like that they see the code base and they're like, "Oh wow, this is like really clean and like it's not like some kind of spaghetti code type of thing, situation." So I think like it, it helps the candidates as well understand like w- what, what are they signing up for, which I think can be like very risky sometimes with... Especially with startups, like it's- it's really hard to tell like how the startup is operating just from the interviews. And in a large companies, I think things are more standardized so it's- it's like... I think they are more similar and it's easier to make that choice but with startups it can be like very like different how companies operate.

23. 1:04:31 – 1:08:21

    How to determine a candidate’s “product sense”

    1. KSKarri Saarinen1:04:31

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:32

       Yeah, that is so unique and I've- I rarely hear of a company being able to hire that way. I imagine one of the reasons you can get away with that, where people are like, "Don't have a full time job for a while, we're all doing a paid trial," is 'cause Linear's such a, uh, enticing place to work. I imagine for a lot of companies they can't really do that but I guess any thoughts on just maybe more companies can actually pull this off?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen1:04:51

       Yeah, I mean, I- I think it's always like if- if you don't ask like you don't know. I- I- I think like in our case we... That's just been the standard and we- we try to work with the candidate like let's figure out maybe we do it on the weekend or maybe-

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:03

       Mm-hmm.

    5. KSKarri Saarinen1:05:03

       ... we do it some other... Like a vacation holiday or something. So there can be ways we can like schedule it so that it's- it causes as little kind of problems to the, uh, to candidate as possible. And I think we only have like... Only a few people who probably have ever declined it. Like it's- it's not like... I think everyone else has been... At least after the fact, they've been happy that they did it because they- they felt like they had a much better sense of the company they're joining. And then also like during that workshop they can actually join our meetings, they- they get access to our Slack and Notion and they also have one-on-one chats with the rest of the... Like some of the other people on the team so they already get to know people so it's- it's a good way for them to like evaluate us as well. And then for us as obviously we can see like... What is important for us to see is like how does this person operate in this kind of environment and like how do they approach problems, like how do they think and like are they able to make progress in a very short timeframe, which I always think is like very important for startups. Like, in a large companies you have maybe all the time in the world to- to do stuff but I think like in any kind of startup even- even with us when we like take our time doing things sometimes is still important like we can do things quickly if we- if we have to.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:06:21

       Super cool. Just to close the thread on product sensibilities, anything you could share of just how you actually help understand someone's strengths and- and ability there?

    7. KSKarri Saarinen1:06:30

       Yeah, I would say like we- we have like some kind of very scientific course and some like special way figured out for this so I think it's... A lot of it's like a- it's like a discussion of- of... And I often think like ask, um, people that... Like- like I asked about their projects and I try to go deeper as like wha-... why was this decision made? And like, why do you think the decision was made? And, like, um, I might ask, like, "Do you think it was the right decision?" And like, or, "Do you, did you agree on it?" Or, um, ask them like, "What, what do you think you would have done, done differently?" Or something. So I think it's more like I'm trying to see if they do, do they have thoughts in this area and like what their answers is. And people's answers can be very, like, different levels. Like some people might be, "Yeah, just like, I didn't like it." Which I don't, like yeah, it's an opinion but it's not based on anything. It's just like you didn't like it. You should be able to expand on it saying like, "Well, I didn't like it because it, in, in this case, like, it would not work well for these kind of users or in this kind of context or for these kind of purposes." So they, they have like more of this like reasoning or some kind of rational why, why they think this way and they can articulate that. So I think that's like kind of like what I'm really often like testing for is, is like can they, can they do this and how well they can do it. And it's, it can be like very, yeah, there can be like very wide ranges of how people do it and when, when you see someone who really thinks about this stuff, it's very clear to see that they, they can just like talk about it forever and they can go deeper and deeper. And then some people that maybe don't, haven't had the experience or don't think this way, they're like, "Yeah, I don't, I don't really know. Like I just, I just build it and then it seemed fine."

24. 1:08:21 – 1:14:18

    Linear’s growth journey and milestones

    1. KSKarri Saarinen1:08:21

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:21

       Let's transition to the third area I wanted to spend some time on, which is growth. And basically I'd love to just understand how Linear grows and what you figured out around growth, especially in B2B SaaS. So our first question here is just how long did it take from starting to work on Linear to launching, say, V1, something that a number of people can use?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen1:08:41

       So we started, like, officially in 2019. Some, I think, months before that, we were already exploring and prototyping the product. So it wasn't... So I think we, we prototyped different kinds of designs a little bit and, and then we also, um, one of the things we really wanted to solve is, like, we wanted to make the application really fast. And the way we figured out we'd do that is, like, we have more of this, like, local based data structure where all the data lives in the client and, and then it gets synced on the, on the back ends, like with these Delta packets. And, and back then, we were just exploring, like, different off the shelf solutions and, and systems but there was nothing really there, so we ended up, like, building our own. And so we, we spent some time, like, prototyping that. And then once we, we officially I think started working on the company in April 2019 and then we announced the company, like, roughly mid-April and we had this, like, little website up with, with the wait list. And, and then I think by May, we could use it ourselves and then, um, we, we already had, we started inviting some friends to, like, try it out. But then I think in, in June, I think we started more, like, inviting people from the wait list and, and around June, July, I think we had about, I don't know, 100, 200 users on it and, and maybe, like, about 10 companies or something. And, and then we were in this private beta stage for almost a year and the way we did it was just, like, we had this wait list of people on the wait list. There was, like, a few survey questions, like what kind of tools you use today and, and then, like, why do you want to use Linear? And then we just... And what's the company size? And we invited people based on, like, we invited more, like, smaller companies using the tools we, we currently supported and then also, like, I was trying to see, like, who is more, like, interested versus just like an, "Oh, I just want to try it out," type of people. And then a year later in June, we, we launched it publicly and back, back then maybe we already had, like, I don't know, several hundred of companies using it, um, and, and then we also launched the pricing in, I think, like, almost all of them, maybe one company didn't subscribe but everyone else subscribed to that paid plan.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:03

       Okay. There's a number of really interesting things here. So one is you were in private beta for a year, and then a year later you launched. How long was that period between starting to, like, incubate and starting to build to that private beta milestone?

    5. KSKarri Saarinen1:11:19

       Yeah. I think it's just, like, few, few months. Like I think we-

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:21

       Just a few months of building the V1?

    7. KSKarri Saarinen1:11:24

       Yeah. Yeah.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:25

       Wow. Okay. I thought it would, it was a lot longer. That is so interesting. Okay. What a team you've got over there. Okay. And then this survey piece is really interesting. I've heard a little bit about this story. So essentially, you launched it on Twitter. You had kind of a following, your founders had a bit of a following, so I think that helped build up the initial wait list. But what you did there wasn't just like, "Hey, go sign up for a wait list," and you just add email addresses. It's a survey asking them what tools they use, like whether it's GitHub or something else and then also the size of the company and their interest, and that helped you basically prioritize who to go after and who to onboard. Is that right?

    9. KSKarri Saarinen1:11:59

       Yeah. Um, and the, the reason we did it because we, we know that, like, we didn't support everything and, like what I said before, and the focus is like we want to, like, also, like, be focused on, on, like, let's just like build a version that can work for some people or some companies. We don't have to, like, try to address everyone in the world in the, in the first months of the, of the business and even before or after that. So it was very, like, selective process and I think we, yeah, we were fortunate that, like, we were able to get people signed up on a wait list and I think after, after a month, uh, or so, we had like maybe 4,000 people on the wait list. And then we had this, like, internal I think initially it was just like a very manual process but eventually we built this in- like invite tool that we could just, uh, send invites. But in the beginning, I would go read the actual surveys-... like in a spreadsheet. Then I copy the email and then I emailed them the invite link, uh, from my personal email. And then, like, I would just, like, email them, like, after, like, a few days or a week and was like, "Hey, what do you think?" And the reason we... and so we, we would invite only like... in the beginning we maybe invited, like, 10 people a week. And like, e- eventually we increased those amounts. But the reason we did it that way was that we thought that, like, if you just invite everyone at once or a lot of people at once, the... all of those people are gonna probably hit the same problems in this kind of software that is very early stage. So like, I don't know, they, they hit the same bug or the same problem in the software. So then they will all send us feedback like, "Hey, there's this problem." And then we felt like it was kind of like a waste of effort. So we would just do these cohorts like, "Let's invite these people." Then they say like, like, "Hey, this is a problem. Like I don't... this doesn't work," or, or something. Then we go fix that. Then after we fix that, we invite the next cohort of people. Then they say like, "Well, there's this thing that n- is needed." Or, "This doesn't work." And then we fix that. So for that year, we did this cohorts and then always get the feedback from the cohort saying like, "This is, like, wrong." Or, "This doesn't work." And then we would fix that. So, so eventually I think it, it was much more like a... I think like a effective way of doing the initial development than, um, just like inviting or letting everyone to use the product right, right at the beginning.

Episode duration: 1:39:49