David Sacks on late bloomers and responsiveness of VC markets. See a more in-depth discussion in Episode 96 of the All-In Podcast.
Figma’s Valuation (purple line; left axis) versus ARR (red line; right axis).
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) September 16, 2022
Take-aways:
1) Late bloomers can thrive. Founders should never give up.
2) VC markets are highly responsive and slightly ahead of the curve.
We discuss fully on the next episode of @theallinpod. pic.twitter.com/JDnzALwqHK
Adobe CPO and founder of Behance: “Remembering the deluge of doubts in 2012 when we shared Behance’s acquisition, 10yrs later, platform grew 30x, product stronger than ever, brand intact, still free, high growth, and continued pipeline of goodness. But it takes work + principles. Like all bold moves, show > tell.”
today is a big day for both @Adobe and @figma. our teams are excited by the new possibilities and recognize both the opportunity and responsibility as we share our intent to come together. 🧵
— scott belsky (@scottbelsky) September 15, 2022
Hunter Walk: “Figma had crossed the ‘this matters to Adobe’s future’ rubicon. They hit $400m ARR and were continuing to double. Figma revenue, independent of margin, was increasingly displacing revenue that might have gone to Adobe, or more specifically, creating pricing pressure on Adobe.”
Andrei Herasimchuk, the ex-Lead Designer at Adobe, shares a list of “big wins” and “small wins” that Figma cofounders and he wrote down in December 2013. Pretty amazing to see how almost all of it is a reality now. (“Modernizing masking & gradient UI” sounds pretty sweet though!)
Found this recently. Taken Dec 2013. It’s the list of things @zoink, @evanwallace, & myself wrote down for @figma while still in the temp office in Palo Alto. The list of “Big Wins” was all Dylan & Evan, esp. the community and team use part. They had the vision, even back then. pic.twitter.com/6mZg6cJvhp
— Andrei Herasimchuk (@Trenti) September 16, 2022
Adobe representative to Protocol: “While we have been reducing our investment in XD, we will continue to support it. We are excited about Figma’s vision for the future of product design and the potential of our teams coming together to benefit our customers. After the transaction closes (expected in 2023), we will share more information.” RIP XD.
Adam Nash, one of the early investors in Figma, remembers his conversation with Dylan Field in 2013 about WebGL and moving graphic design to the cloud: “Dylan was not deterred. He explained that the heavy compute was the exact reason why moving to the cloud made sense. By providing high powered machines in the cloud, anyone could get access to an almost arbitrary amount of power without spending $10K, and latency & bandwidth had progressed to the point where shipping the UI bits to the client was a solved problem.”
The official press release from Adobe. “Adobe and Figma will benefit all stakeholders in the product design process, from designers to product managers to developers, by bringing powerful capabilities from Adobe’s imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology into the Figma platform. […] The transaction is expected to close in 2023, subject to the receipt of required regulatory clearances and approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions, including the approval of Figma’s stockholders.” See also Adobe’s Investor presentation on acquisition.
The official announcement from Dylan Field.