Karri Saarinen
Co-Founder & CEO at Linear
Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the fastest growing and most beloved issue tracking tool for software teams. He was previously the founding designer at Coinbase and a principal designer at Airbnb. Linear has been profitable for two years and has a net negative lifetime burn rate, meaning more cash in the bank than it has raised.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Karri Saarinen reveals how Linear built the most beloved issue tracking tool through an obsessive focus on craft, opinionated design, and a unique building method: ship rough prototypes internally in the first week, co-create with select customers, then polish before general release. With no AB tests, no metrics-based goals, paid work trials for hiring, and a net negative burn rate, Linear represents a counterculture approach to building SaaS products.
Leadership Principles
- → Ship early to yourself and select customers, but polish before general release — quality matters at the last mile
- → Hire people who care about craft — the quality of the product starts with the quality of the people
- → Design matters more as industries mature — the bar rises and you need high-level design to even be considered seriously
Notable Quotes
"The more it matters, the more design matters. The first iterations don't have to be super well designed because they are the first. But as you build the 100,000th email client, it has to be pretty good to be even considered."
— On why design quality becomes more important as product categories mature
"We actually believe that when you start building the thing you actually start realizing more how it should work. Just put it into the app and ship it to production in the first week. It's only visible to us so we can test it out."
— On Linear's approach to rapid internal prototyping before polishing for release
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