Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products

章节 1：速度与质量的迷思：打破权衡

📝 本节摘要：

主持人 Lenny 以一份调查开场，指出 Linear 是用户最渴望迁移到的工具。Nan Yu 分享了 Linear 的创立初衷——消除现有工具带来的痛苦。随后，对话深入探讨了 Linear 的核心哲学：速度与质量并非对立。Nan 认为，真正的专家因胜任而快速，而非草率。他提出一个具体的战术指标：在时间预算的前 10% 阶段就拿出一个可工作的版本，通过快速迭代来保证最终质量，而非追求首版即完美。

[原文] [Lenny]: Nan, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

[译文] [Lenny]: Nan，非常感谢你的到来，欢迎来到这个播客。

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Thanks for having me. I'm a long-time listener and reader, so it's really a treat to be here.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 谢谢邀请。我是（你栏目）长期的听众和读者，所以能来这里真的是一种享受。

[原文] [Lenny]: I want to share something with you to kick off that I haven't shared with you yet, that I haven't shared with anyone. These results might have come out by the time this podcast comes out, but I'm running a survey right now that I'm calling, "What's in your stack?" Where all my subscribers are asked, "What tools do you use most day to day? What tools do you love most? What tools do you hate?" And one of the questions asked was, what tool do you wish you could switch to if your IT department allowed you to? The number one answer by far is people want to switch from Jira to Linear.

[译文] [Lenny]: 开场我想和你分享一些我还没和你、甚至还没和任何人分享过的数据。这期播客发布时结果可能已经出来了，但我正在进行一项名为“你的技术栈里有什么？”的调查。我问所有的订阅者：“你日常最常使用的工具是什么？你最喜欢的工具是什么？你最讨厌的工具是什么？”其中有一个问题是，如果你们的 IT 部门允许，你最希望能切换到哪个工具？目前的头号答案遥遥领先：人们想从 Jira 切换到 Linear。,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Wow. I mean, hopefully, that means we're doing a good job.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 哇。我是说，希望这意味着我们做得还不错。

[原文] [Lenny]: I think that's exactly what that means. I'll read a couple quotes to give you a sense of what people are saying about Linear. I doubt these are surprising to you, but this gives people a sense of why you're here and why I'm excited to extract as much wisdom as I can from you. So, a couple quotes here. "Linear is a joy to use as I interact with my engineering teams, and I find inspiration in its design." "Linear is simple to use, yet powerful." "Linear's design is obviously an industry benchmark, but moreover, the performance and speed is a massive productivity boost."

[译文] [Lenny]: 我觉得这正是这个意思。我会读几条引用，让你感受一下人们是如何评价 Linear 的。我想这些对你来说并不意外，但这能让大家明白为什么你今天会坐在这里，以及为什么我如此兴奋想从你身上挖掘尽可能多的智慧。这里有几句评价：“在与工程团队互动时，使用 Linear 是一种乐趣，我从它的设计中找到了灵感。”“Linear 使用简单，但功能强大。”“Linear 的设计显然是行业标杆，但更重要的是，其性能和速度极大地提升了生产力。”,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: I mean, it's really good to hear that because in a lot of ways, that's what we're trying to do. If you think about the entire impetus behind why Linear was started, it's because Karri was sitting at Coinbase and Airbnb and these places and just watching everyone around him struggle using the tools that they had available and always incumbent tools and just seeing that it made people hate their day-to-day a little bit, and we all got into technology and design and engineering, all this kind of stuff because it was fun. All of us started off building stupid MySpace pages and all of these side projects when we were young, and it started off as this fun thing that we do, and we're like, "Wow, we get to do this for a career," and then to have all of this kind of stuff put these big speed bumps into our day-to-day workflow, it just was really sad. So, that's why we started Linear. This really bust through all of that.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 听到这些真的很好，因为在很多方面，这正是我们要做的。如果你回想 Linear 创立背后的全部动力，那是因为 Karri（Linear 创始人）当时在 Coinbase 和 Airbnb 这些地方，看着周围的人在使用现有工具和那些老牌工具时苦苦挣扎，眼看着这些工具让人们有点讨厌他们的日常工作了。我们当初投身科技、设计和工程这些领域，是因为它们很有趣。我们年轻时都是从制作愚蠢的 MySpace 页面和各种业余项目开始的，最初这是一种乐趣，我们会感叹：“哇，我们可以以此为职业。”然而，当这些东西给我们的日常工作流设置了巨大的减速带时，这真的很令人悲哀。所以，这就是我们创立 Linear 的原因。这真的是为了打破这一切。,

[原文] [Lenny]: What I love about Linear, I feel like it's an inspirational business because many people want to, "I'm going to build just a much better version of something," and often that doesn't actually work out. Often nobody cares enough. There's all these barriers and reasons. People don't switch to something that's better, and Linear is an amazing example of building an excellent product and actually succeeding, and there's a lot more to it maybe than just building an awesome product. So, that's what I'm excited to dig into and understand how you all operate, and I guess just based on these results, to me, this is the ultimate sign of product market fit. People being sad they can't use a product in B2B enterprise software especially, so let's get into it.

[译文] [Lenny]: 我喜欢 Linear 的一点在于，我觉得它是一个令人深受鼓舞的企业，因为很多人都想说，“我要打造一个比现有产品好得多的版本”，但通常这行不通。通常没人在乎。有各种各样的障碍和理由。人们不会仅仅因为某个东西更好就切换过去，而 Linear 是一个打造卓越产品并真正获得成功的惊人案例，这其中可能不仅仅是制造一个很棒的产品那么简单。所以，这正是我兴奋地想要深入挖掘并了解你们如何运作的原因。仅仅基于这些调查结果，对我来说，这就是产品市场契合度（PMF）的终极标志——人们因为无法使用某款产品而感到难过，特别是在 B2B 企业软件领域。所以，让我们开始吧。,,

[原文] [Lenny]: First question I want to get into is something that I think you see and the team at Linear sees that a lot of people don't see, which is that there's not actually a trade-off between speed and quality. I think a lot of people think this is just an innate fact and something I've heard you talk about is that's not actually true. I actually saw Patrick Collison tweet this exact point that I'll read after you... I want to hear your thoughts, but talk about what you've learned about how there's maybe not actually this trade-off between speed and quality.

[译文] [Lenny]: 我想探讨的第一个问题是，我认为你和 Linear 团队看到了一些很多人没看到的东西，那就是速度和质量之间其实并不存在权衡。我认为很多人认为这种权衡是一个天生的事实，但我听你谈到过这其实不是真的。我实际上看到 Patrick Collison 也发推文表达了完全相同的观点，稍后我会读出来……我想听听你的想法，谈谈关于速度和质量之间可能并不存在这种权衡，你学到了什么。,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: People talk about this as if there were a trade-off almost in a naive way because when they think about speed, the thing they over index on is 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 people who are at the pinnacle of their craft, it could be anything. It could be like a chef or a programmer or someone building houses or something. You can basically tell how good the output is going to be of their work product by how fast they're going. If they're going really fast, and they're obviously not being sloppy and then leaving a mess all over the place, it's like, "Yeah. Well, they got there because this is just second nature to them," and they're able to go at a really rapid pace and try stuff. And when we're building software, that's such a big component of how good the product is on the other side of it, which is like, "How many iterations were you able to do?" So, the only way you're going to get a bunch of iterations done and try different things and really feel out these different variations is by just going very fast.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 人们谈论这个就像真的存在权衡一样，这种想法几乎有点天真，因为当他们想到“速度”时，他们过分关注的是仓促或草率；而他们应该关注的是真正的“胜任”或像专家一样。如果你看看那些处于行业巅峰的人，无论哪个行业，可能是厨师、程序员，或者是盖房子的人。你基本上可以通过他们的速度来判断他们的工作产出会有多好。如果他们动作非常快，而且显然没有草率行事或留下一堆烂摊子，你会觉得，“是的。嗯，他们能做到这一点是因为这对他们来说已经是第二天性了，”他们能够以非常快的节奏去尝试新事物。而在我们构建软件时，这是决定最终产品好坏的一个重要组成部分，即：“你能进行多少次迭代？”所以，要完成大量迭代、尝试不同事物并真正感知这些不同变体的唯一方法，就是行动非常快。,,

[原文] [Lenny]: In terms of speed, is the speed there moving quickly on each of iterations? Like what does speed look like when you say, "It can be done quickly and high quality"? What does speed look like?

[译文] [Lenny]: 就速度而言，这里的速度是指在每次迭代中快速移动吗？比如当你说“可以做得既快又高质量”时，这个速度看起来是什么样子的？

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Speed... What it really looks like is you have some rough time budget for how long you think something's going to take, and by the time 10% of it has passed, you have a workable solution. It's not like, "Oh, at the halfway point, we have something that is maybe a candidate that we can play around with." It's like, no, no, no. After week one you have something that works that tests some kind of key hypothesis internally so that you can feel like is this thing actually panning out the way we expect it to or did we have some crazy incorrect assumption? And you don't want to wait until you're 80% done to be able to make that kind of judgment because then it's just too late. Then you're pushing deadlines out, and you're making your marketing team very sad.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 速度……它真正的样子是，你对某件事需要多长时间有一个粗略的时间预算，而在时间过去 10% 的时候，你就已经有了一个可行的解决方案。这不像说，“哦，等到一半的时候，我们要有一个也许可以玩一下的候选版本。”不是的，不不不。是在第一周之后，你就得有一个能工作的东西，用来在内部测试某种关键假设，这样你就能感觉到这东西是否真的如我们预期的那样发展，还是说我们要么有一些疯狂的错误假设？你不想等到完成了 80% 才做这种判断，因为那样就太晚了。那样你会推迟截止日期，你会让你的市场团队非常难过。,

[原文] [Lenny]: Amazing. Okay, so the way you think is, "We're going to spend a month on this feature. Let's get something workable. We can start testing with potential users even internally in the first few days, essentially in the first week"?

[译文] [Lenny]: 太棒了。好的，所以你的思路是，“我们要在这个功能上花一个月。让我们先弄出一个可用的东西。我们甚至可以在最初几天，基本上在第一周内，就开始在这个东西上测试潜在用户，即使是内部测试”？

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Yes. Yeah.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 是的，没错。

[原文] [Lenny]: Yeah. I guess how can you do that? Because most teams can't do that. Most teams need to research, design, build. "Okay, cool. We have something," and once a month later, what allows you to do that?

[译文] [Lenny]: 是啊。我想问你们是怎么做到的？因为大多数团队做不到这一点。大多数团队需要研究、设计、构建。“好了，酷。我们有东西了，”那都是一个月后的事了。是什么让你们能做到这一点？

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of components of it. I think having really good talent really helps. Having engineers who don't get blocked by every single little design choice, they're happy to just make something workable. Even if they don't feel comfortable with that particular solution, they'll just bust through it and make something happen there. Part of it is intent. We don't have any expectation that the first version of it is going to be great. That is not in the cards. Look, the first version of it is our best guess in the general direction of what we want to actually ship in the end, and sometimes it works out. Sometimes, it's like, "Wow, this first version was pretty good. Let's make some minor adjustments, and we're good to go," but there's no expectation there. So, no one feels like they have to be a perfectionist and get everything, like all sanded down and really in tip-top shape. It just has to work and get the job done and validate or invalidate our major assumptions.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 嗯，这包含很多因素。我认为拥有真正优秀的人才确实很有帮助。拥有那些不会被每一个微小的设计选择卡住的工程师，他们乐于先做出一些可用的东西。即使他们对那个特定的解决方案不完全满意，他们也会冲破障碍，让东西先跑起来。部分原因在于意图（Intent）。我们不期望第一个版本会很棒。这不在计划之内。听着，第一个版本只是我们在最终想要交付的大方向上的最佳猜测。有时它成功了。有时你会觉得，“哇，这第一版还不错。我们做些小调整就可以发布了，”但我们并没有那种期望。所以，没人觉得必须成为完美主义者，把所有东西都打磨得平平整整、处于巅峰状态。它只需要能工作，能完成任务，并验证或推翻我们的主要假设。,,

[原文] [Lenny]: I'll read this quote from Patrick Collison. He tweeted this today as I was preparing for this interview, and he's the CEO and founder of Stripe, if you're not familiar. His tweet is, "I increasingly believe that 'good, cheap, fast -- choose two' maxim is devious misinformation spread by the slow. In my experience, slow and expensive usually go together."

[译文] [Lenny]: 我读一下 Patrick Collison 的这句名言。他正好在我准备这次采访的今天发了这条推文，如果你不熟悉的话，他是 Stripe 的 CEO 兼创始人。他的推文是：“我越来越相信‘好、便宜、快——三者只能选其二’这句格言是慢吞吞的人散布的狡猾的错误信息。根据我的经验，慢和贵通常是并存的。”,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Yeah, exactly. I mean, use the contractor kind of example. Like If someone's making modifications to their house, and it's taking forever, one, you're in a hotel and also the bills are adding up.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 是的，确实如此。就像用承包商的例子。如果有人在装修房子，而且花了很长时间，首先，你得住酒店，其次账单也在不断累积。

[原文] [Lenny]: The other example you used when we were chatting about this earlier is chess players. I'm thinking of Magnus Carlsen, watching him. I think he was number one in speed chess in addition to just regular chess and what a microcosm of this point.

[译文] [Lenny]: 我们之前聊天时你用的另一个例子是国际象棋选手。我想到了 Magnus Carlsen，看他下棋。我觉得他不仅是常规国际象棋第一，也是快棋第一，这正是这一点的缩影。,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Yeah, I think that's the case and Magnus and Hikaru and all those guys who are at the top of their game, they can go unbelievably fast. In fact, that's the usual... I mean, I don't want to get too out of my depth with chess, but the usual way you try to make the game fair is you give them much, much less time than someone who's not quite as strong of a player, and they'll still win a lot of time, too.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 是的，我觉得情况就是这样，Magnus 和 Hikaru 以及所有那些处于巅峰状态的人，他们的速度快得令人难以置信。事实上，通常……我不想在国际象棋上谈论太多我不懂的，但通常让比赛公平的方法是给他们比不那么强的选手少得多、少得多的时间，而他们通常还是会赢。

[原文] [Lenny]: So, maybe just to close out this point and give someone something concrete they can do with this information, say they want to start moving faster while not cutting quality, what do you think they can do? What's one thing they can start trying to work on and improving in the way they operate?

[译文] [Lenny]: 那么，也许为了结束这一点的讨论，给人们一些利用这些信息可以做的具体事情，假设他们想要开始跑得更快而不降低质量，你觉得他们能做什么？有什么事情是他们可以开始尝试并在运作方式上改进的？,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: I think it's really that sort of attitude and point of view question to understand and take the almost controlled risk that the first version of this is not going to be perfect. So, it actually makes it a lot cheaper in many ways. It means you don't need a pixel perfect design. It means you don't need to make sure that all of the little UI bugs and stuff like that are solved because none of that really matters. What matters is you have working software that you can interact with, and you can see if it feels good. Does it actually solve the core problem that is facing our users? You can take it back to users. You can even let them into an early beta or something like that and get real validation there and to really focus on getting the smallest, shippable element, like not shippable in the sense of, "I can actually put on the production," but in the sense of like, "I can start learning from here."

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 我认为这实际上是一种态度和观点的问题，要理解并承担一种近乎受控的风险，即第一个版本不会是完美的。所以在很多方面这实际上让成本低了很多。这意味着你不需要像素级完美的设计。这意味着你不需要确保所有的小 UI 错误之类的东西都被解决，因为这些都不重要。重要的是你有一个可以交互的工作软件，你可以看看它的感觉是否良好。它真的解决了我们要面对的用户的核心问题吗？你可以把它带回给用户。你甚至可以让他们进入早期测试版之类的地方，从中获得真正的验证，真正专注于获得最小的、可发布（shippable）的元素——这里的“可发布”不是指“我可以把它放到生产环境上”，而是指“我可以开始从中学习了”。,

[原文] [Lenny]: Just a question I imagine is in everyone's mind is what do you do with this first very ugly V1... not ugly, not fully ready, first version. Is this something you're using internally to see if it's something? Is it something you have beta design partners with?

[译文] [Lenny]: 这是一个我想每个人心里都有的问题，你怎么处理这个最初非常丑陋的 V1 版本……不是丑陋，是不完全准备好的第一版。这是你们内部用来看看是否可行东西吗？还是你们有与之合作的 Beta 设计伙伴？

[原文] [Nan Yu]: We have a 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 up to that point. So, the first circle is just internal users. We use Linear every single day to write software and do our own work, so 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, and again, as early as we can in the process. 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 release it to early access customers who can give us good feedback and also just try to solve their problems with it. If no one engages with it, if no one's using it, then that's a 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.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 我们有一个逐渐扩大的用户圈子来使用每一个功能。所以，等到它正式发布（GA），等到它被放出来的时候，在那之前已经被很多不同的用户使用过了。所以，第一个圈子只是内部用户。我们每天都用 Linear 编写软件和做我们自己的工作，所以我们有这种优势。然后一旦我们觉得它足够好了，我们会把它放入一些 Beta 客户群，同样的，在流程中尽早进行。我们必须确保我们不会最终破坏人们的数据，而且它看起来不那么难看之类的，但只要达到那个质量水平，我们就可以发布给那些能给我们提供良好反馈并尝试用它解决问题的早期访问客户。如果没人参与，如果没人在用它，那就是一个很好的信号，说明我们并没有真正切中要害。然后我们有几个不同的 Beta 受众群体逐步扩大，最后的发布显然就是 GA，每个人都能用到。,,

[原文] [Lenny]: That's an amazing answer. Okay, so secret number one to Linear success, I'm going to take some notes here, is get new feature, product ideas out to people as early as possible, say, in the first 10% of the amount of time you've allotted, and then release it increasingly to more and more people to get feedback. I think the implication here is just most wasted time is on building things nobody actually ends up wanting or using. So, the sooner you at least get directional sense of are you heading in a good direction, the faster it all go?

[译文] [Lenny]: 这是一个很棒的回答。好的，所以 Linear 成功的第一个秘密——我要做点笔记了——是尽可能早地把新功能、产品创意展示给人们，比如在你分配的时间的前 10% 阶段，然后逐渐发布给越来越多的人以获得反馈。我认为这里的含义是，大多数浪费的时间都花在构建那些最终没人真正想要或使用的东西上。所以，你越早获得至少是方向性的感知，知道你是否朝着好的方向发展，一切就会进行得越快？,

[原文] [Nan Yu]: Yeah, totally.

[译文] [Nan Yu]: 是的，完全正确。