The Product Podcast

The tool product managers love and is disrupting Jira | Karri Saarinen, CEO at Linear | E234

• Episode 234

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In this episode of the Product Podcast we chat with Karri Saarinen, the CEO at Linear. It's the fastest-growing and most beloved project management tool in the world. The company is valued at $400 million, and has raised $52 million in funding from Accel, Sequoia, and some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs including the founders of Slack.

Before Linear, Karri led product design at Airbnb and Coinbase.

In our conversation, we'll discuss how his design background is helping him a product users love, his strong Product-Led Growth (PLG) approach to reach decision-makers, how to not always rely on data for product decisions, and his stance against incorporating AI-specific features into his product at this time.
 
Discover how Linear is building the tool that PMs love with a innovative and human approach that allows them to be growing so fast and having the sense of belonging of clients. This episode is packed with lessons on how coming from a different background can be a positive perspective when building a product that turns into the most enjoyable and efficient way to manage development.

(00:00) 🎬 Intro
(03:16) 🚀Design Background & Starting Linear
(06:41) 👨🏽‍💻 Role and Focus as a Founder
(09:19) 🛒 Competing in a Crowded Market
(12:45) 📈 Maintaining Long-Term Success
(14:48) 📚 Conclusion

KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Design-Centric Approach: As a designer, Karri's approach to starting Linear focuses on user experience and brand. He emphasizes the importance of creating a great experience for users, especially in a collaboration tool like Linear.
2. Role as a Founder: Karri handles non-technical aspects of the company, including design and product vision. He believes in focusing on areas where he can make the most impact, like maintaining high standards in design and brand.
3. Unlike competitors who expand to generalize their tools, Linear stays focused on providing an excellent user experience for its target audience. Differentiating in a crowded market by building the best product specifically for software teams.


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CREDITS:
Host: Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Guest: Karri Saarinen



Carlos / Product School
Welcome to the show, Karri.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Carlos.

Carlos / Product School
You've done a lot of cool things, but one of the things that caught my eye is that when you were 16, you convinced the CEO of an agency to give you a job. Tell me more about that.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Yeah, like when I was in high school, I got the HTML book from the library and I really wanted to make websites. So I started learning how to make websites and some of my first websites I did was for Quake one, the gaming team. And then when I was looking for summer jobs in high school, obviously I looked at all that like common ones like yougomow, grass or something like that, but I actually didn't get those jobs. But then I realized I could actually do something else too. So I was able to get in touch with this local web agency in Finland where I was living. And I was saying, yeah, I know how to use Photoshop and I know how to build websites. So he was like, kind of like took the risk on me to get me there for the summer. I think they liked what I did. So I actually went back there the next summer. And I don't know if I went there once again. So I was there maybe like three summers and built like designed websites, but also built them. And I got also more into the programming there. So I think it's for me, it was like really important, kind of like if you think about yourself as a 16 year old, it's like you're kind of very unproven and like having someone giving me that kind of opportunity and letting me to kind of really work in the industry, I think was really helpful and also gave me like confidence that I can also like keep like do more in this industry.

Carlos / Product School
And I saw that you started multiple companies and then after that you worked in design both at Airbnb and Coinbase before starting Linear. One of the things that I found unique, especially in tech startups, is your background is in design, right? I've seen a lot of founders that come from an engineering or a business background. So very curious to learn more about how your experience as a designer influenced the way you decided to start your latest company, Linear.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
I mean, I think like in terms of like my background in design and the type of company we started, I don't know, it is still the company Linear we started, which is like a technical project management tool for software teams. It is very technical tool, so I think like it would be natural for like an engineer to start it or a PM started. But I think like it's like starting from a design background, I think you start more from the experience and you try to think what is important for the experience, not necessarily exactly what the features are or some technical considerations. And that's something we always had; it has been always very important for Linear that the experience for the individual and the teams and the companies, it feels great. And since it's a collaboration workplace tool, I think the experience really matters because then the people actually use the product. And if people don't like the product, if the experience isn't good, they will avoid it. And then when a product is about collaboration or communication like Linear, it's like that information then is not there or it's out of date. So I think from a design background, you think about more as what you want people to feel and see and how the experience should be.
The other thing, something I really learned at Airbnb was about the brand. And that how like the brand also kind of influences the experience and how it can be an advantage in a crowded market. So I think that's also like where obviously like as a designer can be like a good skillset. And sometimes I think more classically like technical founders in Silicon Valley, they don't necessarily think about the brand or how does it make people feel? They kind of just build things and kind of like want to move fast, but they don't think about that: What does it mean to people or how does it feel to people?

Carlos / Product School
Yeah, there are obviously great examples of companies started by people with the same backgrounds. Airbnb is one of those examples or Apple comes to mind as well. As you decided to create that team that helped you build the entire company, how did you decide to divide and conquer? Where do you focus most of your energy?

Karri Saarinen / Linear
In terms of Linear, we have three founders and so my background is in design and two of the other founders is in technical engineering. And with us founders, like, so I've been focusing on pretty much everything except the technical aspects. So it obviously me in the design and the product stuff, but also my other founders are also helping me with the product things too. But I think this also changes all the time when the company changes. Initially, obviously, I was very focused on the design and the product and building product. And then I'm still are, but then also now we've been focusing on more go to market. But I actually think like, don't necessarily need to do that forever. Like, hopefully we can get to a stage and like, we have the right people in place and they can like run it mostly. So I think like my focus, I like to think like, I would like to focus on like, what are the most important things or like something that are very, where I can have like a unique input or just like my skillset can be like very useful. So I think this still in the design and in the brand that I probably still will be like heavily focusing on. So with the design itself, was a couple, I don't know, some months ago we did a UI refresh and with that project I was actually initially the one designing it because I had some free time and I didn't fully do it, but I of liked the broad strokes and I think this is kind of the direction we should go to and then the team could do that. And then with the brand, I'm still looking at all the website revisions and things we do with the brand marketing or anything like that. So think those things, I still feel like they're so important and I have something to give there that I wanna stay close.

Carlos / Product School
Yeah, and I find that I resonate with that as a founder because it's not just one size fits all job description for a CEO or a founder or pretty much any other type of professional. And I think it's totally fair to consider that a living document. Maybe when the team is smaller, you're focusing more on certain areas. As the team gets bigger, it's okay to have an honest assessment and then decide how to make those adjustments in the interest of building something bigger.
But I think as a founder, it's not easy to let certain things go, especially if you like them or have a strong point of view on how they should be done.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think like, I'm also, feel like during my career, I feel like I never got that attached to a specific job or identity per se. Like I know that like my jobs are mostly in design, but I also always thought about the job more than design or it's not just design. So I think every company I worked at, also thought about the business or like what should be done there or thought about other things than just the design. Sometimes I just like that things are done well and if someone else can do them well, then I'm happy to let them do it. But then I think the like me and like lot of other people in company, we have very like high standards or criteria. So it's just like finding those people that can do things really well.

Carlos / Product School
Yeah, and let's talk about the market because you are playing a very competitive field. It's kind of crazy that you decided to go out there and compete with Jira, Asana, Trello and all of these other project management tools and do really well. Your company is growing fast. So what is your unique positioning in that market?

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Yeah, like sometimes I think it's very simple. We just try to build the best product for this audience. We want to build the best tool for the software builders and the engineers, the designers, the PMs and people who build software. And that's it. And I think there is a lot of companies in this market, but I don't think most of them focus this way or like have this kind of level of focus on doing that. I think they're building, often companies end up building these platforms or like generalized tools for everything. So a lot of these tools started maybe like same place we started from, but then they expanded more and more to different types of audiences and different kinds of use cases. And we are just more thinking about: how can we make really the best or the most excellent experience for the software teams? And then I think obviously we, all of us are like founders and the like many people on the team, we've worked in a lot of companies and we used all of these tools and we used all kinds of different kinds of tools. So I think there's a lot of experience that we also drawing from that, that these are gonna like how companies work in this field. And I think a lot of companies, a lot of these tools are still focused on the agile methods. And while Agile is used in companies, it's not used in every company. In the end, we believe that this work and the productivity of companies comes from the ICs, the engineers and designers who actually build things, and so the tool should also help them.
And I think that the other companies have also moved to a lot of cloud or SaaS-based, like, they started on-prem, they moved to cloud, SaaS, and then, because of that, they also inherited a lot of the technical depth or legacy. And because we started just a couple years ago, we have a lot less of that. So I think a lot of things we can build just more seamlessly or better. And I think it's an advantage, obviously, you can argue, okay, some of these other companies have much more resources, like people, but then I think we still can be faster. And then the other part I would say is just the attention to detail. I think a lot of companies have given up on the tools in this market. So the tools are maybe like, "Okay, we'll do the job, but it isn't a joy to use it." Or, "It's like clunky, maybe it's slow or frustrating." But, I think a lot of people still want to have that joy or enjoy that. Like, they know that things work well, and then when they have to use a tool every day, they know it works and it's fast and it's like, nice experience. So I think there's, we're kind of like a counter reaction to like, "Okay, everything is just clunky and slow." We're trying to do things like really well.

Carlos / Product School
Yeah. What I hear from you is very similar to what you mentioned at the beginning, which is you and your company are staying true to your core principles. Like, you have a point of view and you're not willing to sacrifice that for short-term results.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Yeah. I think like the long-term, I think we wanna keep building Linear for a long time and we have a vision where we wanna go and I think we still have a lot of things to build. And I think that's something I've also learned, it's like, I think what I wanna do is just to build a long-term sustainable company. So not necessarily like, okay, like we're growing fast and this is going great and all that. But like thinking like, how can we keep doing that? How can we keep growing and how can we stay still relevant and important in the next 10 years?

Carlos / Product School
Karri, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.

Karri Saarinen / Linear
Thank you.