How Figma Closes the Gap Between Imagination and Reality

Over the last dozen years, Dylan Field has built Figma into an iconic company by delivering on its vision to “make design accessible to all.”

“For us, the intention was always to decrease the time it takes to go from something in your head to something on the screen,” whether it’s a website or a fully functional app, Dylan says.

But the lofty mission initially landed with a thud. In 2013, when then-20-year-old Dylan pitched up and down Sand Hill Road, investors said it was too confusing, too vague, too broad. For many, it was a head scratcher that, they argued, would make recruiting talent unnecessarily difficult. So Dylan replaced his abstract idea with the more concrete goal of democratizing design.

From toiling for three and half years until there was a working product, to taking an additional 18 months to secure the first enterprise customer, it was a long and winding road that led Figma to where it is today: a beloved platform that millions of designers and developers use to create websites, apps, and digital experiences, and a list of customers that includes the likes of Airbnb, Google, The New York Times, Patagonia, and Volkswagen.

But Dylan never gave up on the original mission. And he now believes the opportunity to shrink the gap between imagination and reality — and for Figma to help lead that journey — is greater than ever. That’s both because of Figma’s rapidly-expanding platform and because of the advent of AI.

Yet even in a world where Figma makes it so much easier to go from imagination to reality, good design will be the hallmark of a truly differentiated product. “Craft,” Dylan says, “will always win.”

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