How To Design Products That Truly Stand Out

Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the issue tracking tool used by thousands of high-growth companies. Before Linear, he was the first designer at Coinbase and later a lead designer at Airbnb. On Design Review with YC's Aaron Epstein, Karri shares how his design background shaped Linear’s product philosophy, why quality and craft matter from day one, what founders should look for when hiring, and how AI is changing the way teams build. It’s a deep dive into building products that truly stand out. Chapters: 00:00 – Why design makes or breaks products 02:00 – Lessons learned from YC, Coinbase, and Airbnb 06:00 – Building trust through brand and design 08:24 – Linear’s brand: craft, quality, and authenticity 10:40 – Why sales is part of the brand experience 13:10 – Shipping fast without losing quality 17:18 – Hiring for product taste and judgment 19:28 – Superpowers of designers as founders 21:12 – Advice for designers considering founding a startup 23:26 – Why founders should care about design from day one 25:24 – Tips for creating products that stand out 28:24 – Balancing creative freedom with shipping timelines 28:56 – How AI is changing design and product work 30:44 – Why AI won’t replace designers (and what shifts to expect) 32:44 – The future of product and design teams with AI

Aaron EpsteinhostKarri Saarinenguest

Oct 12, 202535mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Design, brand, and hiring choices that make products stand out

Design is a compounding advantage because it builds trust, improves daily usability, and shapes emotional perception of a product and company.
Linear differentiates less through features and more through an authentic brand centered on craft, quality, and a consistently “good” end-to-end experience.
Small, empowered teams (engineer(s)+designer) plus feature flags and betas enable fast iteration internally while preserving a high-quality bar at general availability.
Hiring for taste, judgment, and ownership matters more than heavy process; Saarinen probes candidates’ decision-making depth by repeatedly asking “why” about past work.
AI will lower the floor for acceptable design and execution, but winning products will still require human narrative, judgment, and problem selection, with teams increasingly “managing” AI output via targeted workflows and agents.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Design’s job is to create trust, not just aesthetics.

At Coinbase, Saarinen focused on making a new, low-trust category feel stable and professional (e.g., visuals, logo stability, reducing “hack project” signals), showing how design can directly reduce user anxiety.

Brand is the sum of experiences—internal values made externally visible.

Airbnb demonstrated that brand is a coherent story and predictable set of actions over time, not just a logo; customers trust companies whose behavior matches stated values.

Differentiate by being unmistakably best at one chosen dimension.

Breakout products require a clear “we’re known for this” advantage; if you pick what everyone else picks, you’re invisible even if you’re competent.

Quality is a direction and culture, not endless polishing.

Linear iterates rough versions behind feature flags and with selective betas, then applies a final “craft check” (details, animations, missing edges) before general availability.

Small teams outperform committees for coherent product quality.

More people often increases bikeshedding and dilutes the “thread” of a feature; Linear keeps teams tiny and lets builders (engineers/designers) drive scope and execution.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Brand is really, like, the story you tell. Like, what is this company about? Like, what do we care about, both internally and externally?

— Karri Saarinen

What I say, like, the brand is often, like, what does the person feel the experience is?

— Karri Saarinen

One of the lessons I learned in some of these other companies was that, like, having more people working on things doesn't necessarily make it better.

— Karri Saarinen

It's hard to spec quality or the right solution. Like, you can maybe spec the solution to some degree, but you can't really spec the quality execution of it.

— Karri Saarinen

I think the whole definition of being differentiated or being a outlier company or a breakout company is, like, you really need to show you're better at something, like, much more than anyone else.

— Karri Saarinen

Design as trust-building (Coinbase, crypto mainstreaming)Brand as predictable story and values (Airbnb lesson)Differentiation through being best at one thingQuality without perfection: iteration vs GA polishSales as a brand touchpointSmall teams, fewer PMs, high ownershipAI’s impact: floor rises, ceiling rises, agents in workflow

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