Linear tests every feature through tiered beta rings before full release
Nan Yu · Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product) · Jan 30, 2025 · at 14:05
Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, describes how the company tests and validates new features across internal and customer beta tiers prior to general availability.
0:00 / 0:54exact quote · 54.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We have a sort of gradually increasing sort of circle of users that use every single feature. So by the time it hits GA, by the time it gets released, it's been used by a lot of different users to that point, right? So the first circle is just internal users. We use linear every single day to, you know, to write software and do our own work. So, you know, we have that kind of advantage. And then once we feel like it's good enough, we'll put it into some beta customer group again, as early as we can in the process, right? We have to make sure that we don't end up corrupting people's data and it doesn't look hideous and that kind of stuff. But as long as it reaches that level of quality, we can we can release it to sort of early access customers who can give us good feedback and also just try to Solve their problems with it, right? If no one engages with it, if no one's using it, then, you know, that's a pretty good signal that we didn't really hit the mark. And then we have a couple of different beta audiences that we grow, and then the ultimate release obviously is for GA where everyone gets it.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Nan Yu
Product teams should build workable prototypes within 10% of their time budgets
“Speed, what it really looks like is, you know, you have some rough time budget for how long you think something's gonna take, and by the time 10% of it has passed, you have a workable solution, right? It's not like, oh, at the halfway point, we have something …”
Linear rejects middle-manager reporting features that worsen IC workflows
“It's customization features requested by middle managers in order to make reporting a little bit easier. At the cost of making IC workflows worse, right? Like, it's like, if it fits that description, we're just saying no. There's no debate because we've alread…”
Standard analytical PM frameworks miss the emotional pain driving customer requests
“And my goal is to feel bad in the same way that customers feel bad. Right. They come to us with a request. Hey, we want X. And it's like, there's something motivating it. And it's not, you can do the normal analytical thing and be like, ask five Y's and like, …”
Product managers typically underperform by neglecting sales and marketing collaboration
“If you're leaving something on the table, right, in terms of like the kind of impact that you are having at your job, that's probably the thing that you're leaving on the table. You're probably already doing a good job of, you know, collaborating with engineer…”
Linear does almost no project time estimation to hit engineering deadlines
“We do almost no estimating in order to hit deadlines. What we do, right, is we ship as early as we can.”
Nan Yu: High execution speed indicates craft mastery rather than sloppiness
“When they think about speed, the thing they over-index on is, is like rushing or being sloppy, and what they should be indexing on is being really competent. Or being like an expert. So if you look at if you look at people who are like at the pinnacle of their…”