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From $0 Ad Spend to $12.5B: The Figma StoryㅣClaire Butler & Corey Lee

EO22:39Added Aug 31, 2026

Figma's first marketer Claire Butler and Design Advocate Cory Lee share essential tips on Figma's Growth Strategy.From changing the product name on day one t...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Highlight

  2. 00:00So the first day that I joined Figma, I
  3. 00:02remember I was sitting in a presentation
  4. 00:03and Dylan was kind of walking me through
  5. 00:05stuff, showing the product and the name
  6. 00:07of the tool at the time was actually
  7. 00:09called Summit. And I remember I thought
  8. 00:10to myself like this just isn't going to
  9. 00:12work. Metrics are so important, but I
  10. 00:14feel like when you're doing something
  11. 00:16really early and you're like, I have to
  12. 00:1710x this, I have to 100x this, I have
  13. 00:20to,000x this, you kind of have to go
  14. 00:22more on intuition and more on feeling, I
  15. 00:24think, and really believe that because
  16. 00:26metrics just aren't going to get you the
  17. 00:27answers that you're looking for. If you
  18. 00:29joined Figma, you had to start spending
  19. 00:31time answering support questions. And so
  20. 00:34it sounds like pretty un unscalable,
  21. 00:36right? Oh, you have your engineers
  22. 00:37sitting there answering support tickets,
  23. 00:39fixing bugs, like you can't do that
  24. 00:42forever. That doesn't scale. But
  25. 00:43actually, it does scale. You think about
  26. 00:46people as companies. And I think the
  27. 00:48biggest advice that I would give is like
  28. 00:49people are people, right? And I think
  29. 00:51you see that it can conf like you'll see
  30. 00:53people and you'll talk to them and
  31. 00:54you'll be chatting. It sounds so basic,
  32. 00:56right? But like I think so often in
  33. 00:57marketing we we split people into like
  34. 00:59you as a person at your desk and you as
  35. 01:02a person outside of that. Whereas we try
  36. 01:04to think of people as one person. It
  37. 01:06wasn't like let's have a communitydriven
  38. 01:08strategy. It was just we need to listen
  39. 01:11to our users and we need to build a
  40. 01:12product that's going to be really useful
  41. 01:14for them and they know what their
  42. 01:16problems are more than we do and we need
  43. 01:18to spend time with them and and fix
  44. 01:20their problems.
  45. 01:21[Applause]
  46. 01:25Hi, I'm Claire. Uh, I'm the director of
  47. 01:27brand marketing here at Figma. I was
  48. 01:29also the first marketer and yeah, I've
  49. 01:32been here since the beginning. So,
  50. 01:33coming up on 9 years of Figma. So, it's
  51. 01:36been it's really fun for me to see
  52. 01:37everything come together today.
  53. 01:41My name is Cory. I'm designer advocate
  54. 01:43here at Figma. Um, I'm based in Tokyo
  55. 01:45and I've been here at Figma for about 2
  56. 01:47years and been a longtime Figma user in
  57. 01:50community. As a designer advocate, I'm
  58. 01:51part of our community team. My role is a
  59. 01:54mixture of helping build community but
  60. 01:57while also helping enable um designers.
  61. 01:59So um could you give us an overview of
  62. 02:01your career um before joining Figma?
  63. 02:03Sure. Uh it's kind of funny. It's hard
  64. 02:05to remember a time before Figma because
  65. 02:07I've been here for uh 9 years. I was at
  66. 02:09another startup before that called
  67. 02:11Climate Corporation and Index Ventures
  68. 02:13was one of the investors in uh Climate
  69. 02:15Corp. and we got acquired and you know I
  70. 02:18kind of knew a big company wasn't for me
  71. 02:19and I I really wanted to roll up my
  72. 02:21sleeves and and do something early
  73. 02:22stage. So Danny Rhyr who is was the lead
  74. 02:25investor over at the last company I was
  75. 02:27at uh also invested was the first seed
  76. 02:29investor for Dylan. So um I was meeting
  77. 02:32a bunch of different startups and
  78. 02:33different companies and uh Danny
  79. 02:35introduced me to Dylan and I met Dylan
  80. 02:37and kind of just decided that that was
  81. 02:40it and that's that's you know went from
  82. 02:42there. When I started at Figma, we were
  83. 02:44pretty launched. So, there was there
  84. 02:45wasn't even a product. There wasn't a
  85. 02:47company, you know, there wasn't even a
  86. 02:49name, honestly. We were going to name it
  87. 02:50something else at the beginning. So, I I
  88. 02:52think back to just how much we've grown
  89. 02:54and evolved over the past 9 years and
  90. 02:56where we are today. And it really blows
  91. 02:58my mind. It's just so amazing to see the
  92. 03:01excitement. I just got emotional
  93. 03:03watching all the people come in and just
  94. 03:05how many people how many how much Figma
  95. 03:07means to so many people and how many
  96. 03:08people love it and use it every day.
  97. 03:10It's just a surreal moment for me to see
  98. 03:12everything come together. What was the
  99. 03:14first thing that you did after you
  100. 03:16joined Figma? Literal first thing I did.

  101. What Figma’s First Marketer Did on Day One

  102. 03:18So the first day that I joined Figma, I
  103. 03:20remember I was sitting in a presentation
  104. 03:22and Dylan was kind of walking me through
  105. 03:24stuff, showing the product, also showing
  106. 03:26me where to like the bathroom was like
  107. 03:28all of the basics that you get on your
  108. 03:29first day. And uh I saw one presentation
  109. 03:32where they were going through some of
  110. 03:33the branding for Figma and some of the
  111. 03:35different naming and how they were
  112. 03:37thinking about launching it. And the
  113. 03:38name of the tool at the time was
  114. 03:40actually called Summit. And so um Figma
  115. 03:43was always the name of the company, but
  116. 03:44we had the strategy at the time where
  117. 03:46the tool would be called Summit and like
  118. 03:48the Figma editor. And then the company
  119. 03:51would be called Figma. And I remember I
  120. 03:52thought to myself like this just isn't
  121. 03:54going to work. Like uh nobody knows who
  122. 03:56we are. Summit is just like a really
  123. 03:59basic name. There's PCs named Summit.
  124. 04:01There's apps named Summit. This isn't
  125. 04:03anything we can own. And so I remember
  126. 04:05saying just kind of off the cuff like,
  127. 04:07"Hey, like how locked is this? Is this
  128. 04:09something we can change?" And Dylan was
  129. 04:11like, "Yeah, what do you think?" And and
  130. 04:13I was like, "Well, I I really think we
  131. 04:14should probably only have one name. We
  132. 04:16can't really have two." Um, and he's
  133. 04:18like, "Well, well, how about you think
  134. 04:20about that more and make a presentation
  135. 04:22and and maybe can show everybody it and
  136. 04:24then we can talk about it." And I said,
  137. 04:25"Okay, cool. Like what does what does
  138. 04:26the timeline look like for that?" And he
  139. 04:27said, "How about tomorrow?" And I was
  140. 04:30like, "Okay." And so uh I remember the
  141. 04:34literal first thing I did on my first
  142. 04:35day was um make a presentation about how
  143. 04:39the product should be called Figma and
  144. 04:40not Summit. And that was the first thing
  145. 04:42I did. When Figma first launched people
  146. 04:45saying especially among designers like
  147. 04:47there are a lot of people liking the
  148. 04:49product but also saying oh if this is
  149. 04:51the future of design then I would quit
  150. 04:53design or like this is not the future I
  151. 04:55want as a designer. So, as a first
  152. 04:58marketer at uh Figma, like what were
  153. 05:01your like go to market strategy or like
  154. 05:03how did you deal with these market

  155. Figma's First Go-To-Market Strategy?

  156. 05:05response? You know, I think it's really
  157. 05:06interesting because as a marketer
  158. 05:09working online and collaboratively, it's
  159. 05:11it's just intuitive to me, right? Like
  160. 05:12was used to using Google Docs, was used
  161. 05:14to just having Google Slides, a sauna,
  162. 05:16these things where you just have things
  163. 05:18constantly updated and working really
  164. 05:20collaboratively. But it didn't really
  165. 05:21click for me until I saw the response.
  166. 05:23Honestly, that, you know, before design
  167. 05:25didn't really work that way. People were
  168. 05:27used to working in these offline tools
  169. 05:29and sharing when they're done and doing
  170. 05:31these like beautiful presentations and
  171. 05:33showing kind of more of a finished
  172. 05:34product. Um, and so yeah, there was a
  173. 05:36lot of questioning uh of that in the
  174. 05:38early days. I think that there's a
  175. 05:40couple things that I keep in mind when I
  176. 05:42think of like how to approach something
  177. 05:43like that. The first is, you know, you
  178. 05:46have to have a level of confidence that
  179. 05:48you're going to keep going anyway,
  180. 05:50right? Like there's some people who
  181. 05:52don't like it. There's different
  182. 05:53adoption curves and it's okay. Not
  183. 05:55everyone likes your product right away.
  184. 05:57So this just having a general confidence
  185. 05:59in that and a belief that that's the way
  186. 06:00to go and that's the vision and we're
  187. 06:02going to stick with it is very
  188. 06:03important. And then I think the other
  189. 06:05thing that we did that was really really
  190. 06:07helpful was we really looked at design
  191. 06:10is an interesting space where uh you
  192. 06:12know people really learn from each other
  193. 06:13and so people are always looking to
  194. 06:15other influencers or other people to
  195. 06:17help understand you know what's the
  196. 06:18latest in design how do you work how
  197. 06:20should we work so we really built a lot
  198. 06:22of relationships and focused on building
  199. 06:24relationships with people who had a lot
  200. 06:26of thought in the space a lot of thought
  201. 06:28leadership and um talked to them about
  202. 06:31things. So even if they had a negative
  203. 06:33reaction at first or weren't sure about
  204. 06:35something we were doing, we just engaged
  205. 06:36in conversation and talked about it and
  206. 06:39uh you know over time heard their
  207. 06:41opinions, we shared our opinions, got
  208. 06:43feedback from them and that was a a
  209. 06:45really important thing where maybe
  210. 06:46initially people had concerns but as we
  211. 06:49built trust with them, built
  212. 06:50credibility, uh people started using the
  213. 06:52tool that was really important and they
  214. 06:55changed their minds. I'm also curious
  215. 06:57like Corey your response when you first
  216. 06:59got to know Figma but as a designer
  217. 07:01didn't didn't you have any like mixed
  218. 07:03feelings towards the product or as a
  219. 07:05designer like what were your thoughts on

  220. A Designer’s First Impression of Using Figma

  221. 07:07the product as a designer at the time I
  222. 07:10was using Figma this was probably like
  223. 07:112016 2017 like a lot of different design
  224. 07:14tools were coming out like when every
  225. 07:15week seemed like there was different
  226. 07:16design tool like and I was you know
  227. 07:17using one tool as my main tool but like
  228. 07:20I would be using another tool beta
  229. 07:22testing it like on the side and like
  230. 07:23recreating the design like every week
  231. 07:25and testing you know, these AB testing,
  232. 07:26these design choices to see like which
  233. 07:28one is the is going to be the best one,
  234. 07:29which one I just I switched to and like
  235. 07:31through that whole process, like one of
  236. 07:32them I found like Figma and I was using
  237. 07:35Figma and I I picked it up for a bit and
  238. 07:37I was like, "Okay, this is web- based.
  239. 07:39This is kind of interesting, but like it
  240. 07:41doesn't make much difference compared to
  241. 07:44like what I'm using now, right?" And
  242. 07:45then um I went back to it for some
  243. 07:47reason again to use it and I started
  244. 07:50thinking about the collaboration
  245. 07:51features, right? I was just like, "Wait,
  246. 07:52wait, you can just Oh, it's web- based.
  247. 07:54You can just share a link. I don't have
  248. 07:55to like export this and every single
  249. 07:57time it's my final final final final
  250. 07:59version. Send that again and then I you
  251. 08:00know I could just share that and it's
  252. 08:02always up to date and thinking about
  253. 08:03like the repercussions of that of like
  254. 08:05how that would change the way interact
  255. 08:08uh and just reduce the friction I think
  256. 08:10was just a big thing I think about a lot
  257. 08:12of time uh in the process. So I was like
  258. 08:14oh well to realize the value that I
  259. 08:16actually have to do use this tool with
  260. 08:17somebody else. So that the first thing I
  261. 08:19did was okay let me find some other
  262. 08:21people on my team that I can get to get
  263. 08:22in the tool and let's use it together.
  264. 08:24And then once I did that, they
  265. 08:26understood it. I understood it. I was
  266. 08:27like, "Okay, this is a game changer."
  267. 08:29You know, once you start using it
  268. 08:30together, you just realize it's like
  269. 08:32it's completely different experience.
  270. 08:33And I think that was when it was
  271. 08:34clicked. And then I realized that and
  272. 08:36then I was like, "Oh, I need to get my
  273. 08:37whole team on this. I need to get
  274. 08:38everyone in this and get everyone in the
  275. 08:40file." Before I was like going to
  276. 08:41introduce my team to it. There was
  277. 08:42actually an issue with like Japanese
  278. 08:44input. Um, and you know, back in the
  279. 08:47day, like I you still have it today in
  280. 08:49the bottom like right corner of Figma,
  281. 08:50there's a little question mark right
  282. 08:51there. And if you push that you can have
  283. 08:52like you can send a message right to the
  284. 08:54help desk and get support on that.
  285. 08:56Right? So I was using Figma and when you
  286. 08:58input the Japanese characters it
  287. 08:59wouldn't show up correctly. Japanese was
  288. 09:01basically broken in Pigma at the time. I
  289. 09:03was like oh this is great but like I'm
  290. 09:05in Japan and like I'm I'm designing in
  291. 09:07Japanese so I can't use this on my team
  292. 09:09until this is fixed, right? I was like
  293. 09:11uh maybe I'll just try to send some
  294. 09:13support and see what happens, you know?
  295. 09:14So I I told him I I sent some
  296. 09:16screenshots. I sent a detailed request
  297. 09:18and I said, "Hey, you know, this thing
  298. 09:20is broken here. and if you could fix
  299. 09:21this, this would really be helpful for
  300. 09:22your Japanese users, right? And then
  301. 09:24couple weeks go by and I pick it up
  302. 09:26again and it's fixed. And I was like,
  303. 09:28wow, this is pretty nice. I was I was
  304. 09:30like, the tool is pretty cool, but I was
  305. 09:31like, what was really really cool was
  306. 09:33it's like, oh, I gave this feedback and
  307. 09:34then they fix that. But also, I know
  308. 09:36that like they're accepting feedback
  309. 09:37from the community and the speed of that
  310. 09:39iteration is is something that it gives
  311. 09:41me confidence that um so I think like
  312. 09:44changing tools is like an investment for
  313. 09:45the whole team. That was kind of me
  314. 09:47weighing the option. I was just like,
  315. 09:48"Okay, I'm really kind of investing in
  316. 09:50this team and I'm going to tell my team
  317. 09:52we should use this this product." So,
  318. 09:53you joined Figma before the product
  319. 09:55launch. How did you approach marketing
  320. 09:58marketing a product that was still in

  321. Tips for Marketing a Product Before Launch

  322. 10:00self mode? So, I was the first marketing
  323. 10:01hire, but I was also the first just go
  324. 10:03to market person. In the beginning, when
  325. 10:05we didn't have a product, I would go
  326. 10:07around and drive around PaloAlto, San
  327. 10:09Francisco with Dylan, and we would just
  328. 10:11pitch Figma to differenti. We made a
  329. 10:14bunch of connections in different design
  330. 10:15teams and we would just go there and we
  331. 10:18we'd show them the product. And so a lot
  332. 10:20of what I did in the early days was meet
  333. 10:22these people, gather their feedback,
  334. 10:25kind of like what Corey was saying and
  335. 10:26in that more of a one-on-one setting and
  336. 10:28hear what they thought about the tool.
  337. 10:29And then uh we were really trying to
  338. 10:31understand okay when are we ready to go
  339. 10:33at it stealth then launch la la la la la
  340. 10:34la la la la la la la la la la la la la
  341. 10:34la la la la la la la la la la la la la
  342. 10:34la la la la la la la la la la la la la
  343. 10:34la la la la la la la la la la la la la
  344. 10:34la la launch the product and so a lot of
  345. 10:36what I was doing was trying to
  346. 10:38understand you know our teams ready to
  347. 10:40adopt this and is the the tool good
  348. 10:42enough to launch. I think it's such a
  349. 10:44balance that you have to think about
  350. 10:46where it's like, okay, we want to get
  351. 10:48out of self and want to get in this this
  352. 10:49people's hands, but if it's not good
  353. 10:51enough, then it's also like, well, we're
  354. 10:53going to lose our chance. You only get
  355. 10:54one shot to launch. And like, what were
  356. 10:57some of the factors that made that
  357. 10:58decision? Yeah, it's hard, right? It's
  358. 11:01such a a hard question for people
  359. 11:03because you really do only get one
  360. 11:05chance to launch the product and you
  361. 11:07want to do it right and so you want it
  362. 11:09to be good when people are all going in
  363. 11:11and looking at the tool. You want them
  364. 11:13to have a good experience. So that's on
  365. 11:14one hand, but then on the other hand,
  366. 11:16you don't want to wait too long, right?
  367. 11:18Because the tool, the team had already
  368. 11:19been building the tool for years before
  369. 11:21I got there. You want to keep things
  370. 11:22going. You want to start building with
  371. 11:24people and getting their feedback. And
  372. 11:26so it is a really hard balance. It's
  373. 11:28definitely more of an art than a science
  374. 11:30in terms of, you know, when to launch.
  375. 11:32And I remember I was sitting in this
  376. 11:34meeting and someone literally took the
  377. 11:36laptop out of Dylan's hands because they
  378. 11:38wanted to play with it. I don't think
  379. 11:39that they didn't mean to like didn't
  380. 11:40take a laptop, but they were just like,
  381. 11:41"That's so cool. I have to try it." And
  382. 11:44I think once they saw people starting to
  383. 11:46do that, that was like, "Okay, this is
  384. 11:49this feels like it's kind of ready." One
  385. 11:51of the biggest challenges that we had in
  386. 11:53terms of deciding when to launch was
  387. 11:56multiplayer wasn't actually done when we
  388. 11:58launched Figma. It just was going to
  389. 12:00take like another year for for
  390. 12:02multiplayer to be done. And so that was
  391. 12:04a really hard decision at the time where
  392. 12:06it was like this is our most important
  393. 12:08feature arguably and we know it's going
  394. 12:10to take another year before it's done.
  395. 12:12And the decision that we had to make
  396. 12:13was, you know, do we launch without
  397. 12:15multiplayer or do we wait another year?
  398. 12:18And we decided just to go for it and to
  399. 12:20launch and to start getting feedback,
  400. 12:22start getting in people's hands, keep it
  401. 12:24in beta even though we knew it wasn't
  402. 12:26finished. But that is such a hard
  403. 12:27challenge, right? Like I think there'd
  404. 12:29be a lot of good arguments on why you
  405. 12:30should wait uh for the the core feature
  406. 12:33to be done, but it definitely becomes
  407. 12:34kind of more of an art than a science at
  408. 12:36that point in terms of making that
  409. 12:37decision cuz you also just got to keep
  410. 12:38the momentum up too. Metrics are so
  411. 12:40important, but I feel like you can't
  412. 12:42really look at them that closely when
  413. 12:44you're in a micro setting like that. You
  414. 12:46kind of have to go on anecdotes, right?
  415. 12:49Like we didn't have enough people to
  416. 12:50like have these metrics dashboards and
  417. 12:52be like look at the usage over time,
  418. 12:54right? Like honestly, we were meeting
  419. 12:57these teams and what we looked at was
  420. 12:59like at at the beginning, can we get one
  421. 13:00team to transfer full-time? And it
  422. 13:03sounds so funny because it's like our
  423. 13:04metric was like zero or one, right? It's
  424. 13:07not like you're looking at these
  425. 13:08dashboards. And that's why I feel like
  426. 13:10sometimes when you're doing something
  427. 13:12really early and you're like, I have to
  428. 13:1310x this, I have to 100x this. I have to
  429. 13:15thousandx this. you kind of have to go
  430. 13:17more on intuition and more on feeling I
  431. 13:20think and really believe that because
  432. 13:21metrics just aren't going to get you the
  433. 13:23answers that you're looking for. What
  434. 13:25were your um team or your um plan or
  435. 13:28strategy on building this community and
  436. 13:31um how important was that at the time? I

  437. Figma’s Playbook for Building a Loved Community

  438. 13:34wouldn't say in the beginnings we ever
  439. 13:36set out to like have a communitydriven
  440. 13:38strategy. Kind of to just take to
  441. 13:40parallel Corey's story with what was
  442. 13:42happening at Figma at the time. In the
  443. 13:43early days of Figma, that little
  444. 13:45question mark button that Cory was
  445. 13:47talking about, uh we didn't really have
  446. 13:49a full-time support team or it took a
  447. 13:51while for us to do that. And so our
  448. 13:52engineers would rotate and answer those
  449. 13:54questions. And so it makes a lot of
  450. 13:56sense that somebody reported a bug and
  451. 13:59that Corey reported a bug and then one
  452. 14:01of our engineers saw that and just fixed
  453. 14:03it, right? Like that's just kind of what
  454. 14:05happened. It was really all hands on
  455. 14:06deck. And Dylan, our CEO, really
  456. 14:08believed that we need to be as close to
  457. 14:11the users of our product as possible.
  458. 14:13And so even even now that like up until
  459. 14:15a long time ago or until recently if you
  460. 14:18joined Figma you had to start spending
  461. 14:20time answering support questions because
  462. 14:23he wanted people to know and understand
  463. 14:25what the problems were and be really
  464. 14:26close to what that looked like. So
  465. 14:28that's been integrated and woven into
  466. 14:30who we are since the beginning. And
  467. 14:33along with that it's really building the
  468. 14:35product alongside of the users of the
  469. 14:38product. It wasn't like we thought to
  470. 14:40ourselves like let's have a
  471. 14:41communitydriven strategy. It was just we
  472. 14:44need to listen to our users and we need
  473. 14:46to build a product that's going to be
  474. 14:47really useful for them and they know
  475. 14:50what their problems are more than we do
  476. 14:52and we need to spend time with them and
  477. 14:54and fix their problems. And there's
  478. 14:55people like Corey, like Corey was one of
  479. 14:57those people that put it went into the
  480. 14:59chat, but there were thousands of other
  481. 15:01Corey's. That idea of listening to
  482. 15:03people and then having a personal
  483. 15:05relationship, really becoming close with
  484. 15:08them and then having them go spread
  485. 15:11Figma to their company, to their
  486. 15:13communities, to where they live. That's
  487. 15:15just what we did at scale. And so it
  488. 15:17sounds like pretty un unscalable, right?
  489. 15:20Oh, you have your engineers sitting
  490. 15:21there answering support tickets, fixing
  491. 15:23bugs, like you can't do that forever.
  492. 15:26That doesn't scale. But actually, it
  493. 15:28does scale because once we empowered
  494. 15:31him, he can burn it his team. He grew a
  495. 15:34community in Tokyo, right? Like that has
  496. 15:36a huge amount of ramifications down the
  497. 15:38line. Um, and so that's what that
  498. 15:40strategy looks like when it when it does
  499. 15:42scale, right? It's it's how those people
  500. 15:45these people who you really build these
  501. 15:46strong relationships with then spread
  502. 15:48Figma for you. That's the whole crux of
  503. 15:51a community tribute strategy. The advice
  504. 15:53I would give is focus on a niche because
  505. 15:55it's so hard to be too broad, especially
  506. 15:58when you're new and you're early and you
  507. 16:01don't have a brand yet and find out who
  508. 16:03your users are and have somebody who
  509. 16:05really understands them be the face of
  510. 16:07face of what you're doing. We definitely
  511. 16:09started with designers. you were very
  512. 16:11focused. It had very specific niche of
  513. 16:13designers. They wanted someone who
  514. 16:15really understood their pain points,
  515. 16:17what they were going through, what it
  516. 16:18was like to design. And that's when for
  517. 16:22me, I realized that immediately and I
  518. 16:24was like, I don't know this. I can study
  519. 16:26it. I can I could try and and learn my
  520. 16:29best. I I have over the years, but at
  521. 16:30the end of the day, I'm not a
  522. 16:32classically trained designer. It's not
  523. 16:34my my core expertise. And so that's when
  524. 16:37I you know I decided I was like we have
  525. 16:38to hire somebody who knows this really
  526. 16:40really really well and have them be the
  527. 16:42face of this and having them be the
  528. 16:43people who are talking with users who
  529. 16:46are creating content who are checking
  530. 16:48all of our marketing um who are helping
  531. 16:50us do things and that's that's when we
  532. 16:52decided to have a user from the
  533. 16:54community come join the team and that
  534. 16:56that function has scaled. How did you um
  535. 16:59come up with this idea of having like an
  536. 17:01offline um community and how did that um

  537. Config’s First Chapter

  538. 17:05scale also? Totally. So in the early
  539. 17:07days uh we did meetups and so that's
  540. 17:09what it looked like at the beginning.
  541. 17:10Some people were skeptics in the
  542. 17:12beginning, right? And maybe they'd want
  543. 17:14to go to meet other designers or they'd
  544. 17:15show up, but we realized how valuable it
  545. 17:18was to bring people together and to
  546. 17:19talk. And we just saw how amazing it was
  547. 17:22when people just learn best practices
  548. 17:24from each other um and just learn from
  549. 17:26being together. and we were able to
  550. 17:28build these one relationships, we could
  551. 17:30kind of overcome some of their concerns
  552. 17:32or talk them out or just kind of hear
  553. 17:34people out on why they were skeptics or
  554. 17:35why they weren't sure and how we'd have
  555. 17:38these conversations and it might be I
  556. 17:40remember one u Tom was in in Seattle,
  557. 17:42Tom, our first designer advocate was in
  558. 17:44Seattle and he was talking to somebody
  559. 17:46who at the time was a very big skeptic,
  560. 17:48right? Uh and then he kept talking to
  561. 17:50them, had these relationships, built
  562. 17:52this relationship with them. Turns out
  563. 17:54they were at Uber. Um, and that person
  564. 17:56then brought Figma to Uber, right? And
  565. 17:58we saw the power of how that process
  566. 18:00worked and we started growing just these
  567. 18:03people and and having these
  568. 18:04relationships. And then we had this
  569. 18:06thought of like, well, wait a minute,
  570. 18:08you know, we've been going to these
  571. 18:09different cities, these different
  572. 18:10places. What if we brought everyone
  573. 18:11together, right? And what what would
  574. 18:13that look like? And it was really funny.
  575. 18:15I remember when we first had the idea,
  576. 18:17we're like, okay, how big should it be?
  577. 18:19And it sounds so funny and I laugh at it
  578. 18:21now. It was actually we thought we were
  579. 18:23going to be at 200 people and that was
  580. 18:25going to be the conference and we even
  581. 18:26booked a venue for 200 people that was
  582. 18:28the size and we launched the conference
  583. 18:30and in the first day we had so many
  584. 18:32registrations and people who wants to
  585. 18:35join that we're like okay we have to
  586. 18:37change the size of this thing because
  587. 18:38there's no way 200 people is going to
  588. 18:40work. Um and so expanded it and so the
  589. 18:42first config was a thousand people. We
  590. 18:44have all these relationships. People
  591. 18:46have these connections online and
  592. 18:47because of just the distributed nature
  593. 18:49and the global nature of design, people
  594. 18:50have been talking to each other on
  595. 18:52Twitter for so long. But then they all
  596. 18:54came together in person and it was just
  597. 18:56pure magic to see these people. I
  598. 18:58remember so many that the line the
  599. 19:00conversation was like, "Oh, that's not
  600. 19:01what your avatar looks like on Twitter."
  601. 19:03Because this there's a strong community
  602. 19:05that existed and that people were
  603. 19:07already meeting each other and talking
  604. 19:08that we've been doing from these
  605. 19:09meetups, but also just from the nature
  606. 19:11of design. designers have been talking
  607. 19:13and learning to each other regardless of
  608. 19:14BIGMA for so long and so bringing
  609. 19:17everybody together in person and having
  610. 19:19these relationships that were just
  611. 19:21online happen in real life was just so
  612. 19:23magical that we just knew we had to
  613. 19:25continue like so do you have any like
  614. 19:27advice on like building communities for
  615. 19:29early startups? Totally. I think the
  616. 19:31biggest thing is that sometimes in in
  617. 19:34you know especially for us in you know
  618. 19:36enterprise marketing or B2B marketing
  619. 19:38you think about people as companies and
  620. 19:40I think the biggest advice that I would
  621. 19:42give is like people are people right and
  622. 19:44I think you see that it can fit like
  623. 19:45you'll see people and you'll talk to
  624. 19:47them and you'll be chatting and then you
  625. 19:48look at their badge and you're like oh
  626. 19:50you work at a really big company oh that
  627. 19:51was a company that in theory you might
  628. 19:53want to like target for sales but that's
  629. 19:54not how we think of it we're just like
  630. 19:56you're just a person and you have
  631. 19:58interest like it sounds so basic right
  632. 20:00but like I think So often in marketing,
  633. 20:01we we split people into like you as a
  634. 20:04person at your desk and you as a person
  635. 20:06outside of that, whereas we try to think
  636. 20:08of people as one person and you can just
  637. 20:10you're yourself all the time. And sure,
  638. 20:12you happen to work at a company, but uh
  639. 20:14I think it's doing these things that
  640. 20:16don't scale and building these
  641. 20:18relationships one-on-one like like Gory
  642. 20:20and Gory's example and then those people
  643. 20:22bring other people and those then that's
  644. 20:24how word of mouth really spreads. So
  645. 20:26Figma is beyond just a product. It seems
  646. 20:30like it's a brand, it's a community. So,
  647. 20:33um, what are your advice on yeah, making

  648. How Iconic Brands Are Really Built

  649. 20:35a brand, you know, I think that the most
  650. 20:37important thing is to actually start
  651. 20:38with a product for us and that's like
  652. 20:41what productled growth looks like,
  653. 20:43right? And I I think that what we have
  654. 20:45as a brand really starts with a brave
  655. 20:49product by starting from the bottom up
  656. 20:51and saying like, okay, first we have a
  657. 20:52really strong product that's awesome.
  658. 20:54We're improving it as we go. We're
  659. 20:57listening to feedback um as we're
  660. 20:59building it and building it with the
  661. 21:00community. And then second, we have you
  662. 21:03know these relationships with people and
  663. 21:05if those people love the product,
  664. 21:06they're spreading it to other people and
  665. 21:09that's that's growing over time of
  666. 21:11community of people. Then we can do it,
  667. 21:14right? And then we can say, okay, now we
  668. 21:18want to layer on top all these other
  669. 21:19things like a 10,000 person conference
  670. 21:21or like um you know all these beautiful
  671. 21:24visuals that we have. The story of Figma
  672. 21:27is not about ending at Figma. The story
  673. 21:29about Figma is where does Figma get in
  674. 21:31that person too. And in most cases, you
  675. 21:33know, people using Figma, their story is
  676. 21:35something like, you know, I just want to
  677. 21:37create great products. I want to enjoy
  678. 21:39the process and create that product
  679. 21:41together. So, the narrative that we're
  680. 21:43creating on the community side is often
  681. 21:44like, how do we just enable those people
  682. 21:46to get to where they want to go? Do you
  683. 21:48know where the name Pigma comes from?
  684. 21:49It's It would be great if you can
  685. 21:50explain it to us. Yeah, it's actually it
  686. 21:52comes from the idea of a figment of your
  687. 21:54imagination. And the initial vision of
  688. 21:56Fikba was uh to eliminate the gap
  689. 21:59between imagination and reality. Like
  690. 22:01that was that was the vision. And so
  691. 22:03they it kind of shifted for a while
  692. 22:05there cuz uh some people told him it was
  693. 22:07too ambitious. And so it was make design
  694. 22:09accessible is kind of where it went to.
  695. 22:11But as we grow and as we continue to
  696. 22:12evolve it, it always comes back to that
  697. 22:15like how do you how can we get better at
  698. 22:17as a tool helping to make eliminate that
  699. 22:20gap um and make it so anybody can have
  700. 22:22what they're they have ideas in their
  701. 22:24head turn it into a product or turn it
  702. 22:26into something that a's world