We were encouraged to apply for the Thiel Fellowship. The process was lengthy, and we kept generating ideas, which is when we realized WebGL would be the future of creative tools.

The first thing we did was call Aviary, a company that experimented with WebGL before Figma. We wanted to understand why they pivoted. They warned us, “Don’t do it. It’s a terrible idea. Here are all the reasons why it’s wrong.” We listened to them but thought we had a reason why it may be right.

Designers hung out on Twitter, so I used a network visualization tool to find designers I was inspired by and mapped their networks. I emailed the designers, and most of the time, they were down to get coffee (especially if I was buying) and give feedback on the early product.

We used the framework “Eliminate, Raise, Reduce, Create” to understand where Figma fit into the existing market and where we could differentiate for our users.

Our initial strategy was wrong. We were initially going to build a community for designers — like Dribbble — where they could hang out together and riff on designs. We realized we needed to make money first, then build the community.

My advice is to launch earlier than you would like. It will get people excited about your vision and give you valuable early feedback. I wish we would have gotten Figma to market a bit sooner.

People are looking for spaces to gather. During the pandemic, we’ve seen people even playing virtual games in Figma.