In this episode of "20 Minutes VC," host Harry Stebbings interviews Dylan Field, founder and CEO of Figma, a design platform that has rapidly grown into one of 2020's fastest-expanding companies. Field shares his journey from internships at notable tech firms to launching Figma, which has raised over $132 million, and is now valued at $2 billion. He discusses the importance of maintaining company culture amid hypergrowth, particularly during the shift to remote work due to COVID-19. Field also touches on the challenges of transitioning from application to platform, Figma's plugin ecosystem, and the future of design and collaboration in digital spaces. Additionally, he reflects on leadership and management as evolving skills, the impact of the Teal Fellowship on his views on education, and the significance of building long-term hiring relationships.
"Welcome back. This is the 20 minutes VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, following on from our episode last week with Hop In, I wanted to stay on the theme of interviewing the founders of the fastest growing companies in."
This quote sets the stage for the episode, highlighting the focus on interviewing founders of fast-growing companies and introduces Dylan Field from Figma.
"And I'm so thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat Dylan Field, founder and CEO at Figma, the company that helps teams create, test and ship better designs from start to finish and is one of 2020s fastest growing companies. To date, Dylan has raised over $132,000,000."
Harry Stebbings provides an overview of Figma's business and its success in securing significant funding, indicating the company's rapid growth and the high-profile investors backing it.
"So I started off as an intern, and my first internship was at O'Reilly Media."
Dylan Field discusses his initial steps in the tech industry, emphasizing the significance of his internship at O'Reilly Media in shaping his career trajectory.
"First of all, I think that I didn't fully recognize at the time, but management and leadership are skills."
Dylan Field reflects on the realization that leadership is a skill set that requires learning and development, much like any other professional skill.
"I hope that now I'm a more empowering leader overall."
Dylan Field shares his journey towards becoming a more empowering leader, indicating his commitment to personal growth and adapting his leadership style to better support his team.
"I think that, first of all, there's a cultural decision to make, which is, are you a culture where you're always improving or not?"
Dylan Field discusses the importance of creating a culture that is focused on constant improvement and the need to communicate effectively when goals are not met.
"I think that as we're all moving so fast, which is fear day is chunked into half, half hour bits, there's so much pressure to constantly be giving people the answer or telling people no this way. And a thing that I'm trying to challenge myself to do more and more is just to really step back and say, here's why. Here's why. I think this."
This quote highlights the speaker's personal challenge to resist the pressure of fast-paced decision-making and instead take the time to explain their reasoning to others, fostering a deeper understanding.
"I think if you think you can do it better, you haven't found the right person."
This quote suggests that the inability to delegate may stem from not having found a person who can perform the task to the desired standard, implying the need for better recruitment or trust in others' capabilities.
"And so it's really, along with my experiences through Figma, it's made me question the belief that you need a ton of experience in order to go do something that's at sort of the world scale."
This quote reflects on the speaker's observations that young individuals, through opportunities like the Teal Fellowship, have accomplished significant feats without extensive experience, challenging traditional beliefs about the prerequisites for success.
"I think some companies start with a really innate sense of how to build a platform... But I think either way you have to eventually figure out how to think in a more platform-focused way."
This quote discusses the strategic decisions companies face when developing their products, whether to begin with a broad platform approach or to start with a specific use case and expand to a platform over time.
"But I think also that it is possible to go too fast and to not consider things fully enough. And so it's important to make sure that you keep things simple."
This quote emphasizes the need for careful consideration in product development to avoid complexity that could detract from the user experience, especially for new users.
"You do have to make those complex power user cases possible... But you can't do it at the expense of keeping simple things simple."
This quote underscores the delicate balance required in product design to satisfy the demands of experienced users while preserving ease of use for newcomers.
"One of the things I'm most excited about, too, and I think it's holistically with plugins, is community."
This quote expresses the speaker's enthusiasm for the burgeoning community aspect of Figma, particularly through the development of its plugin ecosystem, which could foster a more connected and collaborative design environment.
"k there's a possibility of potential to create a much better experience than that, that's centered around design, the way designers work."
This quote explains that Figma sees potential in creating a superior design-centric experience, which is a fundamental aspect of their mission.
"I think that anytime you're able to introduce more workflow, that is a pretty inherently defensible thing that will help your product."
This quote emphasizes the importance of integrating workflows through plugins to strengthen product defensibility.
"It's important not to be too focused on competition. Otherwise you're not building what's uniquely you."
This quote illustrates the balance needed between being aware of the competition and maintaining a unique value proposition.
"And so what I see is that there's a transition over time that's been happening, and 2020 is that inflection point, that sort of big rush into digital spaces."
This quote highlights the accelerated transition to digital spaces as a significant external impact of COVID on Figma and the industry at large.
"For Figma, internally, pre Covid, we were entirely in person, and now we're supporting remote work, of course, just like everyone else does, but also we're permanently doing that long term."
The quote describes Figma's internal shift to a remote work model in response to COVID-19 and their commitment to it in the long term.
"One thing I'm trying is just more breakfast and more ways to connect with people and spend time with folks on the team."
This quote reflects Figma's efforts to maintain a warm, spontaneous company culture despite the shift to remote work.
"It's dealing cultured during a pandemic. It's. It's a big change."
This quote outlines the challenge of maintaining and scaling company culture during rapid growth and a global pandemic.
"One thing that people don't usually realize when they're hiring talent is that it's a very long term game and it's based in relationships."
This quote underscores the importance of long-term relationships in the hiring process, especially for acquiring top talent.
"You can't make a hire unless you have total conviction."
This quote stresses the importance of being fully convinced of a candidate's fit before hiring, especially in a high-growth environment.
"One thing that I thi"
Although incomplete, this quote indicates that the speaker was about to share insights on board management, potentially drawing parallels to hiring practices.
"I really thought of the board as this group that I was reporting into. I think now I think of it more as Figma is the group that we're all reporting into."
This quote reflects Dylan Field's evolved perspective on the role of the board and his relationship with it, emphasizing a collaborative approach where the company's interests are paramount.
"I think it's important to reward and to praise people when they come to you with information about mistakes."
Dylan Field highlights the value of board members responding supportively to founders' admissions of mistakes, which can encourage honesty and trust.
"I really like helping people, and helping as an investor is just a very different way of helping people."
The quote captures Dylan Field's passion for mentorship and support in the startup ecosystem, which he finds personally rewarding and beneficial to his work at Figma.
"A recent book that I read, again, this is a reread for me, which I really appreciate even more in 2020 because I think it's like the quintessential 2020 book is Snow Crash."
This quote explains why Dylan Field finds "Snow Crash" particularly pertinent to the current year, with its themes resonating with the rise of virtual spaces and the spread of information online.
"I really hope that there'll be more ecosystems like Silicon Valley in the world."
The quote reflects Dylan Field's aspiration for the proliferation of innovation hubs globally and the importance of inclusivity within these ecosystems.
"We're going partially remote. So we are basically fully remote during COVID but after Covid, we'll be hybrid, and we'll continue to support remote work afterwards."
Dylan Field clarifies Figma's stance on remote work, indicating a balanced approach that accommodates both remote and in-office work preferences.
"The single greatest threat to Figma...is such an opportunity or danger of messing up our culture while we scale really fast."
Dylan Field identifies the delicate balance of maintaining company culture amidst aggressive expansion as a critical issue for Figma's future.
"Biggest strength is that sometimes I can focus enough on something and make it happen... Biggest weakness is that I'm not always focused enough."
This quote reveals Dylan Field's self-assessment of his leadership skills, recognizing both his capability to drive results and the areas where he seeks improvement.
"I think that there's an opportunity for us to totally own and support the design process and lifecycle."
Dylan Field outlines the ambitious goal for Figma to become the go-to platform for the entire design journey, democratizing design and contributing to the digital economy.
"I just could not be more excited for the future ahead. With Dylan leading figma."
Harry Stebbings concludes the interview with a positive outlook on Dylan Field's impact on Figma and the potential growth trajectory for the company.