Linear · Strategy · Senior · 45 to 60 minutes

How should Linear tackle tool fragmentation?

Linear makes software that helps product and engineering teams plan and track their work. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Strategic thinking
Prioritization
Product sense
Systems thinking
Executive communication

The situation

Linear's founders ask you, a senior PM, for a strategy memo before they lock the next phase of roadmap and hiring. Product and engineering teams increasingly manage work across multiple tools, which creates fragmented handoffs, unclear status, and extra coordination overhead. The market already has established work tracking products, and many of them can point to broader feature sets than Linear can build in the near term. At the same time, early users respond strongly when software feels fast, coherent, and thoughtfully designed, but that level of quality is expensive to maintain and may limit scope. Assume Linear has a small team, 18 months of runway, and access to 20 design partner teams. The decision is not just what product surface to build first. Leadership also needs to decide what kind of company habits, quality bar, and performance expectations should support the product strategy. Your recommendation must choose where Linear should focus, what it should leave out for now, and how to balance solving cross tool fragmentation with the need to be distinctive in a crowded market.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page strategy memo for Linear's leadership team.

Your answer must

Define the specific target team and workflow Linear should serve first, and explain why that wedge is attractive.
Compare at least three strategic options, including a broader platform approach and a narrower workflow focused approach, with clear tradeoffs.
Make a recommendation for the first 12 to 18 months, including what Linear should build deeply, what it should integrate with, and what it should deliberately not do yet.
Explain how product principles such as speed, coherence, and quality should or should not shape hiring, team norms, and performance expectations.
Identify the top risks, second order effects, and 3 to 5 signals or metrics leadership should watch to know if the strategy is working.

Constraints

You cannot rely on a large enterprise sales force or heavy custom work in the first year.
The team is too small to build a full suite across all adjacent collaboration categories.
Incumbents already offer more features on paper, so feature parity is not a realistic near term plan.

Format

Use headings for problem, options, recommendation, sequencing, and risks. A small table for option tradeoffs is welcome.

How Linear actually played it

Analyzes Linear's strategy of focus, speed and craft, starting from the problem of teams scattered across tools. It looks at how the company's culture and performance practices reflect what the product promises.

Product craft is a strategy, not decoration
Culture should embody the product's values
Solve fragmentation for a specific team workflow

Built from Linear’s Unconventional Strategy to Win By Defying Everything Silicon Valley Stands For by Michael Goitein (Product Strategy Decoded).