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Strategy Canon

Figma: sourced choices

32 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 2012-08Product · Founding Dylan Field and Evan Wallace founded Figma in August 2012. FG23
  2. 2013Go_To_Market · Seed financing Index Ventures put $1.8 million into the 2013 seed round, and the founders told investors they would stay in stealth for more than two years. FG27
  3. 2015Go_To_Market · Stealth demos During stealth the team showed the product to designers instead of running problem interviews, and discussed customer feedback at daily lunches. FG17
  4. 2015Go_To_Market · First business hire Claire Butler joined as the first business hire about six months before the launch. FG17
  5. 2015-12Go_To_Market · Launch test The launch test was one team using Figma full time; Coda agreed, and Figma launched as a closed beta. FG17
  6. 2015-12Go_To_Market · Twitter launch Field wrote a script mapping design Twitter by who followed whom and each person's influence, and the team messaged those designers asking for feedback. FG18
  7. 2015-12-02Go_To_Market · Series A Greylock led the Series A and John Lilly joined the board. FG16
  8. 2015-12-03Product · Architecture The editor was written in C++ and cross-compiled to JavaScript (asm.js) with emscripten, and drew everything with its own tile-based WebGL renderer instead of the browser's HTML, SVG or 2D canvas. FG19
  9. 2015-12-03Product · Preview The preview put an editable design behind a link with sharing and contextual feedback; simultaneous editing was stated as a plan for 2016. FG1
  10. 2016Go_To_Market · First design advocate The first design advocate came from about ten beta users who answered an invitation to pizza at the office, and ran live design contests. FG17
  11. 2016Go_To_Market · Content About ten deep technical blog posts in the first six months were aimed at Hacker News and Designer News. FG18
  12. 2016-09-28Product · Multiplayer The public release let several people edit the same file at once. FG2
  13. 2016-09-28Product · Review features The release included commenting with Slack integration, mobile viewing, constraints and vector networks. FG23
  14. 2016-09-28Go_To_Market · Launch pricing The product was free through January 2017 and permanently free for students. FG23
  15. 2017Go_To_Market · Board push to charge The board urged the company to charge after an enterprise customer said it could not scale Figma internally because no one believed Figma would be around in a year. FG26
  16. 2017Go_To_Market · Collaborator gate reversed The first free tier allowed unlimited files but only two or three collaborators; it was reversed to a few files with unlimited collaborators. FG18
  17. 2017-06-08Product · Load time The engine moved from asm.js to WebAssembly, cutting load time by more than three times. FG20
  18. 2018Go_To_Market · Organization plan Based on customer feedback, Figma introduced the Organization plan in 2018 with unlimited teams, shared libraries and central administration. FG7
  19. 2018Go_To_Market · Sales and advocates After about three years of self-serve revenue only, the first salesperson and the first designer advocate started on the same day. FG18
  20. 2018Go_To_Market · Microsoft Use inside Microsoft began with the Xamarin team and spread through separate pockets before Microsoft asked for an enterprise product that met its requirements. FG18
  21. 2018-06-11Product · Sketch import Figma imported Sketch files, and a customer reported importing several without a problem. FG3
  22. 2018-06-11Product · Export Editable vector export was limited to SVG with outlined text, so editable relationships did not carry to another tool. FG3
  23. 2019-01-29Product · Organization Organization added unlimited browsable teams, organization-wide shared libraries, and security and admin controls, built with beta partners including Square, Uber, Rakuten and Volvo. FG5
  24. 2019-08-01Product · Plugins A public plugin system launched with discovery inside the product and private plugins for organizations. FG9
  25. 2019-10-16Product · Multiplayer engine The multiplayer server used a simpler design inspired by CRDTs rather than the operational transforms behind Google Docs. FG21
  26. 2021-04-21Product · FigJam FigJam, a separate whiteboard, launched after the team saw people brainstorming in design files. FG11
  27. 2022-09-01Product · Non-designer features Commenting and presentation mode supported designers working with other stakeholders. FG17
  28. 2023-11-22Product · Dev Mode Dev Mode gave developers working from design files their own workspace. FG13
  29. 2025-03Product · Multiple products 76% of customers used two or more products in the three months ended March 31, 2025. FG7
  30. 2025-03Go_To_Market · Path to managed plans About 70% of new Organization and Enterprise customers in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 included someone previously on a Professional plan. FG7
  31. 2025-07-01Go_To_Market · Sales structure Sales works with solutions consultants and designer and developer advocates. FG7
  32. Go_To_Market · Editor and viewer pricing Editors paid and viewers and commenters used Figma free, while incumbents charged for viewer seats. FG6