Inside Linear: Why craft and focus still win in product building | Karri Saarinen (Co-founder & CEO)

Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the project management tool built for high-performance software teams. Since its founding in 2019, Linear has achieved a valuation of $400 million and now counts companies like OpenAI, Ramp and Vercel as customers. Before founding Linear, Karri led design at Airbnb and Coinbase, and previously co-founded Kippt, a bookmarking tool acquired by Coinbase. In today’s episode, we discuss • Karri’s childhood love for computers that shaped his career • The lessons he learned from a failed first startup • Linear’s founding principles • The early validation strategies used to shape the product • Why Karri believes in small teams • And much more… Referenced • Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com • Brian Armstrong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong/ • Brian Chesky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchesky/ • Coinbase: [https://www.coinbase.com](https://www.coinbase.com/en-au) • Jori Lallo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorilallo/ • Linear: https://linear.app/ • Tuomas Artman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tuomasartman/?originalSubdomain=fi • Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/ Where to find Karri • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karrisaarinen/ Where to find Brett • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital • Website: https://review.firstround.com/podcast • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital Timestamps: (1:37) Childhood roots in computers and design (6:54) Founding Kippt and lessons from a failed bookmarking startup (13:14) Lessons from a serial entrepreneur (19:32) Why teams shouldn’t grow too quickly (25: 03) Linear’s early beginnings (36:55) The unexpected power of intuition (42:41) Linear’s unusual approach to user growth (47:29) What shaped Linear’s early product roadmap (52:02) Startups shouldn’t try to boil the ocean (57:30) The power of extreme focus (59:18) Design “something for someone” (1:04:29) Flexibility vs. simplicity (1:17:27) Lead your team with strong principles (1:24:45) Design founders vs. engineering founders