2020 — Year in Review
11 min readJan 4, 2021
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As for everyone else, the pandemic played a big part in this year. It forced us to think about new habits and ways, while it also gave us time to reflect and showed us what we can be grateful for. I’m grateful to live in a place that we can easily and safely enjoy the outside and take trips to nature. I’m also grateful that most of my family and friends were healthy and safe during this time.
Personally, 2020 was one the biggest years for me. We got married, moved to a new home, bought a property and adopted a cat. 2020 also marked the 8th year living in California for me.
Professionally it was also a great year. We were able to avoid the many challenges that other companies faced as Linear got started as a remote company. There wasn’t much adjustment when it came to the ways of working and we could keep going with our plans. I’m proud of what we achieved as a team this year, culminating in us raising a Series A funding from Sequoia. I also did my first two angel investments this year, personally and as a Sequoia Scout.
Stats:
- Books read: 17 (6,600 pages). Surprisingly read the least amount of books and pages in recent years. I think it’s likely because less travel and vacations which are usually times I have a lot of time to read
- Favorite scifi series: Red Rising by Pierce Brown
- Favorite non-fiction: Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire
- Avgrage hours slept: 6,5 hours (lower than previous years)
- Average daily steps: 6,313 (lower than previous years)
- Time spent on Zoom: 175 hours
I didn’t write year in review for 2019 but here is 2018 — Year in Review.
January:
- On NYE, we flew from Lapland, Finland to Helsinki to ring in the new year
- I was mentioned “35 under 35 Future talent” list in the Finnish business Journal Talouselämä
- As soon as I returned from Finland, had to take a trip to San Francisco for a Linear investors meeting
- From San Francisco I continued to NYC for our 2020 planning offsite with the whole Linear team (4 people).
- As I flew in NYC, I decided to stay in the TWA Terminal which just opened as a hotel. The TWA terminal was designed by another Finn, Eero Saarinen, in the early 60s.
- We had moved to San Diego already in 2019, but we didn’t have our own place yet. We ended up finding a rental we loved with wonderful landlords and neighbors.
February:
- This month also started with a trip to SF. I was a speaker at the Figma Config event, where I talked about making an impact as an IC (individual contributor
- We bought a car for the first time in decade
- We took a day trip to Temecula, the wine region nearby
- At the end of the month, I started reading more about COVID-19 and became worried how bad it might get and the global disruption it could cause. I put in Amazon orders and went to Costco to resupply on some of the essentials
- Also purchased a BBQ which became handly as well when the pandemic and lockdowns started
March
- Got some sauna time at the nearby spa in Rancho Santa Fe
- As the pandemic started in full also in the US, we adjusted to the new reality. Dup up my old masks from my earthquake kit and went to grocery shopping as infrequently as possible
- Hired new engineer to Linear (4th)
April:
- We started looking for a cat. A few years back, we catsat an orange Maine Coon who we loved. We wanted something similar. Luckily a two year old orange Maine Coon was looking to be rescured in LA. We drove in pouring rain and traffic to meet the cat rescue volunteer in a local Petco. We on the way we decided to name him Eames, since back in the day, designers Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen collaborated on projects.
- While scared a first, he quickly became a confident, happy and social cat who always wants to be in the same room with us.
- Our wedding in Finland was planned for July. For months, I was following the COVID-19 numbers, reading and making my own predictions. Finally, we saw that there was no way international travel would open up nor would it be safe to organize a large gathering. Sadly, we had to make the call and tell the guests the wedding would be postponed
May:
- We were lucky to live outside major urban areas and could spend time outside walking, biking or barbecuing
- We did roadtrip to Big Bear lake and hiked the mountains and rented a jet ski
June:
- I got a call from my parents that my grandfather, and my last remaining grandparent, had passed away and the small funeral would be held if possible.
- We’re planning to get officially married in the US before the actual wedding in Finland. We decided to go ahead and get married in 2020, so we could both travel to Finland to see my family and go to the funeral. In 3 weeks, we found a photographer and a family friend who could host our small ceremony. In the end the wedding turned out to be quite nice although we missed many of our friends and family. Catherine and I are really happy to be married.
- We opened up Linear for everyone from private beta and announced our pricing. I was glad to see that most companies from the beta upgraded to the paid plan.
July:
- Hired an engineer for Linear (5th team member)
- Had friends visit us and we went to roadtrip to Idyllwild
- Flew to Finland. Spent the first 10 days quarantining in my sister’s empty house and then in a rented cottage by a lake in Jyväskylä. We hiked in the forest, picked blueberries and wild strawberries.
- For a few years, we’ve been also looking for a place in Finland where we could spend more time with my family. I was quite lucky a property came on the market which was around the area I was looking. It was an old fisherman’s farm which had been in the family for 160 over years. We fell in love with the place. It projects a certain kind of ancient calmness along a natural harbor with millions of years old bedrock running through the land.
- This will be an interesting project. The property lacks most modern conveniences like running water and plumbing. The houses are old and we plan to start new construction in 2021.
August:
- Hired a designer and customer experience lead for Linear (6th and 7th)
- After the quarantine was done, we spend time with my family and took a boat to the Svartholm Sea Fortress, picked more berries, mushroom and made juice
- We spent some days in Helsinki and did our annual bike ride to Mustikkamaa (Blueberryland) island. We also enjoyed the new socially distanced restaurant popups the city had set up in the main square
- Went to grandfather’s funeral and flew back to San Diego
September:
- Went apple picking at an orchard in Julian, California
- Hired an engineer for Linear (8th team member)
October:
- With winter coming, I needed to fly to Finland to winterize our new property and also learn more about it. I was planning to be there for a week, but one week turned to two as I asked Catherine to join me there to make decisions on the property. Two weeks turned into three and half. We worked there remotely quite well, with 60mbps 4G connection which got more stable as I installed antennas on the roof. In the mornings, I would pile the firewood from the shed, watch the birds swim by and take walks in the forest. Catherine and I would clean up our 6 acres and cut back overgrown bushes and trees. In the evenings, we would heat up the sauna and water and wash with the rainwater we had collected. We enjoyed the still sunsets and dawns over the Baltic Sea.
- We found potatoes still in the ground left by the previous owners. We dug some of them up and ate them. As a Finn, growing potatoes has always been a dream of mine. We also explored our forest and found juniper trees, blueberry & lingonberry bushes, mushrooms and lichen meadows.
- We got a new well drilled which hopefully means we will have some good water for next year and won’t have to continue washing and bathing with rainwater.
- After quarantining at the property, we could see my family again. We visited the town of Strömfors and hiked in the forest.
November:
- Closed Linear’s Series A funding from Sequoia. We’ve been working with Sequoia since our seed round and were happy to partner with them again. This also made the process quite streamlined and after closing the other investors I could go back to building quite quickly again
- Spent Thanksgiving with Catherine and her mom
- Every holiday season in San Francisco, we would get Irish coffees from Buena Vista. This year it wasn’t possible, so we made our own which turned out quite nice
December:
- We wanted to wrap up and end the year on a high note by announcing our Series A and highlighting all the new features with the Linear Release.
- Hired a Talent Lead for Linear (9th team tember)
- It was quite a year for Linear. We started 2020 with 4 people in the team, product still in private beta and no revenue to speak of. By December, Linear was launched out of private beta, grew the team to 9 people, raised a Series A with growing revenue. On the product side we delivered 42 changelogs, including hundreds of bug fixes, tens of iterative core improvements, key integrations and several major new features.
- It has been great to see Linear adopted and become a tool of choice for fast moving startups in Silicon Valley and globally
- Did a community event with Linear where over 50 people joined.
- Did a podcast interview with Capiche.fm
- Celebrated Finnish independence day with some homemade blinis and Finnish Christmas Star pastries
- Baked some Finnish cardamom rolls for our neighbors
- Airbnb, where I worked for 3 years as a Principal Designer, became a public company. It was quite nostalgic to join a Zoom call with old co-workers and can generally connect people on the Alumni Slack
- Explored the tidepools by the beach
- As we didn’t spend Christmas in Finland this year, I decided to learn how to make a Christmas Ham from scratch.
- Took a road trip to Las Vegas, Capitol Reef Park, Canyonlands, Arches, Flagstaff and Phoenix
- Rang the new year in Scottsdale, Arizona.
