Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2025
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nan Yu is the head of product at Linear, one of the most beloved and fastest-growing B2B SaaS products out there today, and the gold standard for high-performing tech teams. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Why speed and quality aren’t actually at odds
• Linear’s unique approach to product development
• Nan’s systematic approach to creativity
• Linear’s philosophy on deadlines
• The “double triangle” framework for product management
• Nan’s approach to landing his dream product roles
• Much more
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/linears-secret-to-building-beloved-b2b-products-nan-yu
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Where to find Nan Yu:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/
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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) Introduction to Nan Yu and Linear
(04:54) Survey insights: Linear vs. Jira
(07:51) The speed vs. quality myth
(09:24) Building and iterating quickly
(15:31) Avoiding bloat in enterprise software
(23:57) Understanding user needs deeply
(30:09) How to approach customer calls
(34:10) Creating strong emotional hooks
(40:31) Managing the product backlog
(44:46) Systemizing creativity
(48:16) Demo: Saving drafts in Linear
(51:38) Breaking constraints and building at extremes
(54:15) Adopting new tools
(58:22) The “double triangle” framework for product management
(01:04:23) Effective job-hunting strategies for PMs
(01:09:15) Thoughts on deadlines
(01:14:15) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Patrick Collison’s post on X: https://x.com/patrickc/status/1869422495985750459
• Magnus Carlsen on X: https://x.com/magnuscarlsen
• Hikaru Nakamura on X: https://x.com/gmhikaru
• Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/geoffrey-moore-on-finding-your-beachhead
• Customer Request feature on Linear: https://linear.app/customer-requests
• Everlane: https://www.everlane.com/
• Schlep Blindness: https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
• Linear’s triage tool: https://linear.app/docs/triage
• Patrick Collison’s post about mental models on X: https://x.com/patrickc/status/1443215022029619200
• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach
• Unpacking Amazon’s unique ways of working | Bill Carr (author of Working Backwards): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unpacking-amazons-unique-ways-of
• Mode: https://mode.com/
• The Diplomat on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81288983
• Sakura Micron pens: https://www.amazon.com/SAKURA-PIGMA-MICRON-ESSENTIAL-COLORS/dp/B07VJFXT3C/
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Recommended books:
• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986
• The Design of Everyday Things: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
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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 | I think you see on the team at Linear that a lot of people don't see, which is that there's not actually a trade-off between speed and quality. |
| 0:06.9 | People talk about this as if there were a trade-off because when they think about speed, the thing they over-index on is like rushing or being sloppy. |
| 0:14.8 | What they should be indexing on is being really competent. |
| 0:18.1 | If you look at people who are like at the pinnacle of their craft, you can |
| 0:21.4 | basically tell how good the output is going to be of their work product by how fast they're going. |
| 0:26.3 | What does speed look like when you say it can be done quickly and high quality? |
| 0:30.4 | What it really looks like is, you know, you have some rough time budget for how long you |
| 0:34.3 | think something's going to take. By the time, 10% of it has passed, after week one, you have something that works, that tests some kind of key hypothesis |
| 0:41.0 | internally. Imagine a criticism you all get. Over time, you'll probably become a bloated |
| 0:45.6 | piece of software as well. When we examine this problem, we kind of look at, well, what feature |
| 0:50.8 | requests can we debate? And what kind of feature requests do we absolutely have to say no to? |
| 0:55.5 | The stuff that we absolutely have to say no to is the exact kind of thing that leads to this bloatedness |
| 1:00.7 | that makes ICs kind of hate their lives. |
| 1:02.5 | Something that your head of sale shared with me is how impressed he is with the way you ask questions on customer calls |
| 1:07.9 | and just keep digging and digging until you get to something. |
| 1:10.6 | My goal is to feel bad in the same way that customers feel bad. |
| 1:17.3 | Today, my guest is Non You. |
| 1:19.7 | Non is head of product at Linear, which is one of the most beloved, most beautifully designed, |
| 1:25.3 | and also the fastest growing BDBB SaaS product out there today. |
| 1:28.3 | You rarely see the kind of love that people have for linear for any enterprise B2B SaaS product, |
| 1:33.3 | and so there is a lot that we can learn from how linear operates and how they build product. |
| 1:38.3 | In my conversation with Non, he shares a system that he uses for being creative and coming up with non-obvious solutions to customer problems, |
... |
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