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Strategy Canon

InVision: sourced choices

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

  1. 2008Product · Agency prototyping practice Valberg and Nadel ran Epicenter Consulting from 2008 and spent about five years trying prototyping methods on client work before InVision. IV20
  2. 2011Product · Image-based prototype Instead of coding prototypes, the agency linked designs exported from Photoshop into a clickable simulation, which Valberg says took about an eighth of the time, first for an education-products client. IV18
  3. 2011Product · Browser companion to design tools The product turned a Photoshop design into a simulation in a browser; designers kept creating screens in their own tool and brought them into InVision for review. IV4
  4. 2011Product · Asynchronous comments Reviewers could comment on a clickable design at their own pace over a day or more rather than in one meeting. IV9
  5. 2011Go_To_Market · Pre-launch waitlist Valberg scripted a video about the future of design for a coming-soon page that collected about 10,000 sign-ups before release, without paid advertising. IV1
  6. 2011Go_To_Market · First price InVision launched with an $8 monthly subscription; the first paid plan went live on Valberg's wedding day. IV4
  7. 2011Go_To_Market · Hand outreach Valberg read every day's sign-ups, emailed recognized designers and people at large companies, offered personal tours and free licenses (some lifetime) and asked for quotes for a page of designers. IV1
  8. 2012Go_To_Market · Inside Design series A weekly photo interview inside a design team (Airbnb, Zappos, Eventbrite early on) was the first content marketing. IV1
  9. 2015Product · Platform rebuild (V7) The product team began V7, meant to make InVision a full design tool and to move it off its ColdFusion code base; the version customers used (V6) kept a small team. IV4
  10. 2015-07Product · Design-to-engineering features The Series C release named integrations, marketing-team review tools and features bridging design and engineering as the next product work. IV16
  11. 2015-07Go_To_Market · Enterprise sales The Series C was raised partly to expand enterprise sales; InVision had more than 500 enterprise customers, many deployed company-wide. IV16
  12. 2016Go_To_Market · Industry report and film InVision surveyed 3,000 to 4,000 designers for a 50-page industry report and produced Design Disruptors, a feature documentary about design-led companies that did not feature its product. IV1
  13. 2016Go_To_Market · Films and screenings Design Disruptors and Squads were screened at AIGA chapters, conferences, schools and design firms; the company avoided billboards and large ad campaigns. IV4
  14. 2016Go_To_Market · Design education InVision hired a VP of design education (Walter, 2016) and produced podcasts and books on design's business value. IV4
  15. 2016-01Product · Macaw acquisition InVision bought Macaw, a code-generating design tool it had worked with on Motion and Inspect, its first acquisition, to bring design-to-code features into its products. IV11
  16. 2016-03Product · Prototyping inside Sketch InVision bought Silver Flows and folded it into Craft, its Sketch plugin suite, so prototypes synced between Sketch files and InVision. IV12
  17. 2016-06Go_To_Market · Land with design teams In almost every large customer the design team started the relationship, and others, such as a CFO reviewing a payment flow, joined afterwards. IV17
  18. 2016-07Product · Craft plugins Craft, a free plugin inside Sketch, pulled live images and API data into designs; Valberg said it was not directly monetized. IV1
  19. 2016-07Go_To_Market · Content funnel Marketing ran a free blog, gated downloads (UI kits, t-shirts, reports) that fed the mailing list, and large events and films; the weekly email reached about two million subscribers. IV1
  20. 2017-10Product · Studio design tool InVision announced Studio, a desktop design app for macOS and Windows with responsive layout and animation, previewed with Airbnb and Oracle and promised to the public in January 2018. IV15
  21. 2017-11Product · Brand.ai acquisition InVision bought Brand.ai, cloud management of design assets across teams. IV8
  22. 2017-11Go_To_Market · Non-designer users More than 70% of users were not on design teams. IV8
  23. 2017-12-19Go_To_Market · Design Forward Fund A $5 million fund of grants and equity for new design tools and Studio add-ons, with go-to-market support for recipients. IV5
  24. 2018-02Product · Studio Platform An API opened Studio to third-party apps, with an in-house team building add-ons as well. IV6
  25. 2018-02Go_To_Market · No platform revenue Valberg said InVision had no plans to earn revenue from Studio Platform, because the design tool market was not yet mature. IV6
  26. 2018-03Go_To_Market · Commenter pricing Teams paid about $100 a month for up to five designers; non-designers could view links free but paid $8 per person per month to use comments. IV9
  27. 2018-12Product · Three-product suite InVision described its offer as InVision Cloud for organization-wide review, Studio for creation and Design System Manager for shared assets. IV7
  28. 2018-12Go_To_Market · Design Transformation Team A team worked hands-on with customers' design organizations on new practices and design maturity. IV7
  29. 2019-11Product · Freehand whiteboard Freehand, an online whiteboard, was part of InVision by November 2019; Valberg used it in place of slide decks. IV18
  30. 2021-06-15Product · Freehand standalone Freehand became a free standalone product with a Microsoft Teams integration, flowcharts and an Enterprise tier. IV14
  31. 2021-06-15Go_To_Market · Freehand free for everyone Freehand was free to all companies through September 30, 2021, then offered on free and paid plans, and marketed to marketing, HR and management teams. IV14
  32. 2023-11-07Product · Freehand sold Miro bought Freehand's technology, brand, customer relationships and team, including InVision's CEO. IV13
  33. 2024-01-04Product · Services discontinued InVision announced that its design collaboration services would end with 2024 and that account assets would be deleted after shutdown. IV3
  34. 2024-01-04Go_To_Market · Wind-down terms Sales staff helped enterprise customers move off InVision; self-serve customers could continue only on monthly plans. IV3