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 $1.25B as of 10th June 2025 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

Where to find Karri

Where to find Brett

Where to find First Round Capital

Website
First Round Review
Twitter/X
YouTube

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

Ep. 440: Pitch Decks & Meeting IRL

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