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
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00:11:29 · Corey Lee
[00:11:29] S6: And then then I, you know, I could just share that it's always up to date and thinking about, like, the repercussions of that of, like, how that would change the way people interact and just reduce the friction. I think it was just a big thing I think about a lot of time in the process. So I was like, oh, well, to realize the value of that, I actually have to do... Use this tool with somebody else. So that the first thing I did was, okay. Let me find some other people on my team that I can get to get in the tool and let's use it together. And then once I did that, they understood it. I understood it. I was like, okay. This is a game changer. You know, once you start using it together, you you just realize it's, like, it's completely different experience. And I think that was when it was clicked, and then I realized that. And then I was like, oh, I need to get my whole team on this. I need to get everyone in this and get everyone in the file. Before I was, like, gonna introduce my team to it, there's actually an issue with, like, Japanese input. And, you know, back in the day, like, I can... You still have it today. In the bottom, like, right corner of Figma, there's a little question mark right there. If you push that, you can have, like... You can send a message, right, to the help desk and and get support on that. Right? So I was using Figma, and then when you input the Japanese characters, it wouldn't show up correctly. Japanese input was basically broken in in Figma at the time. I was like, oh, yeah. This is great, but, like, I'm in Japan, and, like, I'm I'm designing in Japanese, so I can't use this on my team until this is fixed. Right? I was like, maybe I'll just try to send them support and see what happens. Know? So I I told him. I I sent him some screenshots. I said, hey. I'll send a detailed request, I said, hey. Leo, this thing is broken here. If you could fix this, this would really be helpful for your Japanese users. Right? And then a couple weeks go by, and I pick it up again, and it's fixed. And I was like, wow. This is pretty nice. I was I was like, the tool is pretty cool, but I was like... What was really, really cool was it's like, oh, I gave this feedback, and then they fixed that.
00:13:05 · Corey Lee, Hannah Lee
But, also, I know that, like, they're accepting feedback from the community, and the speed of that iteration is is something that it gives me confidence. I think, like, changing tools is like an investment for the whole team. That was kind of me weighing the option. Was just like, okay. I'm really kind of investing in this team, and I'm gonna tell my team we should use this this product. [00:13:22] S7: So you joined Figma before the product launch. How did you approach marketing marketing a product that was still in SELK mode?
00:13:22 · Hannah Lee, Claire Butler
[00:13:22] S7: So you joined Figma before the product launch. How did you approach marketing marketing a product that was still in SELK mode? [00:13:29] S5: So I was the first marketing hire, but I was also the first just go to market person. In the beginning, when we didn't have a product, I would go around and drive around Palo Alto, San Francisco with Dylan, and we would just pitch Figma to different TEKS. We had a bunch of connections and different design teams, and we would just go there, and we'd we'd show them the product. And so a lot of what I did in the early days was meet these people, gather their feedback, kind of like what Corey was saying in in that more of a one on one setting, and hear what they thought about the tool. And then we were really trying to understand, okay. When are we ready to go out at Stealth then launch launch the product? And so a lot of what I was doing was trying to understand, you know, are teams ready to adopt this? And is the the tool good enough to launch? I think it's such a balance that you have to think about where it's like, okay. We wanna get out of self and wanna get in this this in people's hands. But if it's not good enough, then it's also like, well, we're gonna lose our chance. [00:14:23] S7: You only get one shot to launch. And, like, what were some of the factors that made that decision?