#Figma careers software
#Figma careers series

#Figma careers software

Going back into research mode, he opted for a model, inspired by Australian software outfit Atlassian, of simple tiered pricing of $12 or $45 per editor (many users still opt for the free version). But when a user at Microsoft warned that Figma’s adoption was slowing at the tech giant because of doubts that a free startup tool could be trusted, Field acted faster. When it came to charging for Figma, Field’s intuition told him to hold off and keep tinkering with the product. Asking questions is great, Field’s mentor Weiner told him, but not at the cost of trusting your own instincts. The test version of Figma’s product took years to launch, and many frustrated employees quit before it did. What’s proven harder for Field: moving decisively on all that intel. “He’s never deterred by people who think he’s not doing the right thing-he just wants the information.”Ĭhief customer officer Amanda Kleha and vice president of product Yuhki Yamashita joined Figma from Zendesk and Uber, respectively.

#Figma careers series

“Dylan shows this amazing quality of mentor-seeking and truth-seeking,” says Lilly, who led Greylock’s Series A investment into Figma in 2015. Rejection by ex-Mozilla CEO John Lilly, an investor at Greylock Partners, was perhaps as valuable: Undeterred, Field asked to keep meeting with Lilly for feedback after Lilly made an offhand comment that former Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen might have helpful advice, Field tracked down and spoke to the veteran. That idea was enough for Flipboard board director Danny Rimer’s VC firm, Index Ventures, LinkedIn then CEO Jeff Weiner and others to lead a $4 million seed round in 2013. Finally, they researched taking on Adobe’s photo-editing apps, building a tool for supporters to paste themselves into photos of Barack Obama.įield then set his sights on Adobe’s widely used Photoshop for editing all kinds of images, using technology to do so in a shareable Web browser, not a desktop app. Over the years, they tried a handful of ideas, including software for drones and, at a low point, a meme generator. After an internship at Flipboard, Field dropped out in 2012 to take $100,000 and start a business as a Thiel Fellow (Wallace joined him in California after he got his degree). As part of Brown’s undergraduate computer science group, he met Wallace, who had impressed his own summer employer, Pixar, by devising an algorithm to render a ball bobbing in a 3-D pool. He later wowed executives at a LinkedIn summer internship by helping devise a social-impact program. “And design is a team sport-it’s collaborative by nature.”Īs a high school student at a tech-focused magnet school in Sonoma County, California, Field built robots and websites for friends. “The entire economy is going from physical to digital, and design is just the latest chapter,” Field says. The mission today is simple: As Google Docs did for word processing and GitHub for code, so Figma is doing for design. ( Forbes applies a 10% private-company discount.) Forbes estimates that Field and cofounder Evan Wallace, 31, each own about 10% of Figma, making them near-billionaires. In June, the company raised $200 million from investors, valuing Figma at $10 billion. in 2020, Kimberly-Clark drafted reorder forms using Figma’s tools. And when toilet paper ran out across the U.S. Joe Biden’s campaign managed all its visual assets via Figma.

Figma, launched in 2016, already has millions of users and expects annual recurring revenue to more than double this year from $75 million in 2020, according to sources. 7 on this year’s Cloud 100 list, came around, designers were also turning to Sketch out of Europe and to InVision (No. Already, Figma has added audio support to chat with teammates another frequently requested feature that moved up in priority: a timer.Īdobe popularized software for designers back in the 1980s by the time Figma, No. “When you’ve done it enough, it’s almost like the market is going to extract the product out of you,” he says. After a six-month sprint, Figma had enough input from customers such as Discord, Netflix and Stripe to launch the public beta test version of FigJam Field pegged it at 25% complete, expecting it to evolve over time.