> It would be ignorant not to consult with them and have a thorough analysis of what Adobe XD is lacking in comparison to Figma and how difficult is it to build the missing parts.
market.
it isn't the feature-parity that adobe needed to dethrone figma, it is the customers it needed.
and it's hard to get customers when you are as big as figma in the ui world.
It is true the deal get Adobe instant customers, but at what cost? Some of these customers will leave Adobe’s Figma even when Adobe run Figma as an independent app, more will leave when Adobe bundle it into Creative Cloud, very few will be converted to creative cloud, as they are not targeted users for Photoshop Illustrator After Effects Indesign, etc. If someone doesn’t use Photoshop, they don’t use it period, it is never going to change; it is decided by the nature of their business. The fact Adobe bought Figma can’t manufacture product needs. When they don’t need any other app other than Figma, they won’t convert to Creative Cloud.
"Some of these customers will leave Adobe’s Figma even when Adobe run Figma as an independent app"
Man, no one is going. Where they even going to go? You think they are going to set up a new design system back in Sketch and lose 50% of their features?
"they won’t convert to Creative Cloud."
I'm going to guess they'll have a diff model after this acquisition. Doubt they'd spend 20b to try and include after effects with a figma subscription.
I also want to add, it is easier to switch design software than other things like dev infrastructure. Design files are an intermedia work product, unlike code which is the terminal work product. Design files lose its use after dev is done with them.
You are right design system set up is the “trapping” factor. But it is not that much work to focus on converting the existing design system to a new software. Design system takes a long time to build because of other things, building time in design software not one of them. Give me a week, I can convert Google material design to a new software platform, like for real. I will give you that it is still a cost, and that will stop some people. but it is not as costly as one might think.
Remember how fast customers switch from Sketch to Figma? Yeah.
Ok so let's say it just takes a week for a company to switch over their design system back to Sketch ... why? You've just upended your design process for what? Mac-only, desktop app experience?
No your copy writers can't make edits, plugins are gone, your share links are dead , all for what?
*Remember how fast customers switch from Sketch to Figma*
there are many alternatives, sketch being one of them, there is also Penpot, Framer, Lunacy. Smaller team who can afford switching will consider switching. Bigger team, with a lot of history files, yes they are trapped to some extent. The sentiment on the Internet suggest there are a lot of people consider that, but I understand it is amplified by social media.
No one is moving their product team to Penpot, Lunancy - if you are a cash-strapped freelancer then yeah, maybe. But even then it's just kinda pointless.
Even a smaller team can live in the Figma free plan. Everyone on social is talking shit, check in with them in 1 month and ask if they switched.
Anyone that is making Figma money is not going to switch. And why? Nothing has even happened yet.
Great that you know him personally. Do you know if he leads the acquisition of Figma? Could you clarify if he is still a partner at Greylock - I imagine he couldn’t be but his LinkedIn profile suggests he still is, he has added his latest position at Adobe, but the previous post at Greylock remains to be 2019 - present
That was well-written Wenting! I (like everyone probably) was surprised just at the acquisition. After reading your blog, I find the acquisition tainted and dirty... sure regulators will do their job and ferret out any nefarious. Still... the valuation part.
Also, don't worry about your portfolio unless you were planning on using it! I had this kind of thing happen to me... not much you can do after the fact just wait patiently.
Thanks for writing that post - really thought-provoking!
I knew that. I decided not to include it as I see that detail irrelevant to my point. His entire work history is not in concern in the context of the article. He worked at Adobe before, left, started his own company, and then joined Greylock. The Greylock part is what my point concerns about.
I find him working at Adobe many years ago does not hurt or help the points I made, therefore I removed it.
I initially tried to worked that in by saying something like he joined Adobe for the second time a year ago, but I find that wordy, and confuse the point I tried to make. I also don't want to sound against him for being a "boomerang" employee — many of my ex-coworkers at Adobe are boomerang and that is because the work culture is good enough for people to come back, and there is nothing wrong in doing that.
Points taken that Figma wouldn’t sell at 5B, the thing is I don’t think they should sell at $20 billion either, and reason being what you said, they could have achieved more, they are doing so well why sell now? It is a win for the investors but a lose for Figma’s future - their potential is cut short by selling too soon.
On your points where team were forced to use XD instead of Figma, I know that is the case but I think that is the very reason Adobe doesn’t need Figma nearly as desperate as $20b made it seem. Figma is not the missing piece of Adobe's creative software empire. Adobe needs to cover UX design - which is what Adobe XD already does. For the companies "trapped" in Adobe ecosystem, they are using Adobe XD for their UX needs, not having the best UX design tool like Figma is not the deal breaker. The companies who are using Figma, will not be "trapped" back to Adobe either — they are companies that don't really need other Adobe software like AE, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. they can find alternatives of Figma and remain free from Adobe.
Does Adobe have to have the best software in each of the creative software categories to be an empire? my opinion is NO.
$20 billion can buy some of the customers but some will definitely leave. The high growth that granted Figma the $20 billion will not continue. I checked out a few Figma alternatives, they seem solid.
Adobe should have bought something like Webflow or framer site, and make it work well with Adobe XD to strengthen it. Something they don’t have in house counterparts.
I understood your points on dilution now — if Figma grows with future rounds to IPO with similar market cap, and founder would get less percentage, therefore less money. It is a huge pay day for the hard working founders of Figma, $20 billion is hard to say no to. I get it.
being a solo startup, the fact you can dilute with rounds of funding, means you can get more venture capital fund in to help grow the business, Adobe can't internally give nearly as much to Figma after acquisition. The Figma dream will die with the acquisition. I see the appeal of $20 billion though. Maybe the founders just want to move on to their next big ideas.
Adobe has successfully built the multiplayer mode, Adobe XD already has it for three years. But features don't equate to customers, it needs marketing, it needs refinement, it needs time. Adobe XD started late compared to Figma, with less resources. That is a common misconception to think that team in big corporate has more resourses than startup, but consider this, Adobe has many apps, XD is just one of them. Figma is just one app until very recently they had their second FigJam. Adobe is the sole investor of XD, Figma has six rounds of funding from an array of A list investors. Adobe XD didn't beat Figma is no surprise, it is on the right trajectory of slowing climbing up, that is what matters.
Adobe already has built an internal core team to work on the web multiplayer core tech, with next generation of Ps, Ai, In, in mind. I tried the Photoshop on the web a couple of months ago, and was pleasantly surprised. Porting over Figma tech will be much harder. It was built for a solo product, it was never built to suit this needs. It is not the Figma tech that Adobe wants.
*Adobe can't internally give nearly as much to Figma after acquisition. The Figma dream will die with the acquisition.*
Why? It's already on the path to a billion dollars in revenue, as a single buisness unit in Adobe, it's already huge. Adobe made 15b revenue last year, so you think 400m (up from 200m) is something they will throw away?
*But features don't equate to customers, it needs marketing, it needs refinement, it needs time. Adobe XD started late compared to Figma*
1) Adobe has bigger marketing power than Figma, they marketed XD it's just that the community didnt care because it was good enough 2) XD launched before Figma did ?!!
I don't understand your point, on one hand you're saying adobe can't compete because it's big, but then you say it can.
There is no market left for XD to win, Figma owns it. Whether XD gets better is irrelevant now. It's a winner takes all space and Figma has all of the best product orgs, a high velocity freemium model and quite frankly a significantly better product that they don't have the DNA to copy. There's no customers left for XD.
Why would they 'port over' Figma tech? They can just use the tech as either a blueprint or just use the bits they need.
interesting article but missed one point here:
> It would be ignorant not to consult with them and have a thorough analysis of what Adobe XD is lacking in comparison to Figma and how difficult is it to build the missing parts.
market.
it isn't the feature-parity that adobe needed to dethrone figma, it is the customers it needed.
and it's hard to get customers when you are as big as figma in the ui world.
It is true the deal get Adobe instant customers, but at what cost? Some of these customers will leave Adobe’s Figma even when Adobe run Figma as an independent app, more will leave when Adobe bundle it into Creative Cloud, very few will be converted to creative cloud, as they are not targeted users for Photoshop Illustrator After Effects Indesign, etc. If someone doesn’t use Photoshop, they don’t use it period, it is never going to change; it is decided by the nature of their business. The fact Adobe bought Figma can’t manufacture product needs. When they don’t need any other app other than Figma, they won’t convert to Creative Cloud.
"Some of these customers will leave Adobe’s Figma even when Adobe run Figma as an independent app"
Man, no one is going. Where they even going to go? You think they are going to set up a new design system back in Sketch and lose 50% of their features?
"they won’t convert to Creative Cloud."
I'm going to guess they'll have a diff model after this acquisition. Doubt they'd spend 20b to try and include after effects with a figma subscription.
I also want to add, it is easier to switch design software than other things like dev infrastructure. Design files are an intermedia work product, unlike code which is the terminal work product. Design files lose its use after dev is done with them.
You are right design system set up is the “trapping” factor. But it is not that much work to focus on converting the existing design system to a new software. Design system takes a long time to build because of other things, building time in design software not one of them. Give me a week, I can convert Google material design to a new software platform, like for real. I will give you that it is still a cost, and that will stop some people. but it is not as costly as one might think.
Remember how fast customers switch from Sketch to Figma? Yeah.
Ok so let's say it just takes a week for a company to switch over their design system back to Sketch ... why? You've just upended your design process for what? Mac-only, desktop app experience?
No your copy writers can't make edits, plugins are gone, your share links are dead , all for what?
*Remember how fast customers switch from Sketch to Figma*
That took years. How long do you think that took?
> Remember how fast customers switch from Sketch to Figma? Yeah.
people switched because figma offered collaboration & was not mac-only.
you are comparing apples to oranges.
hopefully, adobe has learned the lesson to not be another yahoo.
and yes, no one is leaving until adobe makes a blunder.
there are many alternatives, sketch being one of them, there is also Penpot, Framer, Lunacy. Smaller team who can afford switching will consider switching. Bigger team, with a lot of history files, yes they are trapped to some extent. The sentiment on the Internet suggest there are a lot of people consider that, but I understand it is amplified by social media.
No one is moving their product team to Penpot, Lunancy - if you are a cash-strapped freelancer then yeah, maybe. But even then it's just kinda pointless.
Even a smaller team can live in the Figma free plan. Everyone on social is talking shit, check in with them in 1 month and ask if they switched.
Anyone that is making Figma money is not going to switch. And why? Nothing has even happened yet.
David Wadhwani also worked in Adobe between 2005 - 2015. He was my manager on Adobe Flex Builder.
Great that you know him personally. Do you know if he leads the acquisition of Figma? Could you clarify if he is still a partner at Greylock - I imagine he couldn’t be but his LinkedIn profile suggests he still is, he has added his latest position at Adobe, but the previous post at Greylock remains to be 2019 - present
From the rumours yes. I do not think that he's allowed to also work for Greylock.
The people that I talked with are happy with his return.
That was well-written Wenting! I (like everyone probably) was surprised just at the acquisition. After reading your blog, I find the acquisition tainted and dirty... sure regulators will do their job and ferret out any nefarious. Still... the valuation part.
Also, don't worry about your portfolio unless you were planning on using it! I had this kind of thing happen to me... not much you can do after the fact just wait patiently.
Thanks for writing that post - really thought-provoking!
thanks Andy!
David Wadwhani was an SVP at Adobe for over a decade. (The very LinkedIn page you cited shows that.)
I knew that. I decided not to include it as I see that detail irrelevant to my point. His entire work history is not in concern in the context of the article. He worked at Adobe before, left, started his own company, and then joined Greylock. The Greylock part is what my point concerns about.
I find him working at Adobe many years ago does not hurt or help the points I made, therefore I removed it.
I initially tried to worked that in by saying something like he joined Adobe for the second time a year ago, but I find that wordy, and confuse the point I tried to make. I also don't want to sound against him for being a "boomerang" employee — many of my ex-coworkers at Adobe are boomerang and that is because the work culture is good enough for people to come back, and there is nothing wrong in doing that.
Points taken that Figma wouldn’t sell at 5B, the thing is I don’t think they should sell at $20 billion either, and reason being what you said, they could have achieved more, they are doing so well why sell now? It is a win for the investors but a lose for Figma’s future - their potential is cut short by selling too soon.
On your points where team were forced to use XD instead of Figma, I know that is the case but I think that is the very reason Adobe doesn’t need Figma nearly as desperate as $20b made it seem. Figma is not the missing piece of Adobe's creative software empire. Adobe needs to cover UX design - which is what Adobe XD already does. For the companies "trapped" in Adobe ecosystem, they are using Adobe XD for their UX needs, not having the best UX design tool like Figma is not the deal breaker. The companies who are using Figma, will not be "trapped" back to Adobe either — they are companies that don't really need other Adobe software like AE, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. they can find alternatives of Figma and remain free from Adobe.
Does Adobe have to have the best software in each of the creative software categories to be an empire? my opinion is NO.
$20 billion can buy some of the customers but some will definitely leave. The high growth that granted Figma the $20 billion will not continue. I checked out a few Figma alternatives, they seem solid.
Adobe should have bought something like Webflow or framer site, and make it work well with Adobe XD to strengthen it. Something they don’t have in house counterparts.
I understood your points on dilution now — if Figma grows with future rounds to IPO with similar market cap, and founder would get less percentage, therefore less money. It is a huge pay day for the hard working founders of Figma, $20 billion is hard to say no to. I get it.
being a solo startup, the fact you can dilute with rounds of funding, means you can get more venture capital fund in to help grow the business, Adobe can't internally give nearly as much to Figma after acquisition. The Figma dream will die with the acquisition. I see the appeal of $20 billion though. Maybe the founders just want to move on to their next big ideas.
Adobe has successfully built the multiplayer mode, Adobe XD already has it for three years. But features don't equate to customers, it needs marketing, it needs refinement, it needs time. Adobe XD started late compared to Figma, with less resources. That is a common misconception to think that team in big corporate has more resourses than startup, but consider this, Adobe has many apps, XD is just one of them. Figma is just one app until very recently they had their second FigJam. Adobe is the sole investor of XD, Figma has six rounds of funding from an array of A list investors. Adobe XD didn't beat Figma is no surprise, it is on the right trajectory of slowing climbing up, that is what matters.
Adobe already has built an internal core team to work on the web multiplayer core tech, with next generation of Ps, Ai, In, in mind. I tried the Photoshop on the web a couple of months ago, and was pleasantly surprised. Porting over Figma tech will be much harder. It was built for a solo product, it was never built to suit this needs. It is not the Figma tech that Adobe wants.
*Adobe can't internally give nearly as much to Figma after acquisition. The Figma dream will die with the acquisition.*
Why? It's already on the path to a billion dollars in revenue, as a single buisness unit in Adobe, it's already huge. Adobe made 15b revenue last year, so you think 400m (up from 200m) is something they will throw away?
*But features don't equate to customers, it needs marketing, it needs refinement, it needs time. Adobe XD started late compared to Figma*
1) Adobe has bigger marketing power than Figma, they marketed XD it's just that the community didnt care because it was good enough 2) XD launched before Figma did ?!!
I don't understand your point, on one hand you're saying adobe can't compete because it's big, but then you say it can.
There is no market left for XD to win, Figma owns it. Whether XD gets better is irrelevant now. It's a winner takes all space and Figma has all of the best product orgs, a high velocity freemium model and quite frankly a significantly better product that they don't have the DNA to copy. There's no customers left for XD.
Why would they 'port over' Figma tech? They can just use the tech as either a blueprint or just use the bits they need.