This meeting featured an in-depth conversation with Dylan Field, CEO and co-founder of Figma, discussing company strategy, leadership learnings, product expansion, and the impact of AI on product development.
Key topics included the fallout from the failed Adobe acquisition, maintaining team motivation, Figma's approach to launching new products (such as FigJam and Make), and the importance of design and taste in the modern software landscape.
Dylan shared lessons on accelerating time to market, fostering company culture, and why design excellence is crucial for long-term product success.
The conversation also explored the evolving roles within product teams, impacts of AI, and Figma's hiring philosophy.
Action Items
Ongoing – Dylan: Continue soliciting user feedback on Figma products via social channels and the Figma forum.
Ongoing – Figma Product Team: Accelerate improvements to Figma Make, especially around design system integration and interoperability with other Figma products.
Ongoing – Figma QA Team: Enhance and refine evaluation and QA processes for AI-driven features; maintain a rigorous approach to preventing quality failures.
Ongoing – Hiring Team: Continue active recruitment for various roles focused on individuals who are passionate about design, have high judgment, and can improve Figma’s product and craft.
Lessons from Figma's Founding and Growth
Founders should prioritize getting products to market quickly; Figma spent years in development before generating revenue, which Dylan advised against.
Differentiation through design and product craft is essential for success—“good enough is not enough.”
Market size (TAM) should not be the only consideration for new product direction; sometimes intuition and following workflow needs lead to category creation.
Lessons for startup founders: trust intuition, aim for fast time-to-value, don’t over-invest in MVP polish at the expense of shipping.
Post-Adobe Deal: Maintaining Focus and Morale
After the Adobe acquisition fell through due to regulatory objections, leadership maintained momentum through frequent transparent communication and a company “reset” (the Detach program, offering voluntary severance).
This period reinforced a high-pace, hard-charging culture, with clear opportunities for those invested in Figma’s mission to recommit.
The company took advantage of the transition to launch new products and accelerate platform expansion.
Culture, Leadership, and Team Structure at Figma
Culture is driven by hiring people who are creative, growth-oriented, and passionate about their craft.
Programs like Maker Week encourage cross-functional creativity and have led to key product innovations.
Leadership evolution involved learning management fundamentals, focusing on clarity, and ensuring teams understand direction and trade-offs.
Leadership hires should help the CEO grow, fostering mutual mentorship and curiosity.
Decision-Making and Product Expansion
Counterintuitive but successful decisions included prioritizing “fun” as a core differentiator for FigJam, leading to features like cursor chat and increasing product engagement.
The process of moving from a single product to a multiproduct company was challenging but enabled Figma to follow their user workflow from ideation (e.g., FigJam, Slides) through to production (Make, Dev Mode, Buzz).
Balancing innovative features with the removal of adoption blockers (table stakes) is crucial.
AI, Product Development Trends, and Figma Make
Figma Make aims to lower the barrier to prototyping and product building by leveraging AI for fast, high-quality outputs.
The team is prioritizing prototyping use cases and building out the ability for more robust applications and internal tools.
Integration between Make and other Figma surfaces is a key focus, with ongoing improvements to design system support and interoperability.
AI will increasingly blur traditional role boundaries in product teams, with more generalist product builders and growing importance of design.
Maintaining Product Excellence and Taste
Figma’s differentiation strategy is rooted in design excellence and developing a point of view—taste is honed through exposure, reflection, and judgment.
Even as AI accelerates product development, excellence and craft set products apart; “good enough” is insufficient in a crowded software landscape.
Dylan emphasizes high standards for product quality and regular evaluation (evals/QA) as essential, especially for AI-driven features.
Decisions
Prioritized fun as FigJam’s differentiator — Led to a more engaging product and set a cultural precedent for rapid, creative iteration.
Offered voluntary severance post-Adobe deal — Helped reset the company’s direction and reaffirmed commitment among remaining employees.
Open Questions / Follow-Ups
How will the ongoing improvements to Figma Make’s design system integration directly address user requests for greater output quality and consistency?
What further process improvements will be made to Figma’s AI QA/evaluation framework to ensure reliability as product complexity grows?
How will Figma continue to maintain its fast pace of innovation and clarity of direction as it scales to more products and larger teams?