Design, Community, Code: The Making of Figma

TL;DR:

• The Counter-Intuitive Bet: How Dylan Field and Evan Wallace chose to build a browser-based design tool when everyone said it was impossible, and why taking four years to launch was their best decision.
• Patient Innovation: The untold story of Figma's four-year journey from prototype to launch, proving that sometimes the biggest breakthroughs require playing the long game.
• Global-First Community: Why 80% of Figma's users came from outside the US, and how this unexpected growth shaped their product development.
• Leadership Evolution: From a technical founder who was "100x worse" at coding than his co-founder to a CEO focused on enabling others, key lessons in growing with your company.

It's 1 AM and just hours ago, in an intimate fireside chat with Andrew Chen at a16z Speedrun, I watched Dylan Field share something that fundamentally changed my perspective on building products. In an intimate fireside chat with Andrew Chen at a16z speedrun, Dylan revealed the raw truth behind Figma 's journey, a stark contrast to a "crafting beautiful tools" chat with Akshay Kothari at the Notion Conference three months ago.

Scribbled in my notes from yesterday's session with Andrew Chen: 'V1: Looking back > intern before starting Figma > made many many mistakes > hire the right team.        

The raw honesty of Dylan's conversation with Andrew Chen in this intimate setting struck a different chord than his polished keynote at the Notion Conference auditorium. Yesterday's conversation wasn't about overnight success, it was about the courage to be wrong, the wisdom to adapt, and the conviction to play the long game.

From Sonoma to Silicon Valley: The Origin Story

Dylan's journey began in Sonoma County, where a natural curiosity for computers bloomed in a non-tech home. The story resonates deeply with me. Like Dylan, my relationship with design tools runs deep: from Photoshop 5.0 in high school, through Macromedia, Flash (ActionScript, anyone?), Sketch, and finally, Figma. Each tool shaped my understanding of creation, but none dared to challenge the fundamental assumptions about how designers work.

Just days after high school graduation, Dylan's hunger for tech led him to convince a group of startup enthusiasts to let him live with them, taking on roles like CFO and intern. Through internships at Microsoft Research , Flipboard , and LinkedIn , and early experiments like a texting startup called "Zap Text," he was laying the groundwork for what would become Figma: though he didn't know it yet!

The Counter-Intuitive Technical Bet (2012)

"Why now?" That's the question Dylan Field and co-founder Evan Wallace asked themselves in 2012. While the tech world buzzed about drones and mobile apps, they saw something others missed: WebGL's potential to revolutionize creative tools.

"Everyone thought we were crazy," Dylan shared yesterday.

"Building a professional design tool in the browser? It felt like suggesting you should build a skyscraper with Roombas."

The skepticism wasn't just about the browser, it was about the entire premise of real-time collaborative design.

Before landing on this vision, they explored everything from drone software to face-swapping apps. They even built what Dylan called "the best meme generator out there" in a week. But something felt off. "We both looked at each other and said, 'We can't launch this. This isn't what we want to do with our lives.'"

The Four-Year Silence (2012-2016)

While today's startup culture celebrates rapid launches and "move fast, break things," Figma chose a different path.

"Looking back, we could have reduced time to Product Market Fit by 1-2 years,"

Dylan admitted yesterday. "But some technical challenges just take time to solve right."

This resonated with my own experience building Layerpath . When Dylan described the frustration of endless dependencies on designers for product-led content and campaign assets pushed to the next quarter due to bottlenecks, I saw my own journey reflected. Sometimes, the hardest problems require patience to solve properly.

The statistics tell a compelling story: closed beta in 2015, general availability in 2016, with just 20 team members. This patience came at a cost. Early employees grew frustrated, investors questioned their progress, and competitors gained ground. But this "slow" period wasn't about perfectionism: it was about solving fundamental technical challenges that would define the future of collaborative design.

Community as the Secret Weapon

Perhaps the most surprising insight came when Dylan revealed that over 80% of Figma's weekly active users are outside the United States. Instead of typical Silicon Valley growth tactics, he spent time traveling to places like Lagos and Moscow (pre-war), trying to understand usage spikes in unexpected regions.

The strategy defied conventional wisdom. "We asked folks if we should throw a conference," he shared, and everyone told us "No! Start with user groups first." This patient approach to community building stands in stark contrast to today's typical blitzscaling playbook.

A pivotal moment came when Dylan discovered someone in Japan using Figma for 16 hours straight. "I wrote my own query to check user engagement," he recalled yesterday. "I was suspicious of the data—who works for 16 hours?" That user turned out to be Ivan Zhao from Notion , coding in his underwear, building what would become another iconic product.

Leadership Evolution: From Technical Founder to Chief Enabler

The contrast between Dylan's two recent appearances reveals his own evolution. At the Notion Conference, he spoke about early technical decisions. Yesterday, he focused on learning to lead: "Best recruiting advice I got? When someone asks what you think about in the morning, afternoon, night: all answers should be recruiting."

His most candid admission came during our intimate session: "I was not a good manager when I started Figma." The turning point? A "managerial intervention" where his team essentially said: you need help. Instead of defending his approach, Dylan hired Sho Kuwamoto , who fundamentally changed how Figma operated.

Key lessons emerged from this phase:

• Hire fast when you know you can't do it all
• Empower your team by letting go of the details
• Value user feedback as your compass for product evolution

The Future of Creation

Looking ahead, Dylan's vision transcends design tools. Recent moves: FigJam, Dev Mode, Figma Slides—reveal a broader ambition to create a comprehensive "visual communications suite." Their measured approach to AI integration shows a deep understanding of craft: "AI lowers the floor, but raises the ceiling."

For technical founders today, especially those building tools for creators, Figma's journey offers a different playbook:

• Technical excellence matters, but user empathy matters more
• Growth can come from unexpected places
• Leadership is about enabling others, not being the smartest in the room
• Community isn't just a moat—it's a compass for product development

As I build Layerpath , honoring the design tool heritage while pursuing our distinct mission of empowering customer-facing teams, these lessons hit differently. The name Layerpath itself (Photoshop layers + Illustrator paths) reminds me daily that innovation often comes from deeply understanding the past while boldly imagining the future.

P.S. The next time someone tells you to move faster, remember Figma's journey. Sometimes, the most disruptive companies are built by those patient enough to solve the hard problems right. Special thanks to Dylan Field for these candid insights across both events, and to Andrew Chen for facilitating these transformative conversations.