How To Design Products That Truly Stand Out
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this episode of Design Review, YC Partner interviews Kari Saranin, CEO and co-founder of Linear, about building products with exceptional design quality from the earliest stages. Linear has grown to serve 15,000 companies including OpenAI, Mercury, and Block by focusing on purpose-built workflows for product teams rather than generic tool suites. (00:59)
The conversation covers Kari's journey from being the first designer at Coinbase to leading design at Airbnb, before founding Linear with a philosophy centered on quality execution and authentic brand building. Key themes include the importance of small, empowered teams, hiring people with product taste and judgment, and building company culture around quality without sacrificing speed.
- Main themes: Quality-focused product development, authentic brand building, small empowered teams, design as a competitive advantage, and the evolution of AI in product development
Speakers
Kari Saranin
Kari Saranin is the CEO and co-founder of Linear, a purpose-built platform for product teams that serves over 15,000 companies including OpenAI, Mercury, and Block. Previously, he was the first designer at Coinbase (YC S12) where he helped transform the company's brand to build mainstream trust in cryptocurrency, and later served as a lead designer at Airbnb where he learned the strategic importance of brand from CEO Brian Chesky. (01:50)
Key Takeaways
Start with Singular Focus and User Needs
The foundational lesson from YC that shaped Linear was "just make something people want and talk to the users." (02:13) This means simplifying the startup building process and maintaining singular focus on making progress and building something valuable for customers, rather than getting distracted by everything else that "seems important" but can actually wait. Kari emphasizes that in the beginning, building companies doesn't have to be complicated - you need singular focus on customer problems, and other complexities can come later once you have product-market fit.
Build Small, Empowered Teams with Product Judgment
Linear operates with small teams of 2-3 people (typically engineers and one designer) who drive entire projects from conception to release. (14:14) The key insight is that you can't spec quality execution - the people building the product need ownership and agency to make real-time decisions and improvements. Rather than having rigid specifications approved in meetings, teams use feature flags for internal iteration and beta programs for customer feedback, only polishing for the final general availability release. This requires hiring people with product sensibilities and curiosity who can think beyond just their technical role.
Brand is Every Touchpoint, Not Just Visual Design
True brand building goes far beyond logos and website colors - it encompasses every customer interaction including sales conversations. (12:39) At Linear, even salespeople are hired based on their capacity to understand the product deeply and represent the company's quality values. The brand should reflect authentic company values that flow from the same foundational thinking about what the company cares about. This creates predictable, trustworthy experiences where customers know what to expect from the company across all interactions.
Differentiate Through Excellence in One Area
To build a breakout company, you must be significantly better than anyone else at something specific and be known for it. (25:44) It can't be the same thing everyone else is doing because then you're not differentiated. Linear chose quality and craft as their differentiator in a market where competitors had no clear brand identity. This requires making hard choices about what you want to be the absolute best at, then aligning all company decisions and hiring around that core strength.
Expand Your Design Thinking Beyond Figma
For designers wanting to become founders or have greater impact, the key is broadening your mindset beyond just design execution to understanding business problems. (23:03) This means talking to salespeople who interact with customers daily, understanding leadership goals and strategies, and recognizing that design feedback is often about business alignment rather than visual execution. Your job isn't just to put things in Figma - it's to solve company problems through design, which requires understanding what those problems actually are.
Statistics & Facts
- Linear currently serves approximately 15,000 companies as customers, including high-growth companies like Mercury, Ramp, and Prax, as well as larger companies like OpenAI and Block. (01:18)
- For a significant period, Linear operated without any product managers, and today they only have about two product managers whose role is more strategic oversight rather than managing specific projects. (14:21)
- Kari and the Linear founding team were part of Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch, the same batch as Coinbase. (03:10)
