While most SaaS companies burn millions on marketing to reach $400M valuations, Linear has spent just $35,000 on marketing—total.
Linear, the project management tool beloved by engineers at companies like Vercel, Remote, and Cash App, has achieved explosive growth through pure word-of-mouth. CEO and co-founder Karri Saarinen, a former Airbnb and Coinbase designer, built Linear to solve a problem that frustrated him for years: why are all project management tools so painfully slow and complicated?
In this interview, Karri reveals how Linear's obsessive focus on speed and simplicity created a product so good that 95% of beta users converted to paid customers in the first month. He shares the counterintuitive decisions that built a $400M business without traditional marketing, and why saying no to everything except your core users might be the most important skill for early-stage founders.
Watch the full interview now on EO's YouTube channel! Below is the complete transcription of the interview. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability.
Key Highlights:
"You need to have a clear sense of who are you building this for. Sometimes there's all kinds of ideas like, yeah, we should do this, or like people might say like, yeah, you need to think about your accounting or your legal things. Anything else can feel like a distraction."
"Something that pulls you away from your customers, and those things are important, but a lot of things can be done later. Whenever you think about doing something, you should ask yourselves like, do we really need to do this now?"
"Almost nothing else really matters, especially in the beginning, something that people want, that's what you should focus on."
"Something that pulls you away from your customers, and those things are important, but a lot of things can be done later. Whenever you think about doing something, you should ask yourselves like, do we really need to do this now?"
"Almost nothing else really matters, especially in the beginning, something that people want, that's what you should focus on."
From Failed Startup to Airbnb: The Long Road to Focus
Tell us about your background and how you got to where you are today with Linear.
Karri: I'm Karri. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Linear. We help companies with their project management and issue tracking needs, and we are primarily focused on helping software companies to build software. We're now at the Series B, so we raised 52 million in total across the Series B, A and C. We're growing fast. We're now getting a lot of customers in its growth segments. Companies like Vercel and Remote and Replit are some of the new customers that joined.
I grew up in Finland and I started designing websites when I was 16. I wanted to make a website for our team and so I learned how to do that. I did work in some early stage startups back 15 years ago. There wasn't much about startups in Finland. People really didn't even know the word, so we started this Arctic startup blog, which is kind of like TechCrunch focusing on the Nordics.
I grew up in Finland and I started designing websites when I was 16. I wanted to make a website for our team and so I learned how to do that. I did work in some early stage startups back 15 years ago. There wasn't much about startups in Finland. People really didn't even know the word, so we started this Arctic startup blog, which is kind of like TechCrunch focusing on the Nordics.
What happened with your first startup KIPP, and what did you learn from that experience?
Karri: 10 years ago, I had a startup called KIPP, like a social bookmarking service, and a lot of people could use it in different ways that a teacher could use with their class. There's so many different kinds of people using it. Sometimes that's great, but sometimes it also becomes really distracting. In the end, making it slightly better for the teachers doesn't necessarily push you forward.
So I think focus, especially early on, is very important that you need to have a clear sense of who are you building this for. We didn't have a clear vision and we didn't understand what's the business model, like how are we actually going to make money with this, and we tried different things, but they didn't really work out.
After my first company, I was definitely feeling burned out of the startup founder experience and I needed some time to just have a job and work on something like design.
So I think focus, especially early on, is very important that you need to have a clear sense of who are you building this for. We didn't have a clear vision and we didn't understand what's the business model, like how are we actually going to make money with this, and we tried different things, but they didn't really work out.
After my first company, I was definitely feeling burned out of the startup founder experience and I needed some time to just have a job and work on something like design.
Coinbase, Airbnb, and the Power of Brand
How did your experiences at Coinbase and Airbnb shape your thinking about building products and companies?
Karri: We ended up joining Coinbase in 2014 when crypto was a different space, small services back then, and it was really hard to understand what is even going on on the screen. Some of these designs back then were probably fine for some of the crypto nerds that knew all of this stuff, but it wasn't something that would work for most people. We tried to figure out how do we make this simpler and more understandable.
Then I went to Airbnb and what I maybe learned most from Brian Chesky was that the brand of Airbnb was one of the most important things. I think Airbnb with all their storytelling and the work years on the brand, and I think that happened because Brian really cared about it. He is a really good storyteller, and I think it's kind of rare also in Silicon Valley. A lot of founders don't think that way and they don't really necessarily even understand what a brand means.
After 4 or 5 years, I started to feel that I really wanted to do something on my own and started Linear about 4 years ago.
Then I went to Airbnb and what I maybe learned most from Brian Chesky was that the brand of Airbnb was one of the most important things. I think Airbnb with all their storytelling and the work years on the brand, and I think that happened because Brian really cared about it. He is a really good storyteller, and I think it's kind of rare also in Silicon Valley. A lot of founders don't think that way and they don't really necessarily even understand what a brand means.
After 4 or 5 years, I started to feel that I really wanted to do something on my own and started Linear about 4 years ago.
The Genesis of Linear: Why Project Management Tools Suck
What problem were you trying to solve with Linear, and how did you identify this opportunity?
Karri: Building software can be a very complicated process and there might be different kinds of steps, and you also need to maintain all the software you've built so far. So what usually happens is companies need some kind of system to manage the coordination of the work. Companies need to fix existing bugs, and they also have to create new features, and I think the existing tools, they're kind of based on a more outdated way of thinking.
No one is happy about that experience. Working at Airbnb, I felt that too. I would use these tools. I don't really understand what's even going on here. A lot of people shared that sentiment. 3 of us, Joey, Thomas, and me, all of us, we kind of had that kind of feeling that something needs to be done. We think we have some ideas how to do this better.
We started interviewing people to ask them what do you think is wrong with these systems or tools, what they dislike the most with the existing tools, how slow they are.
No one is happy about that experience. Working at Airbnb, I felt that too. I would use these tools. I don't really understand what's even going on here. A lot of people shared that sentiment. 3 of us, Joey, Thomas, and me, all of us, we kind of had that kind of feeling that something needs to be done. We think we have some ideas how to do this better.
We started interviewing people to ask them what do you think is wrong with these systems or tools, what they dislike the most with the existing tools, how slow they are.
How did you approach building the technical architecture to solve the speed problem?
Karri: Our co-founder Thomas, he's very good at this kind of technical architecture, and he started thinking about this problem and it's like how do we do it? And he started prototyping different systems. Where could we use existing services, could we use existing frameworks to do this, but actually at the time there was nothing that really suited us, so we ended up building our own Sync engine.
The whole application is built more of this local first architecture, which means that all the actions you take in the product happens on the user's device first and then they get synced into the cloud. It means that every action you take is instant. You don't notice any kind of lag when you're doing it. You're not interrupted by waiting for something.
I started exploring the UI, so we did have several different thoughts which way we could build this UI. It needs to be a professional tool and more of an application than a website. A lot of existing tools are much more built with that website type of mindset, which means that they don't really feel that professional applications where you can easily move things around and it's more dense and you see more information at once.
The whole application is built more of this local first architecture, which means that all the actions you take in the product happens on the user's device first and then they get synced into the cloud. It means that every action you take is instant. You don't notice any kind of lag when you're doing it. You're not interrupted by waiting for something.
I started exploring the UI, so we did have several different thoughts which way we could build this UI. It needs to be a professional tool and more of an application than a website. A lot of existing tools are much more built with that website type of mindset, which means that they don't really feel that professional applications where you can easily move things around and it's more dense and you see more information at once.
The $35K Marketing Budget That Built a $400M Company
How did you launch Linear and validate product-market fit?
Karri: You need a place where you can put in things that needs to be done or needs to be fixed, and then you assign them between different teams or different people. We try to optimize it for streamlining things, making things simpler. Why we do that is we think people should be spending more time and energy on actually building the things.
The goal of the first version is we just need to have basic functionality that we can do. We just need to be able to put tasks or issues into the application, see them, and then move them around. The second was like, OK, now we can use it ourselves. We should get into a state where someone else can use features that we really need for someone to try it out other than ourselves.
One of the founders was the designer. I think it's a very powerful thing to have a designer early on because then even your MVP can be somewhat good or something that people will pay attention to. So we did launch on Product Hunt. We had this very simple website which just had a dark screenshot of the app and then we just had an email field for people to sign up on a waitlist.
The goal of the first version is we just need to have basic functionality that we can do. We just need to be able to put tasks or issues into the application, see them, and then move them around. The second was like, OK, now we can use it ourselves. We should get into a state where someone else can use features that we really need for someone to try it out other than ourselves.
One of the founders was the designer. I think it's a very powerful thing to have a designer early on because then even your MVP can be somewhat good or something that people will pay attention to. So we did launch on Product Hunt. We had this very simple website which just had a dark screenshot of the app and then we just had an email field for people to sign up on a waitlist.
How did you use the waitlist to find the right early users and build momentum?
Karri: We used that waitlist as a way to find the right kind of users, the early users, because we knew that the software doesn't work for all kinds of companies. We got 2000 people signing up on the waitlist in the first month, and then basically every week we just invited some amount of the people. I would email them personally like, 'Here's your invite. Let me know if there's any feedback.' 10 people would give us feedback, then we'll fix the things that people complain about. Then we invite the next batch of people, then they find some other problems.
We spent like a year in this way of private beta where we were fixing problems that people were telling us. In the private beta we didn't have the billing system yet to test it out. We just wanted to add this slider where people can choose the price that they want to pay for the product, and then it was interesting to see that some people chose like $1 and some people chose like $20 per seat. It also gave us a little bit of confidence, yeah, actually people are willing to pay for this.
I think probably 95% of the beta customers subscribed in the first month, which felt good, and there was hardly any complaints about the pricing or the plans.
We spent like a year in this way of private beta where we were fixing problems that people were telling us. In the private beta we didn't have the billing system yet to test it out. We just wanted to add this slider where people can choose the price that they want to pay for the product, and then it was interesting to see that some people chose like $1 and some people chose like $20 per seat. It also gave us a little bit of confidence, yeah, actually people are willing to pay for this.
I think probably 95% of the beta customers subscribed in the first month, which felt good, and there was hardly any complaints about the pricing or the plans.
You've famously spent only $35,000 on marketing. How did you achieve such explosive growth organically?
Karri: By the time we launched it, it was already in a pretty good state, and then we were confident that anyone could use it. We were growing very fast once we opened it up to people. When we actually announced the tweets and the blog posts, it resonated very well with the audience because it was things everyone was thinking about and also I think showed us how much demand there is for this, that people are really starving for this, so they want something new in the space.
We built Linear more for the agile world. What we saw for example at Airbnb is teams worked differently, so with Linear we try to build that kind of workflow into the app. We really wanted to focus on the actual end user experience.
We've spent no more than $35,000 on marketing, and when you look at the growth for the business, it's all been heavily organic people just telling other people about how great the product is, and those people then sign up for it. I think when you have that amazing word of mouth, it starts to build a really strong brand. From there we have a really fantastic business.
We built Linear more for the agile world. What we saw for example at Airbnb is teams worked differently, so with Linear we try to build that kind of workflow into the app. We really wanted to focus on the actual end user experience.
We've spent no more than $35,000 on marketing, and when you look at the growth for the business, it's all been heavily organic people just telling other people about how great the product is, and those people then sign up for it. I think when you have that amazing word of mouth, it starts to build a really strong brand. From there we have a really fantastic business.
The Engineer-First Philosophy That Changed Everything
What makes Linear different from other project management tools, and why do engineers love it so much?
Karri: To me these kind of products are often about the communication and coordination within the company. That only happens if people use the product and use it frequently. So what happens with some of these other tools is that they're built with other priorities in mind, maybe they have a lot of features or they have a lot of complicated things because someone in the organization wanted those things.
But what happens is it makes the whole product experience very complicated, which then leads people not using the tool, especially engineers are avoiding using the tool. In the end, they are the ones that know if the work happened or not. They are the source of truth in that way. And if the engineers don't use that tool, the tool is not really helping the company.
We really focused on how do we make this experience as frictionless as possible, especially to the engineers, but the other people in the company as well, so that they're more likely to use it and use it more frequently.
But what happens is it makes the whole product experience very complicated, which then leads people not using the tool, especially engineers are avoiding using the tool. In the end, they are the ones that know if the work happened or not. They are the source of truth in that way. And if the engineers don't use that tool, the tool is not really helping the company.
We really focused on how do we make this experience as frictionless as possible, especially to the engineers, but the other people in the company as well, so that they're more likely to use it and use it more frequently.
The Art of Saying No: Focus as a Superpower
What's your philosophy on focus and prioritization, especially for early-stage founders?
Karri: In a lot of ways, anything else can feel like a distraction, something that pulls you away from your customers, something that pulls you away from building a great product. Sometimes there's all kinds of ideas like yeah we should do this or people might say like yeah, you need to think about your accounting or you need to think about your legal things or something, and those things are important, but also a lot of things can be done later.
Whenever you think about doing something, you should ask yourselves like do we really need to do this now? Could we do this later? And if it doesn't advance the product or it doesn't get you more customers or users, then it's probably something you can try to avoid or put off longer.
Almost all of this advice comes down to focus and prioritization of what is actually important to do right now. When you start a company or a startup, you always have to think, is this type of a problem I want to spend 10 years on, and do I enjoy this problem? Do I have some kind of insights into it, because then it makes a lot of things easier, plus if you just think about your future life, it's probably you want to work on something that interests you.
Whenever you think about doing something, you should ask yourselves like do we really need to do this now? Could we do this later? And if it doesn't advance the product or it doesn't get you more customers or users, then it's probably something you can try to avoid or put off longer.
Almost all of this advice comes down to focus and prioritization of what is actually important to do right now. When you start a company or a startup, you always have to think, is this type of a problem I want to spend 10 years on, and do I enjoy this problem? Do I have some kind of insights into it, because then it makes a lot of things easier, plus if you just think about your future life, it's probably you want to work on something that interests you.
What should founders focus on in the very beginning?
Karri: You need to build that product that someone can use and then you need to find those people that will work and use it. Almost nothing else really matters, especially in the beginning. You don't have to think about the organization or you don't have to think about fundraising necessarily or you don't have to think about all kinds of business things and you shouldn't necessarily go to conferences or networking things all the time.
What really matters is you build something that people want and that's what you should focus on.
What really matters is you build something that people want and that's what you should focus on.
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