Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

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

October 8, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

Karri Saarinen, co-founder and CEO of Linear, an issue-tracking tool for software teams launched in 2019, discusses building a profitable company with net negative lifetime burn. Now at around 50 people and used by firms like Vercel and Ramp, Linear emphasizes craft, opinionated design, and selective growth over metrics or A/B tests.

Prioritizing craft and quality

Linear creates space for high-quality work by hiring people who value details and giving project teams (engineers and designers) full ownership without many PMs—only one head of product, Nan Yu. Features ship early to internal users or opt-in customers (often 1-10, like Vercel for roadmaps) for feedback, delaying general release until polished; this avoids perfection paralysis while enabling iteration. Tradeoffs include pushed timelines (days, not weeks), but craft reduces friction in coordination tools, essential for retention. Design reviews are informal, weekly check-ins plus hands-on testing by leaders before launch, guided by intuition on problem-solving rather than metrics.

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What you'll learn

1 *(00:00:19) **Intro to Linear and Karri's Background***
2 *(00:07:11) **Prioritizing Craft and Quality in Product Building***
3 *(00:16:42) **Unique Team Structure: One PM and Project Ownership***
4 *(00:25:00) **Design as Market Differentiator and Brand Building***
5 *(00:38:34) **Linear Method: Opinionated Software and Cycles***
6 *(00:56:47) **Hiring Philosophy: High Bar, Paid Work Trials***
7 *(01:08:29) **Growth Journey: Launch, PMF, and Scaling Segments***

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, an issue-tracking tool that has quickly become the fastest-growing and most beloved in the world. Before Linear, Karri was the principal designer and co-creator of design systems at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. In today’s episode, he shares:

• How to prioritize craft in product development

• The Linear method for modern software development

• How Linear operates with only one PM

• Why every product needs good design in 2023

• Strategies for staying focused amid distractions

• Linear’s unique hiring strategies

• Sneak peek of a soon-to-be-released Linear feature

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-linear-building-with-taste

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Where to find Karri Saarinen:

• X: https://twitter.com/karrisaarinen

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karrisaarinen/

• Website: https://karrisaarinen.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/