How To Design Products That Truly Stand Out

1. 0:00 – 2:00

   Why design makes or breaks products

   1. AEAaron Epstein0:00

      Great design can make or break your product. So to learn more about how to prioritize high-quality design in the earliest stages of your startup, we're sitting down with Karri Saarinen, the co-founder and CEO of Linear. Karri worked at Coinbase, Airbnb, and built one of the best issue tracking tools on the market in Linear. And today, he's gonna share some of his advice for how you can design a product that truly stands out. Welcome to another episode of Design Review. [upbeat music] Karri, thank you so much for joining us.

   2. KSKarri Saarinen0:36

      Well, it's awesome to be here.

   3. AEAaron Epstein0:38

      Maybe just to kind of, um, give people a sense of where Linear is at today, maybe you can just kinda give us a high level of any interesting stats or facts and maybe a quick description of what Linear is.

   4. KSKarri Saarinen0:49

      The idea with Linear is that we want to be this purpose-built platform for building products and/or planning and building products. It's not a suite of tools, but it's more like integrated workflows. It's a tool that engineers might use every day, so I think its design is especially important, and speed is very important because if, if any kind of paper cut or bad experience, it will multiply a lot of times. Where we are now, like fast-forward today, we, we have about 15,000 companies as customers, and then we have growth companies like Mercury, Ramp, Retool, um, Prax, and, and like a lot, lot of like growth companies, a- as well as like larger companies like OpenAI and, uh, Block, which is, uh, which is a financial company. We wanted to build, focus on the quality and keep the focus really tight to build the best product we can for these customers, so that's why we, we've done some, some of the things differently.

   5. AEAaron Epstein1:44

      You're also a YC founder, and I'm curious, kind of at all the stops of your career from, you know, founding your first company, going to Coinbase as the first designer there, lead designer at Airbnb, and then starting your own company again at Linear, what's one lesson

2. 2:00 – 6:00

   Lessons learned from YC, Coinbase, and Airbnb

   1. AEAaron Epstein2:00

      that you took away from each of those stops that's kind of m- made Linear what it is today?

   2. KSKarri Saarinen2:04

      I think Linear is very much built with the advice we got from YC, and just make something people want and like talk to the users, and simplifying the startup building process or clarifying it that like not a lot of these things matter that, that you see out there, and a lot of things can wait. What really matters is like you find those someone, someone you can build something for, and you can build it in a good way. So I think like YC really helped me to understand that building companies, it doesn't have to be, especially in the beginning, it has- doesn't have to be that complicated. You almost just need the singular focus of making progress, building something for the customers, and then all the other stuff can kind of come automatically or later or, or something-

   3. AEAaron Epstein2:50

      Mm-hmm

   4. KSKarri Saarinen2:50

      ... or it can wait. I think Y- YC also helped me with the, with the ambition that you could see like, hey, you can make a lot of progress in a very fast time, and, and also, like eventually, that progress will lead to like massive companies or massive growth. So I think it was really important for me. Coinbase was actually in the same batch that I was in, which was, um, 2012 summer. Maybe what I learned there was that you, you kinda have to really clarify with the company, but also like, uh, especially I think as a designer, what is the one or couple problems we are truly trying to solve with the design or with the company itself? And for me that, at Coinbase, thinking about back, crypto back in 2014, it was a very different time, like there's a very lo- little trust in the market. And also just because it's a new thing, you don't have that trust built in.

   5. AEAaron Epstein3:40

      Yeah.

   6. KSKarri Saarinen3:40

      So like what I saw that my job as a designer is like I have to change this company to look like more trustworthy and more professional because they wanna go mainstream, but we also need to simplify this. We not, we have to make the design really simple so, and explain it in a simple way, so we can break out of this like crypto niche group.

   7. AEAaron Epstein4:03

      Mm.

   8. KSKarri Saarinen4:03

      I kinda looked around the website, the product, the brand, and I basically just made a list of like these things needs to be fixed. So it's like the logo was this stack of coins, like a little bit like k- k- kinda like, um, you know, like Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge kind of like.

   9. AEAaron Epstein4:19

      [laughs] Scrooge McDuck, yeah.

   10. KSKarri Saarinen4:19

       Yeah, it's like it, the coins on the table. One of them is like tipping over.

   11. AEAaron Epstein4:22

       Yeah.

   12. KSKarri Saarinen4:22

       It's like why is it tipping over? It's like that's not, that doesn't feel good. It's g- it, it should feel like stable or something.

   13. AEAaron Epstein4:28

       Yeah.

   14. KSKarri Saarinen4:29

       I did have, uh, some trouble convincing them to like pick up a new logo mark, and, and eventually, yeah, we didn't do it until the IPO day. Finally picked one, which is like a, kinda like a circle that looks like a C. There's like a thing going into it-

   15. AEAaron Epstein4:43

       Mm-hmm

   16. KSKarri Saarinen4:43

       ... so it looks like a C. And then I, on the website, like what it looked like was, um... So Brian and the team had, had basically built it over the past years. I think they had like quite a lot of users already. They had a lot of money in the background, like in the, in the platform, but everything was built with Twitter bootstrap.

   17. AEAaron Epstein5:00

       Mm-hmm.

   18. KSKarri Saarinen5:01

       I think that the product itself worked quite nicely. It was quite simple. The problem was that the, the, the visuals, using this kind of standard library made it look like a hack project.

   19. AEAaron Epstein5:13

       Mm.

   20. KSKarri Saarinen5:14

       So like someone coming to a website thinking, "Oh, should I buy some Bitcoin, and like should I store my money in this Bitcoin bank?" It's kinda like makes you a little bit uneasy. It's like, "Can I trust these people? Like is this a real company? Is this some like side project? Is this a hack project?"

   21. AEAaron Epstein5:30

       Mm.

   22. KSKarri Saarinen5:30

       So the second thing is like, well, we need to fix the website, like we need to make some kind of visuals to it. And then the third thing is that the, the product itself, that it also looked like that. It's used a bit Twitter bootstrap. Like I didn't change the layer, or the, the kinda structure of the product, but I just changed the visuals, and then that way, like fairly quickly we could get, got to a state that it like from the outside this company looks more trustworthy and more real-

   23. AEAaron Epstein5:58

       Mm-hmm

   24. KSKarri Saarinen5:58

       ... or like more like a real company.

3. 6:00 – 8:24

   Building trust through brand and design

   1. KSKarri Saarinen6:00

      And then the third thing, like later on the brand, I was using a lot of photos because I think that, uh, photos of people, photos of-The Earth, like mountains, forest, something. I found out that the crypto and the space is so abstract and ambiguous that, like, it doesn't feel like grounding. You're like, "What is this?" Like, there's this magic internet money. It doesn't exist, you know. Like, kinda like it's weird. So I think like so- some- those kinda things, like, those kinda touches. I don't know how much it actually impacted anyone. [laughs] Like, I don't know if anyone, like, clicked on it.

   2. AEAaron Epstein6:34

      Yeah.

   3. KSKarri Saarinen6:34

      But that was the thinking in the back end. Like... And then lastly, I think with Airbnb, uh, I joined there, like, much later. They were, like, already a huge company. Uh, they weren't public yet, but they were sev- couple thousand people at least. What I learned from Brian Chesky there was that the brand, and I think Silicon Valley is still a little startup. Startups don't quite understand brand or design.

   4. AEAaron Epstein6:57

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen6:57

      There's, I think, they logically try to understand it, that, yeah, okay, well design is important. We see that. It makes sense. And brand is important, it makes sense. But what i- what is it? Like, they don't have a, maybe the language or the experience to, to think about it, or maybe they just don't wanna think about it. It was interesting to see with Airbnb is, like, how much the CEO was actually focused on the brand.

   6. AEAaron Epstein7:21

      Mm.

   7. KSKarri Saarinen7:22

      And seeing that certain kind of advantage, which turns out it is an advantage. Brand is really, like, the story you tell. Like, what is this company about? Like, what do we care about, both internally and externally? And then you try to follow those values or those action, like those, that thinking as much as you can, and not, not kinda like sacrifice on it so that from the external I could see, like, Airbnb is foc- like, this is the Airbnb, like brand, and their, their actions are following that. And then over time, I can s- trust them that they're, like, predictable. They're not one day it's like, Airbnb is great and they're doing everything right, the next year everything's bad and, like, I, I, I don't trust that kind of... There's too much volatility in it.

   8. AEAaron Epstein8:04

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KSKarri Saarinen8:05

      So I think that that was interesting to see, like, how much he, he care about it.

   10. AEAaron Epstein8:08

       Yeah, that's really interesting. So it sounds like at those stops, Coinbase and Airbnb, I think a brand is always helpful for building trust, but it seems like the design and the brand, especially for those two businesses, whereas, you know, somebody's gonna come stay in your home or you're gonna stay in somebody else's home.

   11. KSKarri Saarinen8:22

       Yeah.

   12. AEAaron Epstein8:22

       It seems like that was incredibly important,

4. 8:24 – 10:40

   Linear’s brand: craft, quality, and authenticity

   1. AEAaron Epstein8:24

      and now at Linear it seems like your brand, um, at least as an outsider, it seems a lot is about craft and quality and just, like, a high-quality professional product. And I'm curious, what are the things that you do on a daily basis to try to create that brand, and how intentional is it for you?

   2. KSKarri Saarinen8:43

      It was something that we worked in these companies and we worked in this industry a while, so sometimes you, you kind of get tired of the things that exist and you kind of try think like, would, would there be some other way of doing this thing or other way of thinking about it? And that's, like, a good starting point. Like, you start thinking like, what do you personally really care about as a founder?

   3. AEAaron Epstein9:01

      Mm-hmm.

   4. KSKarri Saarinen9:02

      And then you start going into that, like, well, what should the company then care about? Those things should be aligned, like, otherwise, like why you work, why you found this company.

   5. AEAaron Epstein9:10

      Yeah.

   6. KSKarri Saarinen9:10

      From there we saw that there's a lot of competition. Um, it's, it's not super easy to differentiate with the features, I think, because I think, like, people just look at, oh, it's, that's product, project management, whatever, like these other tools do it too. But what, what we see that, that none of these companies in this market actually had any kind of brand. You couldn't really say what they're about. Like-

   7. AEAaron Epstein9:32

      Yeah

   8. KSKarri Saarinen9:32

      ... you could know that they exist, but you don't, can't really tell what they're about. So for us it was really that, can we be really authentic and kind of direct or honest and also, like, show that we have this, like, care or values for certain things, and quality being one of them. Like, we, we are helping companies to build software, and for us personally, we find it annoying when things don't work that well, and we don't want that f- to have, like, our customers to have that feeling. So we try to, like, tell everyone internally and, and, and when we do this work that, like, we need to strive for the quality. Quality doesn't mean perfection, that you can't have anything rough or anything, um, you need to polish everything to, like, for years. It's, it just mean that, like, you have this direction or idea in your mind that we are about quality. We want the user to, like, the customers to have a great experience, and that's, like, the most important thing. And yeah, sometimes you, you might have to launch something to get feedback, and that's okay, but, like, you should then, like, remember to come back and say, like, find, like, ways to, like, improve it or fix it if it's rough in some ways.

5. 10:40 – 13:10

   Why sales is part of the brand experience

   1. KSKarri Saarinen10:40

      You are building this culture around something internally, so that's part of my job, that sales is part of the experience of Linear. I want it to be a quality experience. What we really wanna, like, find people that can do, like, a quality experience and, like, what I think in this kind of s- market it is that these buyers are quite sophisticated and they, they already have maybe a product they use. So they do wanna understand, like, how can they, how can Linear do it better or differently. And so those people have, like, the salespeople we hire, they have to be... They don't have to be engineers or, like, super technical people, but they have to have at least the capacity or curiosity to understand the, the product really well and the, the, the customers well. And I think it's, it's been working and we've been able to hire, hire people, but I think founders of startups, they just decide, well, we hire a sales team, and then... Or someone, like, the investor says, like, "You need to hire sales."

   2. AEAaron Epstein11:34

      Yeah.

   3. KSKarri Saarinen11:34

      They're like, "Okay, well, we'll go hire sales." But they don't ask q- questions like what kind of sales.

   4. AEAaron Epstein11:39

      Yeah.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen11:39

      Like, what kind-

   6. AEAaron Epstein11:39

      It feels interchangeable, right?

   7. KSKarri Saarinen11:41

      Yeah.

   8. AEAaron Epstein11:41

      All sales parts are s- you swap them in and out.

   9. KSKarri Saarinen11:44

      But the companies are very different, so yeah, you might be a enterprise company. You need someone who can do that, like navigate that market really, like, kind of... It, it's a complicated process, so you need someone to navigate that or, or something. Like, maybe if you're, like, a medical product, maybe you need to have someone who has worked in the medical field. So, so there's, like, like attributes that you, you can think, like, how in even in sales that could be-How could you, like, really signal your, what your company is about? Like, what you do well

   10. AEAaron Epstein12:14

       It, it's interesting to me. I think a lot of times founders think about, um, brand as, like, the logo, the colors I put on the website, you know, like those types of things. But it sounds like the argument you're trying to make is that actually the brand is, like, every touchpoint, and it's interesting that you're, like, down to the salespeople. Like, they're the first contact with a lot of your potential customers, and making sure that that is the brand experience that you want them to have with your company is incredibly important and would often be overlooked by a lot of people-

   11. KSKarri Saarinen12:45

       Mm

   12. AEAaron Epstein12:45

       ... I think.

   13. KSKarri Saarinen12:45

       Yeah, no, I think, like, I like to think it's all kind of follows from the same tree, that you have this, some kind of brand thinking or it's more like the company values. Like, what are we about? And then you try to re- visualize that or make it happen in different aspects. So visualizing means that you make a, make your logo and you make the website and you are signaling, like, we are very, like, professional or we are trustworthy or something with that design.

6. 13:10 – 17:18

   Shipping fast without losing quality

   1. KSKarri Saarinen13:10

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

   2. AEAaron Epstein13:14

      I think a lot of times people think about, you know, craft and high quality and the things that you talk about, and like you said, they think of perfection and waiting a really long time to ship something. Um, but talk about how you operate to achieve that high level of quality while still, you know, shipping very frequently and, and getting things in the hands of real users before they're, like, fully baked in your own head.

   3. KSKarri Saarinen13:36

      Yeah. 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.

   4. AEAaron Epstein13:44

      [laughs]

   5. KSKarri Saarinen13:44

      It often can make it worse. You start to lose the thread of, like, what is this feature even about? Because everyone has a little bit different opinions, and you start into this bikeshedding or, like, a design by committee that we try to, like, kind of get everything in there, but then it's now the feature is not really for anything because it's too broad or-

   6. AEAaron Epstein14:05

      Mm-hmm

   7. KSKarri Saarinen14:05

      ... it's like it doesn't really quite work for anything. From the beginning, we wanted the, the people work in small teams, and, like, these are often, like, two, three people. Uh, it's like engineer, maybe a couple engineers, one designer. And we, for a long time we didn't have any product managers, and today we have about two, and they are more like the product manager job in, in Linear is more that, like, they're looking across things, not, like, necessarily a specific product, project all the time-

   8. AEAaron Epstein14:34

      Mm-hmm

   9. KSKarri Saarinen14:34

      ... or a specific feature all the time. And they're kinda like trying to keep the overall thread going. Like, well, what is happening, and like, who is saying what, and like, where are we at things? And then, then, like, the, we want the engineers and the designers to actually run the project. 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, and I think that's where I think if someone is driving the project and building it, they have a lot of opportunities to, like, tweak it to make it better. Like, what I think I, what I saw sometimes happen in other companies is that we had this, like, nice design or, or, or some, or some kind of spec, and then someone starts building it, and then they realize that, oh, this design doesn't quite work in practice. But now no one wants to go back to change it because the design was already green lighted in this meeting, like, with the CEO a long time ago, so now we have, we'd have to go all the way back and then, like, change the design and we have to, like, approve it again, which will add timeline. And then now e- no one's happy because the timeline's got out of whack. People are just not taking enough ownership and, or cannot use their own agency to, to fix things. And so with the features, we try to have, like, the engineer and designer to drive it. Like, this is, like, scoping it, trying to figure out whether the first version, talking to customers, talking to users, looking at the user research. How we manage the quality and speed is that we generally just, you can do whatever. Like, we use feature flags a lot. So you can put anything in the app in the internal use. Like, the, once you have the idea almost, like, you can put it in the app and we can try it out.

   10. AEAaron Epstein16:10

       Mm.

   11. KSKarri Saarinen16:10

       Like, doesn't have to be good, or it doesn't have to be, like, that polished or anything. So internally, we're, we're okay, like, iterating to stuff. And then we also have beta programs where we invite specific companies. Like, "Hey, do you wanna try this out? It's a little rough, but, like, you can try it out-

   12. AEAaron Epstein16:24

       Mm

   13. KSKarri Saarinen16:24

       ... and see if it's, like, useful." But then once we get to the final, like, general availability release, we try to, like, look through the executions. Like, is the ani- are the animations correct? Like, are the things, like, are the details correct? Like, does it feel good? Are we missing something? So there's, like, a last check, but we don't try to polish it all the time, but we're trying to push the team. Like, okay, make progress as fast as you can, but at the very last step, we should just make a look, check that everything is, like, kind of reasonably in a good shape. Because we want people to lead these projects, we also need to hire people who can do that. So y- we can't hire engineers that only want to code and, like, never think about anything else.

   14. AEAaron Epstein17:03

       Mm-hmm.

   15. KSKarri Saarinen17:03

       I just wanna look at the editor and, like, press the buttons or something. But i- we, we are look, always looking for people who have opinions or they have, like, some kind of product sensibilities or they have some kind of product taste or they, this is, like, explicit, some kind of curiosity. It's like, I think there's

7. 17:18 – 19:28

   Hiring for product taste and judgment

   1. KSKarri Saarinen17:18

      a good way of doing things, and there's a bad way of doing things. This feature doesn't feel good. This feature does feel good. So we're just looking for those people that are, can think and use their own judgment.

   2. AEAaron Epstein17:28

      I'm sure a lot of people are out there wondering, what should I be looking for if I'm trying to hire somebody? Like, that model sounds great. I need the right people. How do I find the right people, and what questions should I be asking to figure out if they're gonna be good at that?

   3. KSKarri Saarinen17:41

      Yeah, I think go- from the resume experience level, it, it, or, like, ex- experience, you should be looking for something, like, has this person built anything on their own?

   4. AEAaron Epstein17:49

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KSKarri Saarinen17:49

      Or like, have they built anything large? Like, like a complete product. Like, they were, like, maybe, like, a first engineer somewhere, or they, they built their own open source project or a side hobby or something. Because I think, like, that forces you to think about these things. Like, should I do it this way-

   6. AEAaron Epstein18:05

      Yeah

   7. KSKarri Saarinen18:05

      ... or that way? But I would say, like, a flag is someone who has worked at Google for 10 years.

   8. AEAaron Epstein18:09

      [laughs]

   9. KSKarri Saarinen18:09

      And I, I can, like, see, like, well, they probably-Fairly, like, boxed in, in the specific area, and they probably didn't have to, like, think about other things. And when I interview them, I, I like to ask them about the projects they're working on, like, or something, like, they're really proud of. Like, what is the project they're proud of? And then I just keep asking questions like, "Why, why, why you're proud of it? Like, why, why did you do it this way?" And sometimes they say, "Well, someone told me to do it." I was like, "Well, did you agree that way, or did you have a different opinion about it?" And like, you're just trying to see, like, did they pay attention? Like, did they feel something, like this is right or is this is wrong in their opinion? Maybe their opinion is wrong anyway, but I think what, what we're really assessing is, like, do they even want to think about this thing [laughs] or do they naturally think about these things?

   10. AEAaron Epstein18:53

       Mm-hmm.

   11. KSKarri Saarinen18:54

       I don't think there's, like, a s-super surefire way to, to evaluate that, but I think it's more... The more questions you ask about the projects they worked on, and the more specific they can be in it is usually, like, a good sign. If they just say, "Well, it's like, it's just did this, and I work on the tech," and like whatever. But if they start going like, "Yeah, like I did build this thing, but the hard part was these customers were saying this," and like whatever, so you can see that, like, they were paying attention to the business problems too, and, and the, the user problems, not just the technical problems.

   12. AEAaron Epstein19:27

       I

8. 19:28 – 21:12

   Superpowers of designers as founders

   1. AEAaron Epstein19:28

      am passionate about encouraging more designers to become founders, and I think you are just, you know, one of the top examples of somebody that was a designer and, you know, uh, I guess you were a founder and then designer and then [laughs]

   2. KSKarri Saarinen19:39

      [laughs]

   3. AEAaron Epstein19:39

      ... uh, founder again. I'm curious, like, what skills or, like, superpowers or unfair advantages do you think you have as a founder based on your design background, design thinking, maybe even the way you grew up?

   4. KSKarri Saarinen19:51

      I like to think, like, design is, is finding things that fit and kind of feel good, and I think that in a way, when you're building products or companies, that's kinda like what you're doing ideally. Like, yeah, somet- sometimes companies get built or products get built really, like, randomly, but I like to find that, like, what is the com- kind of like common ideas or threads, like what are we trying to communicate or what are we trying to solve? And I think as a designer, it's not always easy to articulate that, but I can somehow, like, sense or feel it that this is the way to do it. I can see that this will work, and with designs or, or other things, I can visualize how they will look or how they will work or, like, or maybe like even, like, how the users might react to it. And then I, I can try to think, like, what are the inputs to that output? Like, what is... what kind of people we need or what kind of... what the brand should be like or what the product should look like. So I would say, like, as a design founder, I think that the superpower could be that you are more... maybe you have like a broader view of things. I don't know exactly what, how, like, technical founders think about it, but I think they, they are really, like, tech-focused, and it's like everything is outside of that is kinda like maybe not in their focus. Whereas as a, I think, like, a designer can maybe mu- be a little bit more broader.

   5. AEAaron Epstein21:10

      What advice would you have for designers that

9. 21:12 – 23:26

   Advice for designers considering founding a startup

   1. AEAaron Epstein21:12

      are thinking about making the leap and starting a company or maybe they're nervous about it? Um, I'm curious what you would tell them.

   2. KSKarri Saarinen21:18

      You should try to, like, broaden your horizons as much as you can. So what I mean by that is often I, I've seen in companies design- like, designers working in companies, they get quite narrow focus on the design problems. Like, I was given this task or this project, so now I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna design it. I'm gonna open Figma, and then I'm gonna design it. And then we- when they go to reviews even about those features, like maybe the CEO's reviewing it, maybe someone else is reviewing, and you get this feedback and, like, people are not always happy with the results, you kind of get into this mode like, "Oh, I'm not a good designer," like, "I'm doing something wrong." But the problem is really, like, you're maybe not l- you're kind of overlooking what the other people are looking for, like what is their problems. Like, usually internally the CEO or the other people in, in the organization, they have their goals or, like, strategies or initiatives or, or some-something they want from this. When you get design feedback, it's not always about the design, it's about the, that this is actually not, like, kinda solving their problem then. It's not solving the business problem. And sometimes it's just, like, they don't even know what the pro- like, maybe people, maybe the CEO and some, like, product manager there maybe, like, even have a different problem in mind. Like, the problem isn't clear to people. It's, it's not, people are, are not aligned on it. Even if you don't become a design founder, I think it's useful to start to, like, expand your mindset. Like, your job is not to sit there and, like, put some stuff in Figma, but your job is to kinda solve the company's problems.

   3. AEAaron Epstein22:49

      Mm-hmm.

   4. KSKarri Saarinen22:49

      Often that means that you are solving them through design, but if you don't understand what the problems are, like, you're not gonna, like, be able to solve them. So the more you can, like, kind of learn from the people out, around you, so if you work in a B2B company, like, well, talk to the salespeople. [laughs] Like, they, they talk to customers all the time. They're a good resource for understanding, like, the customers and, and then as well as, like, a company leadership, try to ask them, like, what they're looking for, like try to understand their problems. And when you do that, you start learning, like, oh, this is how businesses operate or this is, this is how people think. This is what the different roles do. This is maybe the purpose of this function.

   5. AEAaron Epstein23:25

      I'm curious,

10. 23:26 – 25:24

    Why founders should care about design from day one

    1. AEAaron Epstein23:26

       like, why do you think founders should care about design, and especially from the earliest days of their company? What differences have you seen between companies that do care about it versus ones that don't?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen23:35

       So you have to think like, what is actually the, the value of the design that brings to your specific company in this specific market? And then I think that a lot of times people just don't think through that, so they either copy what other companies are doing or they're just not doing it at all.

    3. AEAaron Epstein23:53

       Mm-hmm.

    4. KSKarri Saarinen23:53

       Like, they're just like, "Well, we don't know how to do design, so we'll just not even think about it." But I do think, like, the best companies do care about design.

    5. AEAaron Epstein24:00

       Right.

    6. KSKarri Saarinen24:00

       You can grow to a big company being a d- w-without too much design. I think it's possible if you just have, like, a very good technology. But I thi- do think like it's, it can, the design can accelerate the, the company and the, the how people think about you. Like, it can even help with investors. Investors are people, too, so if they think something is... cool or there's a, there's a strong brand, they're more likely to, to pay more. Like, they, they want it more than-

    7. AEAaron Epstein24:27

       Yeah

    8. KSKarri Saarinen24:27

       ... than-

    9. AEAaron Epstein24:28

       It's emotional, right?

    10. KSKarri Saarinen24:29

        Yeah. So, so I think that that's kind of maybe the design is, is partly it's making things easier for users, but I think it's partly it's also, like, touching this, like, emotional-

    11. AEAaron Epstein24:40

        Mm

    12. KSKarri Saarinen24:40

        ... needs of people. And then I think it can amplify everything you do. So that's why I always think, like, even a very early stage companies, maybe you have, like, five people or something, or three people, maybe you should hire a designer even if it's not that needed right now. But I think they can have, at that point they can have, like, very big leverage because the, the work if everything's a little bit nicer, everything's a little bit better, it will compound over time, and, like, the users will see it. And, and you don't have to do this big redesign, like, years down the line because you kind of ended up in this, like, horrible place and now you have to, like, hire more people and, like, fix everything, and then the customers are complaining because things are changing. So-

    13. AEAaron Epstein25:23

        Yeah

    14. KSKarri Saarinen25:23

        ... I think it's just,

11. 25:24 – 28:24

    Tips for creating products that stand out

    1. KSKarri Saarinen25:24

       like, a smart thing to do.

    2. AEAaron Epstein25:25

       You wrote, um, a, a really, uh, incredible, uh, post around 10 tips for creating products that stand out. I'm curious, like, what are the two or three that you think are most important that, you know, you think all founders should be aware of or think about or consider as they're building their products?

    3. KSKarri Saarinen25:42

       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.

    4. AEAaron Epstein25:53

       Mm-hmm.

    5. KSKarri Saarinen25:53

       Like, you have to be known for it. So then I think that that's starts with that. Like, you have to decide that maybe the one thing you wanna be really known of or the best. And, like, it, it can't be the same thing everyone else is doing-

    6. AEAaron Epstein26:07

       Mm-hmm

    7. KSKarri Saarinen26:07

       ... because then, like, you're, you're not differentiated. So I would start with that, like, figuring out that, like, differentiator or, like, what you really wanna be known of. I think my second thing is, like, it's, it's maybe weird, but I would say, like, the people you hire is probably, like, especially in the product organization if you're try- trying to build a really good product, the people you hire has the most impact on the product. I feel like we operate quite casually. We don't have a lot of processes. We have, yeah, we have this feature flags and some kind of testing, but, but it- we don't have, like, a lot of rules or processes-

    8. AEAaron Epstein26:39

       Mm-hmm

    9. KSKarri Saarinen26:40

       ... because we want to hire people we can trust their judgment and, and taste. Early on, I think we, with the founders we kind of played this mind game of, like, well, if we just disappear, would, would this people know what to do, kind of?

    10. AEAaron Epstein26:53

        [laughs]

    11. KSKarri Saarinen26:54

        Like, I, I think, like, if we've done our job well and hired the right people, if we think, like, well, they, they would survive and they would, like, actually make progress. The second thing is, like, I think you need to give them some space to do it. Like, if you're, like, constantly hounding them as like, "Where is it?" Like, "Do it now"-

    12. AEAaron Epstein27:08

        Mm

    13. KSKarri Saarinen27:08

        ... then obviously they don't have the space to do the work well. So there's some, like, balance there. It's like that you can't be, like, constantly, like, micromanaging them or-

    14. AEAaron Epstein27:16

        Yeah

    15. KSKarri Saarinen27:16

        ... hounding them about things.

    16. AEAaron Epstein27:17

        Yeah. How do you balance that? I mean, I know it's important to you to, like, give space for people to work. In, in a perfect world I think everybody would want that, and then that's balanced with trying to ship quickly.

    17. KSKarri Saarinen27:26

        We try to set some kind of timeline pressure that we would like to see something at this time and this date, and, uh, we think that's reasonable. And then I think, like, what it, what it, what we hope the team will do is that they will think about that timeline and then they start scoping down the project.

    18. AEAaron Epstein27:42

        Mm-hmm.

    19. KSKarri Saarinen27:43

        And they start thinking, "Well, what can we actually achieve? And maybe we, we, we need to really prioritize the things we can do." Which I think in the end is even useful because then you start focusing on the right things anyway. So there's this, like, little bit of timeline pressure. Then we keep track, track of the progress. Like, if the progress is good and, like, things are moving, I'm not, like, I'm not gonna get sad if the, like, the timeline is not hit exactly. I might ask, "Well, what is the new timeline?" Or, like, what is, where do you think is now, and, like, how far is it from something. So there's a little bit of pressure. It's like where is it or, like, how far the, far along it is, but it's not, like, daily. So there's some, like, some level of pressure, but it's, it's, like, we are not, like, super timeline-

    20. AEAaron Epstein28:21

        Yeah

    21. KSKarri Saarinen28:22

        ... date driven.

    22. AEAaron Epstein28:23

        Shifting gears to AI

12. 28:24 – 28:56

    Balancing creative freedom with shipping timelines

    1. AEAaron Epstein28:24

       a little bit. It seems like now it's easier than ever to, um, get design work created by AI or to ship product that AI generates. Is that a good thing? And what are the considerations that people should be thinking about in a world where it's so easy to just generate new designs and ship new product and new features that maybe people aren't thinking about yet?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen28:46

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, I often think with technology, I don't think you should necessarily think is it a good thing or a bad thing because usually technology will happen regardless. Like, you can't,

13. 28:56 – 30:44

    How AI is changing design and product work

    1. KSKarri Saarinen28:56

       I think, like, we can't go back-

    2. AEAaron Epstein28:57

       Mm-hmm

    3. KSKarri Saarinen28:58

       ... not having AI anymore. It's, it's not gonna disappear from the world. So now the next question is, well, what, what should I think about it, or, like, how should I use it, or how should people use it? And I think it will lower the, the, the, the floor on things like design-

    4. AEAaron Epstein29:12

       Mm

    5. KSKarri Saarinen29:12

       ... for example. So companies that maybe before couldn't hire designers or they didn't have time for it or something, I think the AI can kinda, like, help prop them a little bit that they can now do, like, decently good design. Designers themselves, like, if they might always not have skills for everything and sometimes they run out of ideas, I think AI can help, help with that too. I do think that the, the top, the, the ceiling, it will just keep getting higher. And so, like, if you really wanna be the best design company or the best company, you have to still keep pushing the boundaries, and you can't just expect that the AI will solve it for you. Like, basically AI, you can get to the average level maybe, but, like, going beyond that, you still need all the work you've done in the past. You should understand the danger is that when something is easy to do, you stop paying attention to it. So if it's easy to ch- generate designs and ship them, you maybe didn't think about it, this feature at all. Like, I think some- sometimes when something is really hard, you're constantly thinking about it, like, "Is this worth it? Do I still wanna do this? Like, should we just stop doing this? Like, I don't... This is so hard." Um, so I think that the, the, the kinda like the suffering helps to maybe clarify the design. Maybe sometimes it tells you that-It's not the right thing. Maybe it shouldn't be that hard. Maybe you're d- approaching it wrong. So I think that you should just understand that the danger is that when you outsource the, the output too much, you might stop losing control or even, like, understanding of the, your company or what the product does.

14. 30:44 – 32:44

    Why AI won’t replace designers (and what shifts to expect)

    1. AEAaron Epstein30:44

       Are you worried that AI's gonna make designers obsolete?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen30:46

       I don't think so. I, I... Similar with engineers or, or designers, I think there can be some shifts happening. Like, uh, even today, like, I think it's easy to generate websites, so maybe the market for website designers will go down.

    3. AEAaron Epstein31:00

       Mm-hmm.

    4. KSKarri Saarinen31:00

       Like, I do think people will still have some designers working on websites, and I, I think, like, in my mind, like, the real problem [chuckles] with websites is not the design. It's, like, the actual, the narrative or the storytelling-

    5. AEAaron Epstein31:11

       Mm-hmm

    6. KSKarri Saarinen31:12

       ... or the, the, the explanation of things.

    7. AEAaron Epstein31:15

       Yeah.

    8. KSKarri Saarinen31:15

       And I don't think the AI can, like, really solve [chuckles] that for you. Like, you really have to understand the... I mean, the AI can, uh, again, help with that, too, but I think you still really have to understand the what do you, what is this website for? Like, who is it for? They can have maybe the AI agents or something can kinda do work for them, um, on the, kind of in the background, and you, your role might be shifts more, like, towards, like, being a more like an IC lead or, like, a manager a little bit.

    9. AEAaron Epstein31:43

       Mm-hmm.

    10. KSKarri Saarinen31:43

        That you are not only doing your own output, like, an, as a i- individual contributor, but you're also responsible for some kinda AI's output. And I think, like, your job should be still, like, is this good? Is this fitting? Is, does this work? And that kind of things. We don't know what's gonna happen, but my feeling is also that if, if AI makes, like, for example, like, building software really easy and, and cheap, I think we will just build more software. I think the industry will grow, and you will need more designers. Like, uh, you can't just have AI. At, at this point, we don't have, uh, companies that are purely run by AI.

    11. AEAaron Epstein32:17

        Yeah. [laughs]

    12. KSKarri Saarinen32:18

        And so, yeah. So, so I think until that happens, I think we'll still live in a world where you might have a quite a lot of people in a company, humans doing things, and then you have AI also doing things. And I think, like, because the AI can make things more cost-effective, I think you, the companies will just decide to do more. That's my, I think, at least optimistic take that what will happen with the, with the AI.

    13. AEAaron Epstein32:41

        And then you kinda have a front row seat to this with

15. 32:44 – 35:47

    The future of product and design teams with AI

    1. AEAaron Epstein32:44

       a lot of the best product teams using Linear. Where do you think things are going in terms of how product and design teams will operate in the future?

    2. KSKarri Saarinen32:52

       Yeah, so, like, with, with Linear, it's, it's very focused on the execution or, or tracking work or to build, like, solving problems. And what we're, we have, for example, been working on now is, like, building this agents platform that you could bring agents into Linear, and they could work for you. You could delegate work for them.

    3. AEAaron Epstein33:10

       Mm-hmm.

    4. KSKarri Saarinen33:11

       So there's a bug report comes in into the triage. The agent can, like, take a look at it and say, "Hey, I'm pr- pretty sure I can, like, solve this for you." And then you guys are like, "Okay," and then it goes to work, and then you review the code. So I think there's a lot of things I think we can able to streamline. And what are we seeing from the, from the customers and market, there's a lot of interest for this, and all the, all the CTOs basically are saying that AI's their m- kinda, like, number one priority. I... And the CEOs are writing these memos about AI, and I think, like, it's clear that on the leadership level they understand that AI is, is useful. I find that the whole industry, so there's these big launches of very broad AI tools. Like, there's the, the AI, every company, very big company, they have the chatbot, and they have all the, all the different, like, tool AI kinda set of tools that can do anything for anyone. But I think, like, what is missing there is, like, the people who are building it from, like, more like a grounds up. Like, well, what is a problem someone has today? Like-

    5. AEAaron Epstein34:14

       Mm-hmm

    6. KSKarri Saarinen34:14

       ... for example, like triaging issues. Like, a company, they don't always know where the issue should go. Where should this bug go? So you could have, like, a manual process, someone looking at it. You could have some kind of automation, or you could have an AI to look at it. Like, hey, like, with the AI could go look at your workspace and codebase and can understand, like, it looks like you have these kind of product areas. It looks like these kind of teams or you, like, people are working on those product areas, and it looks like generally when these kind of issues come in, that these, these go into these kind of teams or this kind of person. So, like, our approach with Linear is, like, we are now, like, thinking more as, like, what are the specific problems we could directly solve with the AI? And it, it could be, like, a better, like, more quicker value, uh, to the customer than having this, like, very broad spectrum or, like, ask anything or create anything or something, that kinda, like, approach. So that's, like, what we're excited about.

    7. AEAaron Epstein35:11

       Well, Karri, thank you so much for joining. Uh, so much great in, uh, advice and insight here for, uh, everybody who's watching at home. So really appreciate you taking the time and, and sharing all of your lessons and, uh, unique things, counterintuitive things that, that you all do at Linear, and hopefully a lot of those can propagate out through other startups as well. So really appreciate you joining.

    8. KSKarri Saarinen35:33

       Yeah, and thanks for having me, and, uh, great to be back at the, at the YC office.

    9. AEAaron Epstein35:36

       Awesome. That does it for this episode of Design Review, and, uh, we'll see you on the next one. [outro music]

Episode duration: 35:49