Architecting Figma to be truly browser-first, instead of just having storage be in the cloud
Their head start in new technologies like WebGL and CRDTs that made this browser-first approach possible
Focusing on a product purpose built for those designing vector based digital products

Designs in Figma are not just stored in the cloud; they are edited in the cloud, too. This means that Figma users are always working on the same design. With Dropbox, this isn’t true.

the fundamental user experience of creating in their products is done via a standalone app on the desktop. Figma is browser-first, which was made possible (and more importantly performant) by their understanding and usage of new technologies like WebGL, Operational Transforms, and CRDTs.

Designers loved Figma and this drew initial distribution. And with features like team libraries, designers have incentive to pull in other designers on their team into Figma.

While Figma has been building the ideal tool for designers, they’ve actually built something more important: a way for non-designers to be involved in the design process.

There used to be lots of experimentation and customization around individual features like typesetting. But once this was good enough, the focus has shifted towards collaboration. And for most use cases, few care about typesetting today. Increasingly our tools must understand and align with how we collaborate. This was less important when collaboration was logistically difficult and prohibitively costly, but as collaboration becomes easier its importance has risen.

Figma was quick to recognize that the constraints on design at companies is often not a problem of pixels, but of people.

Many of Figma’s competitors are great tools for designers. But that’s who they are for—designers.

Figma is a tool for teams to design. Not for designers alone.

Figma’s cross-side network effect between designers and non-designers is one of the primary and under-appreciated sources of their compounding success over the last few years.

more loops is better. Phew, all is right with the world

The core of Figma’s product is the core of its distribution loop. That is incredibly rare and powerful. True alignment between product and core distribution loops is what’s needed to catalyze outlier ability to compound in growth.

The real power of plugins, however, is in making them publicly available across the ecosystem. Plugins are collective progress available to all users.

But Figma’s true potential is if it can make the transition to becoming a platform. If Figma can, they’ll push progress in design as a discipline.