Figma burst into the general public eye in 2022 after Adobe was blocked from shopping for the design startup for $20 billion. This chapter set the stage for a good greater milestone at Figma: a splashy IPO this summer time at practically double that valuation. Cofounder and CEO Dylan Area shares what distinguishes Figma from opponents, and why design is more and more on the heart of each trade in at this time’s software-driven economic system.
That is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Quick Firm. From the staff behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Speedy Response options candid conversations with at this time’s prime enterprise leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Speedy Response wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you by no means miss an episode.
I ought to congratulate you since you had a blockbuster IPO this summer time. The inventory settled a bit, however you continue to acquired practically a $30 billion valuation, which is double what Adobe tried to purchase you for a few years in the past. Going public with a lot fanfare and a focus and success, has that been enjoyable? How a lot do you have a look at it as a distraction in some methods for you and your staff versus, “Let’s journey this wave so long as it’ll go, that is nice”?
I’ve been actually pleased with the staff. I feel nothing’s actually modified when it comes to our focus. I feel the day itself was not only a celebration of Figma, however a celebration of design and for design to go public in that method. I felt very honored to have the ability to be a part of that day. Hanging from the partitions on the New York Inventory Alternate we had the phrases, “Design is everybody’s enterprise.” There have been some champagne toasts, some individuals who have been singing karaoke that night time.
What’s your go-to karaoke track?
After two weeks of roadshow, my voice was gone, so I used to be simply attempting to make dialog, not sing that night time. However there have been some epic performances for positive.
I considered you numerous and the whiplash you needed to undergo with the Adobe merger getting blocked. I’m curious how the corporate’s completely different due to that have. Are you completely different? Are your merchandise completely different? There have been strategic causes you needed to turn out to be a part of Adobe initially.
It’s fascinating. The corporate that’s buying on this interval between signal and shut, they’ll’t direct actions, and that’s one thing I feel folks don’t actually know. And so we had our highway map going into the deal, and that was our highway map throughout the deal.
It didn’t change, and our foot I feel, was on the gasoline all through. And the extra that we began to must ask ourselves with simply regulatory being what it was, whether or not or not that was an accurate evaluation, not an accurate evaluation, we’ll depart it to historical past to inform. However I feel that all through as we noticed that regulatory threat was actual, that gave us much more impetus to say, “Foot on the gasoline much more.”
I used to be like, “Okay, if we’re a part of Adobe, nice, we’re getting into robust. And if we’re not, we must always undoubtedly be preserving our foot on the gasoline.” It was onerous. As you’re speaking with regulators all around the world, that’s virtually a full-time job in itself. And to try this whereas additionally preserving the corporate going at full pace after which some, the staff was unbelievable by way of that interval.
In some methods was that a part of the attraction for Adobe of getting Figma? Like, you guys are future instruments that they didn’t have sooner or later method of working. The place they need to go is the place you’re, and to a sure extent, perhaps the place they’re is among the locations you need to go.
We nonetheless don’t actually see Adobe as aggressive. I feel it’s the simple framing, perhaps. A number of the Adobe suite, I’m not dashing to go construct any of that. Now we have a lot to go cowl this journey from my knowledge product, and I feel that the main focus for us proper now could be on lots of the AI stuff . . . alternatives to make it in order that we will decrease the ground, deliver extra folks into the design course of, but in addition increase the ceiling, make it [possible for] designers [to] do extra.
It’s straightforward to say these phrases. It’s so much to execute on to truly make that actually good and as much as the requirements of designers. As a result of in the end all of us people, we anticipate extra from AI than we anticipate from a human. In the event you say, “Right here’s a small immediate to alter my spacing in a file,” Figma higher get it proper, in any other case folks dismiss it out of hand.
I’m not saying that we have now to do the work of a world-class designer, as a result of we received’t. There’s a necessity for designers to steer the cost, and AI will solely get you up to now. However the drudgery, how will we take away that from the design course of? How will we get extra entry to extra folks, deliver extra folks into the world of making prototypes and software program? These are our massive issues to chunk off.
I’ve seen that the phrase design and the definition of what a designer is are sometimes misunderstood by folks within the enterprise group, typically by buyers within the Wall Road group. Folks assume, Oh, designer, they’re deciding what shade the curtains are going to be or one thing like that. And I’ve had these conversations earlier than with Mark Parker when he was the CEO of Nike who was a designer, Brian Chesky at Airbnb. Designer CEOs are nonetheless a small membership. What do folks not perceive about design? What makes a designer CEO completely different?
There are one million definitions of design, however I at all times like to think about it as a sort of core problem-solving, and I feel that individuals go on this design journey and perhaps step one is like, does that even matter? I made one thing cool. Why do I would like a designer?
After which I feel sooner or later folks go, “Effectively, I ought to not less than make it fairly. I’ll hire a designer. How do I make it pop? How do I make it cool, horny?” After which I feel from there folks go, “Wait a second, perhaps that’s not sufficient as a result of I’m placing this in entrance of individuals—my product, my software program, my app—they usually don’t know the way to use it. They’re getting caught.”
And I feel then from there they sort of take into consideration, Okay, properly, what’s the general system? How do I feel by way of how this whole factor ought to work? What’s the model? What’s my perspective as a enterprise? What are the enterprise constraints? What’s the tradition proper now? How does that have an effect on every little thing?
It’s like you possibly can exit in these outer rings and simply maintain going. And I feel that designers have for a very long time had a mentality of virtually like this imposter syndrome. If you consider the way in which that design has advanced as a profession, there have been virtually no designers within the Nineties, early 2000s, only a few in quantity. They have been oftentimes misunderstood, and but they did unbelievable work regardless of it.
Then we acquired into the Apple period of “design is the way it works,” and Steve Jobs actually championing design. You began to see this fast progress within the variety of designers being employed. After we began Figma, we didn’t know if Figma design was a sufficiently big market as a result of the Bureau of Labor stated that there have been 250,000 designers or one thing like that in america. And the truth was that there’s this whole exponential pattern of what number of designers have been being employed and the way design-to-engineer ratios have been altering.
Via that progress, there have been new challenges that have been launched. How do I maintain every little thing constant when all these completely different design voices have all kinds of inventive concepts they need to discover? And likewise, how do I be environment friendly on a staff with many designers across the desk? How do I deliver my voice as a designer to the best ranges? How do I’ve a seat on the desk? And that was the meme then.
Effectively, now design has a seat on the desk within the period of at this time. I feel folks acknowledge the significance of design. They may not at all times perceive it, however everybody’s attempting to grasp it. So now I feel it’s like how will we lead? How does design deliver folks alongside and the way do extra designers step into roles the place they’ll information their organizations? As a result of the design strategy of pondering by way of other ways issues can work, diverging, after which with the ability to converge on an answer and ship it to prospects and iterate, that’s the enterprise course of that you simply undergo for every little thing, and that’s what everybody must be pondering by way of as they adapt on this new age of software program that we’re in.
