Lessons from Cristina Cordova, COO of Linear

On Career Growth and Personal Development

On forging your own path: "I disliked the distinction. There's this wall up between the two. I loved being that person in a room where other people would say, 'Wait, what team are you on again?'" [1]
On choosing the right company: "The company that you select matters far more than any other factor, whether it's title, scope of role, or salary. While VCs and angel investors can place multiple bets in a short period of time and hope one pays off, employees get just one bet." [1]
On being a "gap filler": "It's very easy to fall into a mindset where you're criticizing all the things that aren't going well — it's much harder to come up with a proposal for making things better. Are you constantly looking around to find new ways that you could help the people around you?" [1]
On increasing technical depth: "As a non-technical person working on a product, you should be able to read and understand the API docs, even though there's a temptation to think, 'Oh, that's not meant for me.'" [1]
On career transitions: When considering a new role, ask about the company's trajectory and how the role might evolve. This foresight can help you grow with the company rather than being outgrown by it. [2]
On self-advocacy: Don't be afraid to take on roles and projects outside of your official job description to develop new skills. Cordova herself worked for free at the beginning of her first startup internship and job to prove her value and learn. [3]
On navigating career uncertainty: It's okay not to have a linear career path. Cordova describes her own career as being "somewhere in between business and product." [1]
On leaving a prestigious job: Cordova left a job at Google early in her career because it was "mind-numbing." She advises, "don't listen to people who don't necessarily know enough about you and like your goals when you're thinking about your career." [4]
On continuous learning: To become more technical, start by reading your own company's documentation. Before asking an engineer, try to self-serve and learn from what's publicly available. [5]
On adding value as a non-technical person: There should be a mutual value exchange with technical counterparts. If you're in a customer-facing role, provide concise summaries of customer feedback to engineering and product teams. [5]

On Building and Scaling Companies

On the importance of an opinionated product view: "I think it's extremely difficult to build really great businesses without having people with strong opinions about how they should be built." [6]
On the power of community: Both Stripe and Notion were successful in turning their user bases into powerful communities that drove organic growth. [6]
On hiring: "When someone incredibly talented reaches out, you're tempted to snap them up. But think about who would be complementary to the team you have." [1]
On annual planning: Cordova advocates for a middle ground between rigidly sticking to a plan and chasing every new "shiny new thing." A stack-ranked list of priorities can help teams stay focused. [1]
On fostering a culture of debate: At Stripe, having people with strong opinions who were also willing to "disagree and commit" after a debate was crucial. [6]
On scaling thoughtfully: Linear's approach to company building is to "ship better, not just faster," valuing craftsmanship and getting the details right. [7]
On the shift from building a product to building a company: As a startup grows, the focus shifts from just building the product to building the organization that supports and scales that product. [1]
On transparency in startups: "In startups, employees expect a level of transparency that doesn't exist at large companies... transparency makes employees feel secure in their risky decision." [3]
On leveraging first principles and outside advice: Successful company building often involves a blend of thinking from the ground up and seeking best practices from other successful companies. [1]

On Partnerships and Business Development

On the danger of early-stage partnerships: "Partnerships don't make sense for most companies at the super early stages... it can truly become a big waste of time, and it's a huge mistake to hire for it too early." [1][2]
On the right time for partnerships: "Ideally, you have a product which doesn't require a partnership with another company to get to market (you're in control of your timeline to launch) and you have organic customer growth." [8]
On pitching partnerships: "In your initial outreach, keep it brief (no more than four sentences) and explain who you are, what your company does and why you'd like to partner together. Craft the 'why' based on what would be most appealing to a person in that function." [8]
On negotiating deals: "Build a framework of principles. Outside of an individual deal, step back to think about the things that your company cares about. What are you not going to give in on in any negotiation?" [1]
On partnering with large companies: "When doing a partnership with a large company, you should also ensure that the individual you're working with has a strong incentive to work with you. Aim to understand what their mandate is and what will make them successful in their role." [8]
On avoiding bad partnership terms: For early-stage startups, it's crucial to avoid long-term contracts and to build in tiered pricing that scales with your growth. [9]
On the different types of partnerships: Cordova categorizes partnerships into foundational (necessary for the product to exist), distribution (to reach new customers), and ecosystem (integrations that improve the product experience). [9]
On the power of a single champion: "Find that one customer who loves your product and is going to fight for you in the room with the partner that you're trying to acquire." [10]
On the uniqueness of your offering: "With any company when you're thinking about building partnerships, you have to focus on what makes you unique, what makes you special." [4]
On the failure rate of partnerships: Cordova estimates that 80-90% of the time, hiring someone to simply "go have conversations" about partnerships will not be successful without a clear strategy and product-market fit. [6]

On Product and Growth

On organic growth: Linear's growth has been "heavily organic," driven by people telling others about the product, which in turn builds a strong brand. [4]
On launching an API: "Just because you build out your APIs doesn't mean that someone's going to use it on the other side." She suggests sharing documentation with developers beforehand to get feedback. [1]
On understanding the customer journey: For most startups, a key to growth is to "think about their customers' journey and how they get to the product and how you can focus on blasting that out in various ways." [9]
On the importance of product experience: A great product experience can lead to word-of-mouth growth, as developers who use a tool on a side project may bring it to their full-time job. [6]
On not hacking growth: Cordova was drawn to Linear's values of "not hacking growth, really trying to earn it with customers, really focus on craft and building a product that people love." [4]
On the evolution of go-to-market: At Linear, the next challenge is to build a go-to-market organization to reach the many potential users who have never heard of the product. [4]
On the value of integration partnerships: Sometimes partnerships are crucial not for direct revenue, but because they create a much better product experience that becomes a key differentiator. [6]
On focusing on high-growth partners: Early on at Stripe, they focused on partnering with companies like Shopify that were also on a high-growth trajectory, which paid off in the long run. [4]
On the metrics that matter: Cordova cautions against a "growth at all costs" mentality. [2]
On the power of being the default: In the partnership with Shopify, Stripe pushed to be the default payment provider, which resulted in 99% of customers choosing them. [6]

On Leadership and Management

On leading a new team: "When you're coming into a new role, especially when you're leading a team of people, a lot of those people actually have more experience in that area than you do. So, it's a matter of thinking about what you bring to the table that the rest of the team doesn't." [2]
On building trust with technical teams: Treat every interaction with engineers as if you're getting a favor, as their time is a valuable resource. [5]
On ensuring understanding: After getting an explanation from an engineer, Cordova would "play it back to them" to test her own understanding and document it for future reference. [5]
On communication as a leader: Cordova views effective communication, both internally and externally, as the most critical skill for someone in a partnerships or leadership role. [9]
On making your counterpart successful: In a partnership, think about what you can do to make the individual you're working with look good. Their success can lead to greater opportunities for your company. [8]
On growing with the company: "Think about how you can grow with the company rather than letting the company grow around you." [2]
On the high leverage of a partnerships team: A partnerships team is not meant to scale in the same way as an engineering or sales team; its purpose is to execute a few very high-leverage deals. [2]
On hiring your first salesperson in a product-led company: At Stripe, they hired a "business person who wasn't a salesperson" to better align with their engineering and product-driven culture. [6]

Learn more:

Lessons from Cristina Cordova, COO of Linear

On Career Growth and Personal Development

On Building and Scaling Companies

On Partnerships and Business Development

On Product and Growth

On Leadership and Management

Written by Antoine Buteau

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