Why Figma won

Hey Reader

I'm on jury duty this week. It's weirdly fun and interesting. Although of course it feels like a big interruption to my work and routine, it's fascinating to see inside our local justice system.

Today I've got part one of a two part essay for you:

Why Figma won (and what we can learn from it)

InVision just laid off 50% of their team and their CEO, the famous “Clark from InVision” stepped down as well. At their peak they were valued at over $2 billion and had more than 800 employees. They were also one of the first large companies to embrace and advocate for remote work.

So what happened?

There have been articles written about missteps the company made—I like this one—but I think it’s more interesting to talk about the massive shift in the design landscape. Particularly what drove Figma’s meteoric rise.

A few years ago in the design community it was Photoshop vs Sketch vs Figma. Now every professional designer I know uses Figma. As a Photoshop pro I resisted it for years (old habits), but after making the switch Figma really is 5x better for UI design than Photoshop.

It’s one thing to notice Figma’s complete domination, but let’s actually speculate on why. So here are 10 reasons I believe Figma dominated the design community:

1. They changed the paradigm

​Dylan, one of our designers at ConvertKit, said:
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​“InVision helped you share the files created in Sketch or Photoshop.
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Figma made you forget what ‘files’ were.”​
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Remember when we would name our files design_final_2.psd? That’s gone. Figma’s infinite canvas lets you add and explore to your heart’s content.
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Interface designers had always been neglected, hacking together other tools meant for photo editing or graphic design. Figma solved problems in unique ways because they focused specifically on an underserved job.
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2. 90% of the product is free.

As a designer I don't feel crippled at all in the free version. The only reason to pay is if I work on a team. Figma made a great product and then worried about monetization later.
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Compare this with InVision Studio where early users complained about every feature they wanted being a paid add-on.
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3. It's collaborative in way that design never has been before.

Design collaboration was always about sharing files. It was messy. Figma made it so I could just invite someone else right into my file and collaborate with them in real time. They didn’t have to install software or even create an account. That means designers who loved Figma were constantly pulling in other designers.
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They also really nailed the feeling of presence. Not just an icon showing someone joined the document, but real time watching their cursor. Following someone in Figma is better than screen sharing or a white boarding tool.
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4. Great engineering

All of this is enabled by great engineering. The product uses 2D WebGL to render an entire desktop-like experience in the browser. It’s a format that very few companies were looking at (they use C++!). But had they gone with a traditional web app or desktop app they wouldn’t have the clear advantages around collaboration and being easily accessible.
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5. Moving fast

On that note, I'm blown away at how fast the team at Figma is executing. They produce new product features faster than I can learn them (granted I'm no longer a full-time designer). When you are trying to win a market, speed matters across design, marketing, sales, and especially engineering.
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6. Extensible

If you want a tool in Figma you can just build it. The community has made blob generators, Unsplash integrations, maps, user flow diagrams, avatar generators, and so much more. Just about anything you want has already been made.
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There are countless templates as well to help you learn the product and get a head start. Best of all, this is all natively integrated into the product rather than something you have to find on a third party site.
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7. Entire companies become features

The result of this is that entire companies become features. InVision was an entire product for sharing prototypes. Figma made that into a feature. Better yet, I don’t have to wait until my design is ready to export before sharing. I can just drop a link and get feedback in real time.
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Principle was the same for animation. Figma has 80% of the use cases built in.
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​Alf, another designer on our team, said:
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​“User inertia made it so that the benefits of using other apps weren't worth the effort. Why would I go through the trouble of exporting my figma file into Invision or Principle when I can just do it all in Figma?”​
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8. They cut off the flow upstream

When I was going to college in 2005-2008 PCs were far more common than Macs. But you could see that Apple was making a huge push on college campuses. I first used a Mac because I walked into a computer lab and saw 30+ outdated PCs crammed full of students and 5 shiny new Mac Pros without anyone using them. I wanted to use the new computer, so I learned how to use a Mac.
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Apple’s strategy paid off. When my generation entered the workforce almost all of us used Macs. Apple didn’t worry about competing where it was crowded. They went upstream and diverted all the new professionals.
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In the design process you would wireframe on paper or in Balsamiq, then design in Photoshop, Figma, or Sketch, share in Invision, and animate in Principle. Now since wireframing and design happens in Figma, users stay in those products to do the downstream tasks of animation and feedback. Meaning the entire flow of new users for the downstream products never make it there.
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Because Figma is free, runs in the browser, and works on hardware as cheap as a Chromebook they will not only capture the full workflow of existing designers, but also every new designer entering the market—worldwide.
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9. Community

Figma invested heavily in their community. You can see it in hiring designers like Rogie King to be designer advocates and sponsoring a lot of creators to create Figma content. The community is absolutely thriving. Notion has also executed on this really well with hundreds of people earning a lot of money through Notion courses and selling Notion templates.
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Anytime someone can make money talking about your products—especially beyond an affiliate program—they’ll do that even more.
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10. Design systems

I mentioned earlier how you only really pay for Figma if you are on a team. That could feel like you aren’t getting a lot of extra value, except for Figma’s investment in design systems. The value of the design system is compounded the more a company uses it. So at big organizations it carries down across every team. This likely helped it spread and provided so much value to design teams they were happy to pay for it (we do!).
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Those are the 10 reasons I think that Figma upended the entire design community. What did I miss?

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One of our values at ConvertKit is Work in Public. So next week I’m going to share my full write up of what I would do for ConvertKit if we were to follow the Figma playbook as best we can.

Alright, I'm back to trying to cram in all my regular work before I need to get back to jury duty for the rest of the week.

Have a great week,

Nathan

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*See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.io/cd​