Daily Productive Sharing 1254 - The Profitable Startup
One helpful tip per day:)
Karri Saarinen, co-founder of Linear, believes that profitability doesn’t reflect a lack of ambition—it reflects control over your own destiny:
- Being understaffed compared to industry norms is often something to be proud of, not a problem.
- What limits you isn’t usually team size, but lack of focus, skill, or execution.
- Every hire should truly raise the bar for the team.
- One of the most underrated benefits of profitability is peace of mind.
- While top-performing public companies may generate $1M–$2M in revenue per employee, a reasonable target for startups is $500K–$1M.
- For most software startups, teams should ideally stay under 10 people until product-market fit is reached—not as a goal, but as a constraint.
- At Linear, deliberate slow hiring helps attract stronger talent and protects company culture—something rapid growth can easily dilute.
- Profitability doesn’t mean rejecting investors—it means having the freedom to choose. In fact, investors remain very interested in fast-growing, profitable companies.
- Investors can still add value, and additional capital reserves can enable bigger bets or acquisitions.
- When you’re profitable, your decisions are guided by customers and product—not by trying to please investors.
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Linear 的联合创始人 Karri Saarinen 认为盈利并不意味着缺乏雄心，而是意味着你掌握了自己的命运：
- 与行业基准相比人员不足，几乎总应该是一种值得自豪的事情，而不是问题。
- 真正限制你的，通常不是团队规模，而是专注的清晰度、技能水平和执行能力。
- 每一次招聘，他们都确保新成员能真正提升整个团队的水平。
- 盈利最被低估的好处之一，是它带来的心安。
- 虽然一些表现优异的上市公司每位员工创造的营收在 100 万到 200 万美元之间，但对初创公司来说，以每位员工 50 万到 100 万美元为目标并不不合理。
- 对大多数软件初创公司来说，在找到产品市场契合之前，团队规模最多不应超过 10 人，而不是以此为目标。
- 在 Linear，公司刻意放慢员工增长速度，这迫使他们更加审慎招聘，从而招到更优秀的人才；这也保护了公司的文化，因为快速扩张往往会稀释掉初创企业本身最特别的部分。
- 盈利并不意味着你必须排斥投资者，而是意味着你拥有选择的权利。而且，投资人对那些盈利且增长迅速的公司依然非常感兴趣。
- 投资者仍然可以提供帮助，额外的资金储备也可以让你进行更大的投入或收购。
- 当你实现盈利，你所做的决策会以客户和产品为核心，而不是取悦投资人。
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