Saarinen: Early startups should use narrow category terms, not vague visions
Karri Saarinen · Brand Design Tips From Linear Founder Karri Saarinen · Y Combinator · Jul 25, 2025 · at 2:58
Linear CEO Karri Saarinen explains why Linear originally branded itself simply as an 'issue tracking tool' rather than a high-level work platform.
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“In the very beginning, what you're trying to sell is you try to find someone to actually use your product and like just understand what it is. So what we did here was that we wanted to put the issue tracking. We knew that that wasn't the, like, Long-term vision for the product or the company, but we knew that that's like something that the people we are looking for, it's just early stage companies and engineers will understand”
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