Inside Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus | Karri Saarinen (co-founder, designer, CEO)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5.0 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2023
⏱️ 100 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.lennyspodcast.com/inside-linear-building-with-taste-craft-and-focus-karri-saarinen-co-founder-designer-ceo/#transcript
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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/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Karri’s background
(04:25) Overview of Linear
(06:43) Linear’s design process and its focus on quality
(12:25) Building a craft-oriented company
(16:41) Product management at Linear
(18:37) Strategies for launching a startup without a dedicated PM
(21:16) How Linear assists PMs in their roles
(23:46) Linear’s potential expansion in PM roles
(24:58) The importance of design
(29:08) Utilizing design and brand as distinct competitive advantages
(30:48) The importance of authenticity in branding and messaging
(33:08) How design reviews are conducted at Linear
(38:34) The Linear method for modern software development
(40:07) Why productivity software should be opinionated
(41:23) Why Linear created “cycles” and how it works
(43:27) Why Linear doesn’t have metric-based goals
(45:07) How a business can thrive without metrics, PMs, and A/B testing
(48:04) A customer-focused approach to building product
(50:02) Adapting strategies for diverse products and domains
(53:05) Three techniques Karri uses to maintain focus
(56:47) Linear’s hiring practices
(1:02:10) Paid work trials
(1:04:31) How to determine a candidate’s “product sense”
(1:08:21) Linear’s growth journey and milestones
(1:14:18) How pricing strategies were initially introduced at Linear
(1:16:18) Linear’s journey to finding product-market fit
(1:21:44) The importance of online presence and authenticity in business
(1:24:59) Insight into the corporate culture at Linear
(1:28:29) Lessons learned during Karri’s transition from IC to CEO
(1:30:21) Sneak peek into the upcoming “asks” feature at Linear
(1:32:04) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Vercel: https://vercel.com/
• Nan Yu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/
• The Linear method: https://linear.app/method
• How Ramp builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ramp-builds-product
• Lessons from scaling Ramp | Sri Batchu (Ramp, Instacart, Opendoor): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-scaling-ramp-sri-batchu-ramp-instacart-opendoor/
• Eric Yuan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericsyuan/
• The Timeless Way of Building: https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0060839872/
• John Wick: Chapter 4: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10366206/
• Silo on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice
• Philips Hue lights: https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us
• Finnish salmon soup recipe: https://jernejkitchen.com/recipes/finnish-salmon-soup-lohikeitto
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | My belief is that any domain or industry, the more it matters, the more the design matters. |
| 0:06.5 | 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. |
| 0:12.1 | The first iterations of those products existing there, |
| 0:15.1 | they don't have to be like super well designed necessarily because they are the |
| 0:18.3 | first. But then like as you built a hundred like thousand like different email clients. Any email |
| 0:24.4 | client now has to be like pretty good to be be even considered like reasonable |
| 0:29.6 | like an email client. It's like that the bar is so high. so I think like today it's almost like a very |
| 0:35.3 | basic thing now pretty much from the very beginning you need like pretty high |
| 0:39.2 | level design the people to even like pay attention or consider yours seriously. |
| 0:43.2 | Today my guest is Kari Sarnan. |
| 0:48.4 | Kari was the founding designer, coin-based, principal designer at AirB&B, co-founder of two previous startups, and most Coinbase Principal Designer at Airbnb at Airbnb, |
| 0:52.6 | co-founder of two previous startups, |
| 0:54.6 | and most recently is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, |
| 0:58.0 | which I am fairly confident is the fastest growing |
| 1:01.0 | and most beloved issue tracking tool in the world and something that a growing number of product teams are using to build their own product |
| 1:07.4 | Carrey 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, |
| 1:20.0 | also no durable cross-functional teams,, teams assemble around a project and then disperse once it's done. |
| 1:26.0 | Also, they have just one product manager as a head of product and that's it. |
| 1:30.0 | In our conversation, Kari shares how he built a culture around quality and craft, how he makes trade-offs, and how he operationalizes quality and thoughtfulness. |
| 1:39.0 | Where design can be a differentiator in competing against incumbents. We talk about something called |
| 1:43.3 | the Linear Method of Building Product which is big on building opinionated software |
| 1:47.7 | working in consistent cycles amongst other principles. We also get into Linear's |
... |
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