At Airbnb, I was frustrated with Jira. So frustrated I built a Chrome extension that completely restyled it. It got 100+ installs internally.

The Bar Conversation

Years later, I met with Jori (from Coinbase) and Tuomas (from Uber) for beers. They had the same frustrations. That night, we decided: let's build something better.

One Year of Validation

We didn't rush to quit our jobs. For a year, we met every Wednesday at a bar near our offices, talking to colleagues about what frustrated them about existing tools. The biggest complaint: everything was too slow.

Building for Ourselves

In March 2019, we quit and started building. We were extremely opinionated - like Apple, we provided strong defaults rather than endless customization. The goal: build something we'd actually enjoy using every day.

Selective Early Users

We launched a private beta with a waitlist of 10,000 emails. But we only invited about 10 people per week - handpicked based on survey responses. We wanted the most motivated users who matched our target: IC product builders at fast-growing startups.

Profitable from the Start

We hit profitability early and stayed profitable. This gave us freedom to focus on quality over metrics. No compromises. We've been profitable for 4+ years now.

• Founded: 2019
• Private beta users: 1,000 DAU before public launch
• Seed: $4.2M (Nov 2019)
• Valuation: $1.25B
• Team: 70 people (remote)