How Figma’s community-led growth helped it compete with big giants like Adobe?

Many companies start building a community after the product is live but Figma’s team prioritized sowing the seeds of the community even before the product was live. Having a community has helped Figma grow in a highly competitive market and compete with big giants like Adobe. Before the product launch The team's focus was to build one-on-one relations with designers in the existing design communities. Followed by discovery calls with potential users and then introducing them to Figma. The goal was to get feedback and use those feedback to improve the product. The bar to convince designers to switch to Figma in one go was very high as designers spend 7-8 hours a day on a platform. But instead, they used the feedback to improve the product and build credibility by showing how deeply they cared about users. During the launch- The team created a custom script to understand the clusters among the Twitter design community like typographers, iconographers, illustrators, and product designers, and worked on their outreach efforts to specific groups of influencers who were most likely to be interested to learn about Figma and share about it on launch day. Maintain the momentum of the launch Figma’s team always cared for the users, they focused on creating relatable content that designers would want, even technical content. Post-launch- Once the product was live the next goal was to get more people's hands on the product. Early on the team identified champions/design advocates who would regularly network with other designers or friends and bring them into the Figma community. They also organized competitions or fun activities to get more people to use the platform. The new onboarded people would eventually recommend or use Figma in their existing company and bring more users, creating a cycle of growth Currently, they have many initiatives for the community like events, student programs, and community sessions. If you liked this post, do follow me. I write interesting marketing case studies every week.