This Startup Went from 10,000 Waitlist Signups to a $400M Valuation

Linear started with a waitlist of 10,000 people for its MVP and became the most beloved tool in its category, reaching a $400M valuation in just 5 years. Here is how.

Hi, it’s Andreas, and I’m back with Growth, my newsletter that dives deep into today's top startups' funnels and growth tactics. Today, we’re diving into a startup with an impressive growth journey - one that went head-to-head with industry giant Jira.

So, let’s jump in.

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A few weeks ago, my friend

Mudassir Mustafa

texted me and said, “Man, this startup would be a great case study for your newsletter.” And damn, he was right. The startup he was referring to?

Linear.

If you’re unfamiliar with Linear, let’s start here.

Linear is an issue tracker for developers. You’ve probably heard of Jira - it’s been the go-to for years, with a market share of 84.57% in the issue-tracking SaaS market.

But Linear went head-to-head with it by simplifying the experience, making it much more user-friendly and intuitive - meaning this startup meets an industry giant at eye level.

Since then, they have become the fastest-growing and most beloved issue-tracking tool in the world, reaching a $400M valuation in just five years.

So, how did they do it?

Linear’s Growth Strategy

Personal Branding & Networks

These three gentlemen are the founders of Linear.

And what all three have in common is a large following on Twitter and an impressive Silicon Valley background.

Karri Saarinen and Jori Lallo previously founded a Y Combinator startup that was later acquired by Coinbase.

That startup was called Kippt - a social bookmarking platform.

Tuomas Artman, meanwhile, was an engineer at Groupon and Uber in the Bay Area.

After the acquisition, Saarinen and Lallo both worked at Coinbase, and then Saarinen joined Airbnb, where the story of Linear began.

So, you might ask: What does the founders' background & Twitter following have to do with Linear’s growth strategy?

Their seed round was secured when a Sequoia partner approached Linear’s team, saying that “people she trusts in her Twitter network were hyped about Linear.” This led to a $4.2M seed round.

And not only that, their Twitter following helped them get 10,000 waitlist sign-ups for their beta tests. But more on that later.

Idea Validation Par Excellence

In his role as a designer at Airbnb, Saarinen had to work with Jira, and he was kind of surprised by how bad the tool was.

But he wasn’t alone. His colleagues were equally frustrated.

“For my own sanity, I actually wrote a Chrome extension at Airbnb to reduce some of Jira’s information overload and improve its visuals for better hierarchy. While I initially built it just for myself, 100 people at the company ended up using it.” - like he wrote in this article.

By scratching his own itch, Saarinen had unknowingly discovered the first step for his new startup.

And as he further writes:

“My friends Jori Lallo and Tuomas Artman had similar experiences at Coinbase and Uber. We also saw that most companies are no longer run by pure Agile or SCRUM practices, they have evolved their processes, but the tools haven't. If these tools don't work well for designers, engineering or even the management, then who do they work for?”

Frustrated with the situation, the three decided to fix it.

From MVP to Polished Product

Fast forward to April 18, 2019 - a Medium article explaining what Linear is marked the launch of its MVP.

Promising that Linear will be different:

But the goal wasn’t just to launch the MVP - the founders built a waitlist and directed readers from the article to Linear’s website, which was a simple landing page at the time.

Linear’s Landing Page & How It Drove 10,000 Waitlist Sign-Ups

The landing page serves as a great case study on how to build a waitlist for a product launch:

The header had a clear value proposition, specifically targeting those frustrated with tracking tools like Jira. The subheadline clearly explained what Linear was, followed by a call to action prompting users to join the waitlist by entering their email.

After the header section, Linear highlighted its features - clearly emphasizing its main selling point: speed.

Many users had frequently complained about Jira’s sluggishness. They also showcased other features missing in common issue trackers (including, of course, dark mode, lol).

What Linear made pretty well here is it creates transparency. They explicitly stated that they were still building the product. When testing an idea, many create landing pages with copy that makes it seem as if the product already exists, which can lead to disappointed users.

From the start, Linear promoted integrations with the most common tools used by its target audience - laying the groundwork for its product-led growth strategy.

Creating trust on its website by showcasing the team and highlighting their positions and previous accomplishments at fast-growing companies.

Ending the site with one final call to action for the waitlist, highlighting early access.

With this landingpage, the waitlist grew to over 10,000 users, largely driven by Saarinen’s Twitter strategy of “building in public.” Where he documented the journey of Linear.

💡 Building in public refers to a strategy where you document your journey of building a startup rather than just creating content. It helps you build an engaged audience right from the beginning - which in turn then helps you sell your product once it is launched.

Pretty smart, but commonly used nowadays. Still works well when executed the right way.

Once the waitlist was properly filled, they gradually onboarded participants, funneled them into a Slack community, granted access to the tool, and continuously gathered feedback to iterate on it.

Like the founder said here:

“When we started to build our MVP for Linear, we spent a lot of time talking to users, narrowed our audience, and tested what we were building. And it taught us some important lessons about our product (and building great products in general).”

In the end, the closed test phase lasted a full year until they refined the product into a fully polished version, ready for launch.

Linear’s Launch Day

A year later, on June 30, 2020, Linear launched publicly:

This was accompanied by a launch strategy that included among others:

• Twitter posts

• A Product Hunt launch

• Blog articles

• Community announcements

But Linear followed an interesting launch approach to create some buzz early on - just as they wrote on their website here:

”For example, when we launched Linear we announced the company before we had the product built. We launched when we raised seed funding and evolved the product. We launched when we opened the product for everyone and added pricing. We launched when we did a Series A and evolved the product. Each of the launches reached more people and generated more customers than the previous ones. Had we only launched once, it would have taken us 1.5 years to get to this state and we wouldn’t have learned as much or have as many customers as we have today.”

Product-Led Growth Strategies

The main lever of Linear’s product-led growth mechanics is its network effects.

💡 Network effects happen when your product gets more valuable as more people use it. In a product-led growth (PLG) strategy, this means that every new user naturally makes the product better for others - without your company having to do extra work.

One of the most powerful ways to create network effects is by making it easy (or even necessary) for users to invite, share, or collaborate with others inside the product. The more people they bring in, the more useful the product becomes, and the more likely new users are to stick around.

You’ve probably seen this with Slack and Notion - one person starts using it, invites others, they start using it too, and it spreads organically.

To encourage this, new users are greeted with a to-do list upon creating an account and logging into Linear:

This guides you to invite teammates, start using the tool, and connect it with other services like Slack.

What I’m missing a bit are more growth mechanics and PLG motions. Aside from the to-do list, there’s nothing that actively encourages or nudges users to invite more and more people - unlike how Slack does it here.

I mean, of course, you have the option to invite people:

But other than that, nothing.

So I assume Linear is benefiting a LOT from network effects, and there’s simply no need to push people?

How They Grow Today

In 2023 Linear achieved $8.4M in revenue and raised a $35M Series B round.

One integral part of its growth today is its community, which has nearly 15,000 users. With regular discussions, product updates, bug reports, and active exchanges, Linear has built a truly thriving community around its tool.

One other of course is the strong network effect we discussed above. As I talked to different developers using Linear they confirmed that they invited people as soon as they started working with it, so it definitely accelerates its growth.

Also Linear uses various marketing activities, which fuel its product growth engine, including partnerships and the ongoing personal branding and public-building tactics of the founders.

Meanwhile, Linear also has some big names it can rely on:

Final Words

Linear is a story straight out of the textbook. From building a product to solve its own problem, validating it with a peer group, creating a waitlist through building in public, and launching an MVP, to iterating with the community until the final product.

Linear did many things right, including, of course, its product.

But what I really love is the approach to bug fixing - as Linear’s Head of Product tweeted:

This custom centricity is what sets them apart.

Takeaways

• Don’t build in stealth mode: Linear published a blog article discussing the idea, which led to a landing page and a waitlist. → Give your idea public exposure as soon as possible to gather feedback.

• Build a community from the start: One of Linear's biggest growth levers is its community built around the product. In the early days, it was their most valuable asset for receiving feedback on product iterations and bugs.

• Care about your customers: Like Linear, prioritize bug fixing and customer care above all else—this is your biggest growth lever.

See you next week! 👋🏼

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