enra

Vercel is a Linear customer, that's why Linear was mentioned here.

Linear has not been breached, customer data remains secure, and Linear is not hosted on Vercel.

Consumer software can be good, but it's often also optimized for max engagement, not for the actual value or functionality.

Enterprise software can be because there isn't an incentive mismatch, good solution is more valuable for the customers, it will sell better and they're willing to pay for it.

But like you say, lot of enterprise software is bad because it's optimized for the payer, not the user, and it's often shoehorned to weird workflows of the particular enterprise.

Ozempic & Novo Nordisk contributes something like 2% of the economic growth.

"Venture debt is like a delicious sandwich that only costs ten cents, but occasionally explodes in your face" - PG

Part of being a startup is still that there is not a lot of historical precedent and uncertainty how well your business will do in the future. The problem with any fundraise is that it's always future looking (perhaps maybe you create some kind of option structure to call on it if needed).

VCs, especially Tier 1, can be still helpful in different ways, and them owning equity aligns the incentives more than debt.

Correct. Those raises were made when there was some uncertainty about how the business would grow, and the opportunity and timing seemed right. For example, in 2022, it was difficult to predict how deep the market downturn would be. We saw several customers churn because their companies folded. In the end, the market didn't tank as bad than some expected, and we executed better than anticipated. In hindsight, we might not have needed that funding, but at the time, the outlook wasn’t as clear.

Part of this post is to debunk the myth that can be VC backed startup, be profitable and grow fast at the same time. VCs are quite keen in this approach too.

Karri from Linear here.

I wrote this to challenge the common dichotomy that startups are either VC-backed money-burning machines or anti-VC/profitably bootstrapped. It doesn’t have to be that binary. There’s a spectrum, a middle ground. You can retain control by being profitable while still using funding as leverage or as a safety net if things don’t go as planned.

One of the paradoxes of fundraising is that it’s easiest when you don’t need the money—and almost impossible when you do. By keeping the company mostly profitable, you never have to need it, giving you full control over timing and the ability to choose the right deal. But having that funding can enable you some more leverage or add more risk business you could afford while being bootstrapped. In our case we raised the funding for the conservative case, but the reality turned much better than expected.

Another misconception is that sustainable growth comes from spending or hiring. In reality, many great products take off first and because they take off, any amount of hiring becomes justified. Some of these companies are even profitable before they go on a hiring spree. The problem is that the typical approach isn’t nuanced or intentional enough. You might decide to hire 100 engineers before knowing how the next 10 engineers impact your trajectory. If you cut the hiring plan in half—or even to a quarter—it might not affect growth at all. But there’s often an assumption that growing the team is also good, and maybe it comes from a time in the 90s or something when you had hire people to man the phones to take orders.

What I believe is that startup’s growth is primarily driven by product superiority and market fit, not just by headcount or marketing spend. Those things can amplify success, and in some cases, they can even mask a bad market fit through sheer force of sales and marketing.

A less cynical take on VCs is that they’re not necessarily pushing companies to burn cash they just want founders to double down when they see a company working. But whether you can truly scale depends on your market dynamics. Sometimes, you need time to learn or to land the right deals in a segment before pouring money into growth.

The problem is that the current thinking is often too simplistic. Since you're startup and have cash, the spending more is always the right move. Going all the way 100 when you could dial it down to 50 or 30 and regain control and de-risk the changes of complete flare out.

You wouldn’t but many of the largest users of these frameworks are actually e-commerce sites, not applications.

I still prefer shorter flight time. I rather spend those hours in hotel bed or eating at restaurant than sit/lie in the airline seat.

Soviets attacked Finland, and brought it in to the war. Finland didn't want to become a part of Soviet Union (btw no-one did willingly) and Axis was fighting against Soviet Union.

Enemy of your enemy is my friend.

Linear founder here.

We look at AI as capability similar to any other technology. Instead of jumping on the AI bandwagon or thinking AI is a feature, we look if there is opportunity to reduce friction or help the user well in the workflow they are doing. Today like the AI can inform if there is duplicate issues being reported or improve the titles you submit from Slack conversion.

Linear founder here.

We aim to build the product in a way that it works well for smaller/early stage teams as well as all the way to the enterprise. So I think lot of the “enterprise” stuff will be optional.

I’m glad to hear! :)