I didn’t think anything could top Canva. Democratising design by making it cheap and bringing it to the web. I thought Canva had done it. Then these guys come along.
Today, after three years of silence and hard work, I finally get to announce the launch of Figma, a collaborative interface design tool.
Oh?
When we started working on Figma, we knew it was possible to build a fast and stable graphics tool in the browser, but we had no idea how hard it would be. From vector rendering to font layout to a million performance edge cases, getting here hasn’t been easy. Designers have high expectations for a tool they rely on every day! After dogfooding Figma internally for the past eighteen months and working closely with alpha customers, I’m confident we’ve reached this high bar.
It all boils down to the pricing. If Sketch can come up with a windows version and Adobe continues in their path of subscription based services. Then neither Comet nor Figma will matter that much in 2016.
Figma is not a killer of anything and would fade away in the world of designers like the rest of the Cloud-based mockup and prototyping tools that came before it, especially in these our climes.
Sketch (Which i presume is “Photoshops killer”) is still relevant and its only competitor imo is Adobe Project Comet. Google made the wrong bet on Pixate and are probably regretting it (its been 6 months guys???). There are others that offer what Figma offers that havent taken off.
When I caught wind of his seed round forming, I remember texting and emailing him nonstop. I’m sure he was a little annoyed. I didn’t know what I was really doing from an investment standpoint at that time, but I just liked Dylan. Unfortunately, at that time, Dylan kept his moves very quiet and I wasn’t able to jam into the round. Now writing this today, I do remember texting him and he was very polite. I had to respect his desire to keep quiet.
Nearly two years later, Dylan emailed me about catching up, and the news was he was doing another bigger round and invited me to participate. We caught up and I heard about the plan, finally. It was great. I asked a few questions, and slept on it, and Dylan was very thoughtful about giving me time, answering any questions, and we explored a few ways I could help, even as a small part of a larger round.
I knew it was a good decision when I read how Dylan started his post this week about announcing his new product. “Today, after three years of silence and hard work, I finally get to announce the launch of Figma, a collaborative interface design tool.” That is true. For three years, Dylan resisted the press, the gossip rings, and the desire among some to announce half-baked things to the world. He was, instead, just focused on building a product to solve a problem he saw.
It’s cool to work underground, but there’s a big problem:
The tech world is too fluid, too progressive that working on something for 3 years requires careful considerations. Usually, the best things to work on for such a duration would be groundbreaking stuff like say, the iPad or etc. Because by the time you’re ready, what you’re building is already history in the present day. Especially if it’s a Web app.
So back to Figma. I personally don’t think they’re killing anyone. 3 years ago a collaborative design app would have been unbeatable and totally out of this world. 3 years ago I’m not even sure there was Canva yet. And Sketch wasn’t this popular. Besides, there’s nothing serious that Figma brings that Canva can’t add in a matter of months. Meanwhile in the space of those 3 years Canva has built, launched, iterated and grown. Just because you’ve spent longer time on a product doesn’t guarantee success, neither does it even mean it’s better thought out.
Figma is cool and stuff. But killer? I don’t think so.
Thanks for the writeup! I’m on the Figma team and I’d love to give you access to the tool. Just shoot me your email address and I’ll take you off the waitlist.
You are right on point. This is the difference between a Product-Development Focused Team and a Customer-Development Focused Team. It is also the difference between a losing team and a winning team. I don’t understand why someone will be underground for 3 years unless that product is so groundbreaking and original.
