00:04:42 · Hannah Lee, Claire Butler, S0, S1, S2
[00:04:42] S7: What was the first thing that you did after you joined Figma? [00:04:46] S5: Literal first thing I did. So the first day that I joined Figma, I remember I was sitting in a presentation, and Dylan was kinda walking me through stuff, showing the product, also showing me where to, like, the bathroom was, like, all of the basics that you get on your first day. And I saw one presentation where they're going through some of the branding for Figma and some of the different naming and and how they are thinking about launching it. And the name of the tool at the time was actually called Summit. And so Figma was always the name of the company, but we had this strategy at the time where the tool would be called Summit and, like, the Figma editor. And then, that company would be called Figma. And I remember I thought to myself, like, this just isn't gonna work. Like, nobody knows who we are. Summit is just, a really basic name. Ad[00:05:29] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:05:30] S1: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Ad[00:05:53] S2: Hiring now? Then this Ad[00:05:54] S1: is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
00:05:54 · S1, S3, Claire Butler
Ad[00:05:54] S1: is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:05:59] S3: It's officially the holiday season, and Abercrombie's new collection has outfits for everything on your calendar. It's the busiest time of year, and between shopping and party invites, I don't have time to plan every look. But Abercrombie's always got me covered. Their sweaters are the perfect easy layer for low key plans, and on a nice night out, I'm reaching for their classic trousers. Fill your closet with the pieces you'll need all season long. Have a very Abercrombie holiday. Shop in the app, online, and in stores. [00:06:29] S5: PC's name Summit. There's apps name Summit. This isn't anything we can own. And so I remember saying just kinda off the cuff, like, hey. Like, how locked is this? Is this something we can change? And Dylan was like, yeah. What do you think? And and I was like, well, I I really think we should probably only have one name. We can't really have two. And he's like, well, well, how about you think about that more and and make a presentation, and and maybe you can show everybody it, and then we can talk about it. I said, okay. Cool. Like, what does what does the timeline look like for that? And he said, how about tomorrow? And I was like, okay. And so I remember the literal first thing I did on my first day was make a presentation about how the product should be called Figma and not Summit. That was the first thing I did.
00:06:29 · Claire Butler, Hannah Lee
[00:06:29] S5: PC's name Summit. There's apps name Summit. This isn't anything we can own. And so I remember saying just kinda off the cuff, like, hey. Like, how locked is this? Is this something we can change? And Dylan was like, yeah. What do you think? And and I was like, well, I I really think we should probably only have one name. We can't really have two. And he's like, well, well, how about you think about that more and and make a presentation, and and maybe you can show everybody it, and then we can talk about it. I said, okay. Cool. Like, what does what does the timeline look like for that? And he said, how about tomorrow? And I was like, okay. And so I remember the literal first thing I did on my first day was make a presentation about how the product should be called Figma and not Summit. That was the first thing I did. [00:07:12] S7: When Figma first launched, people saying, especially among designers, like, there are a lot of people liking the product, but also saying, oh, if this is the future of design, then I would quit design. Or, like, this is not the future I want as a designer. So as a first marketer at Figma, like, what were your, like, go to market strategy, or, like, how did you deal with these market response?
00:07:35 · Claire Butler
[00:07:35] S5: You know, I think it's really interesting because as a marketer, working online and collaboratively, it's it's just intuitive to me. Right? Like, was used to using Google Docs, was used to just having Google Slides, Asana, these things where you just have things constantly updated and working really collaboratively. But it didn't really click for me until I saw the response, honestly, that, you know, before, design didn't really work that way. People were used to working in these offline tools and sharing when they're done and doing these, like, beautiful presentations and showing kind of more of a finished product. And so, yeah, there was a lot of questioning of that in the early days. I think that there's a couple things that I keep in mind when I think of, like, how to approach something like that. The first is, you know, you have to have a level of confidence that you're gonna keep going anyway. Right? Like, there's some people who don't like it. There's different adoption curves, and it's okay if not everyone likes your product right away. So there's... Just having a general confidence in that and a belief that that's the way to go and that's the vision and we're gonna stick with it is very important. And then I think the other thing that we did that was really, really helpful was we really looked at... Design is an interesting space where, you know, people really learn from each other. And so people are always looking to other influencers or other people to help understand, you know, what's the latest in design, how do you work, how should we work. So we really built a lot of relationships and focused on building relationships with people who had a lot of thought in the space, a lot of thought leadership, and talk to them about things. So even if they had a negative reaction at first or weren't sure about something we were doing, we just engaged in conversation and talked about it and, you know, over time, heard their opinions. We shared our opinions, got feedback from them. And that was a a really important thing where maybe initially people had concerns, but as we built trust with them, built credibility, people started using the tool, that was really important, and they changed their minds.
00:09:25 · Hannah Lee, Corey Lee, S0
[00:09:25] S7: I'm also curious that Corey, your response when you first got to know Figma. But as a designer, didn't didn't you have any, like, mixed feelings towards the product or as a designer? Like, what were your thoughts on the product? [00:09:37] S6: As a designer at the time, I was using Figma. This was probably, like, 2016, 2017. Like, a lot of different design tools were coming out. Like, I mean, every week seemed like there was different design to it. Like, and I was, you know, using one tool as my main tool, but, like, I would be using another tool, beta testing it, like, on the side and, like, refraining the the design, like, every week and testing, you know, these a b testing, these design tools just to see, like, which one is is gonna be the best one, which one is is I switched to. And, like, through that whole process, like, one of them I found was, like, Figma. And I was using Figma, and I I picked it up for a bit. And I was like, okay. This is web based. This is kinda interesting, but, like, it doesn't make much difference compared to, like, what I'm using now. Right? And then I went back to it for some reason again to use it, I started thinking about the collaboration features. Right? I was just like, wait. Wait. You can just... Oh, it's web based. You can just share a link. I don't have to, like, export this. And every single time, it's my final, final, final, final version. Send that again. Ad[00:10:29] S0: This episode is brought to
00:10:29 · S0, S1, S2, S3
Ad[00:10:29] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:10:31] S1: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit@indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Ad[00:10:53] S2: Hiring now? Then this Ad[00:10:54] S1: is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:10:59] S3: It's officially the holiday season, and Abercrombie's new collection has outfits for everything on your calendar. It's the busiest time of year, and between shopping and party invites, I don't have time to plan every look. But Abercrombie's always got me covered. Their sweaters are the perfect easy layer for low key plans, and on a nice night out, I'm reaching for their classic trousers. Fill your closet with the pieces you'll need all season long. Have a very Abercrombie holiday. Shop in the app, online, and in stores.