By Karri Saarinen & Tuomas Artman & Jori Lallo
Jira was too slow, too bloated, and nobody on the engineering team enjoyed using it. They wanted to build the issue tracker they wished existed.
Launched in 2019. Grew through word-of-mouth in the startup and developer community. Became the de facto issue tracker for many YC startups.
Early beta users were so enthusiastic they became evangelists. The product grew primarily through developers telling other developers about it.
Developer tools should be fast and beautiful. Linear proved that great design and speed can win even in the 'boring' category of issue tracking.
To be the standard for how software teams plan and build products.
