Figma: Designers love it, can developers love it too?

How many startups in the world receive an offer for a $20 billion acquisition from a tech giant?

Not many.

But those who do are the special ones, and Figma is one of them.

When news about this potential acquisition first emerged in 2022, designers were quick to express their disagreement.

Finally, many months later, the deal was put off because of potential monopolistic concerns if the two companies combined forces.

They were paid $1 billion in reparations by the way.

Nevertheless, Figma has proved itself to be one of the best software products out there.

Figma is collaborative, transparent, and community-driven. Basically, it’s perfect.

But it also has ambitions.

Figma wants to woo not just the design community. But the developer/coder community too. The ones who ‘eliminate the gap between imagination and reality’.

How can they do that?

Creators might be the answer.

The community-led growth angle of Figma is something that one should really study in depth.

I want to speak about about four levers, in particular.

1. Leveraging Influence:

Figma recognized the power of influencers and partnered with them at two scales:

• Micro-influencers: They collaborated with smaller, active designers who had dedicated followings within their design circles. These partnerships provided valuable user insights and helped spread brand awareness organically.

• Macro-influencers: Figma also tapped into well-established designers to gain feedback and build relationships with those who could influence enterprise adoption. These collaborations not only refined the product but also gave Figma credibility within the design industry.

Figma wants to woo not just the design community. But the developer/coder community too. The ones who ‘eliminate the gap between imagination and reality’.

How can they do that?

Creators might be the answer.

The community-led growth angle of Figma is something that one should really study in depth.

I want to speak about about four levers, in particular.

1. Leveraging Influence:

Figma recognized the power of influencers and partnered with them at two scales:

• Micro-influencers: They collaborated with smaller, active designers who had dedicated followings within their design circles. These partnerships provided valuable user insights and helped spread brand awareness organically.

• Macro-influencers: Figma also tapped into well-established designers to gain feedback and build relationships with those who could influence enterprise adoption. These collaborations not only refined the product but also gave Figma credibility within the design industry.

2. Designer Advocate Program:

Figma also cultivated authentic relationships with these influencers and took influencer marketing beyond. Their "designer advocate" program empowered early adopters to become champions. These champions hosted fun design competitions like "Pixel Pong" and created in-depth technical content, sparking organic user engagement and trust.

3. The Config Conference:

Unlike traditional industry conferences where brands dominate the stage, Figma's Config conference centered around the community. The focus was on designers sharing their experiences, how they used Figma, and the impact it had on their work. This reinforced the sense of community and showcased the value Figma delivered to real users.’

4. Community Features:

Figma embraced the "sharing is caring" mentality by offering features that leveraged the community's collective power:

• Community Files & Templates: A vast library of assets contributed by the community saved designers time and fostered collaboration.

• Plugins & Widgets: Figma empowered developers to create plugins that addressed specific needs and workflows. This level of customization further strengthened the community.

But while all these have worked with designers, they’ll have to shift gears when it comes to developers.

It’s not just that they’re two different professions, but two different cohorts who have pretty varied expectations and needs from a collaborative platform like Figma, which exponentially took off during the pandemic where more and more companies were going remote.

See, Figma is not new to influencer collaborations, so it would be interesting to see who they match with in our upcoming episode of ‘Influencer Matchmaking’.

Just to remind you, they got a billion dollars from Adobe.

Spending a few of them on influencers certainly wouldn’t hurt. ;)

That’s it for this week! We’ll be back with another story next Tuesday. 👋🏼

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