Figma Goes All In On Developers
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses Figma's acquisition of Dinoboard, a low-code tool that helps build web apps. Figma likely acquired Dinoboard because it was struggling financially and this helps Figma expand into targeting developers more. Figma wants to become the central hub connecting design, dev tools, and project management. The video explores how Figma is focusing on developer workflows to increase efficiency between design and engineering. It suggests developers impacted by Dinoboard shutting down could look into similar low-code tools like Retool or the open-source Refine.
Takeaways
- 😮 Figma acquired Dinoboard, a low-code IDE focused on building web apps
- 🤑 Dinoboard previously raised $6.6M at likely $30-60M valuation
- 🤔 Acquisition suggests Figma expanding its developer focus
- 📈 Figma likely benefited from its $1B breakup fee from failed Adobe deal
- 💰 Acquisitions often involve stock swap rather than pure cash deals
- 🛠 Figma introduced Dev Mode last year with code generation features
- ⚙️ Figma integrating with developer tools like GitHub and Storybook
- 📈 Teams using Figma boosted dev efficiency 35%
- 💡 Dinoboard users could pivot to Retool or open-source Refine
- 🤔 Figma deepening its platform play for designers and developers
Q & A
What is Figma and who uses it?
-Figma is a design and prototyping tool used primarily by designers and product teams to collaborate on digital product designs.
Why is Figma becoming more important for developers?
-As Figma is used to design web and app interfaces, developers need to take those designs and turn them into working code. Figma is trying to make this process smoother by building integrations and code export features.
What is DinBoard and why did Figma acquire it?
-DinBoard is a low-code platform that aimed to make building web apps easier. Figma likely acquired it to integrate its capabilities into Figma to better serve developers.
How much funding had DinBoard raised?
-DinBoard raised $6.6 million in seed funding in June 2022, implying a likely valuation between $30-60 million.
Why did Figma's failed acquisition by Adobe enable the DinBoard deal?
-When the Figma-Adobe deal fell through, Figma got a $1 billion breakup fee from Adobe. This gave Figma more cash to pursue acquisitions like DinBoard.
What developer-focused features has Figma already launched?
-Figma has launched Dev Mode for generating code snippets from designs, as well as VS Code and other developer tool integrations.
How can the DinBoard shutdown be avoided?
-Retool and refine.io are low-code alternatives that can help transition DinBoard users before it shuts down on April 30, 2023.
How can Figma accelerate development efficiency?
-By centralizing design, project management, and code tools together into one integrated platform anchored in Figma.
Who is the target audience for the video?
-The video seems geared towards developers who are interested in how Figma and design tools integrate with and impact their workflows.
What is the overall perspective on Figma's acquisition of DinBoard?
-Quite positive - it's seen as a strategic move by Figma to better serve developers by integrating low-code capabilities that smooth the design to development process.
Outlines
😊 Figma acquires Dino, a low-code tool aimed at developers
Paragraph 1 discusses Figma's acquisition of Dino, a low-code AI-powered IDE focused on helping developers build web applications quickly. It provides background on Dino, estimating its valuation at $30-60 million in 2022. The paragraph suggests Dino likely struggled to raise more funding and sees the Figma deal as a lifeline.
😲 Dino shutting down entirely; Figma likely after their expertise
Paragraph 2 notes Dino will fully shut down services by April 2030. It speculates Figma wants Dino's expertise to build similar functionality natively within Figma to better serve developers, an audience they are aggressively pursuing.
😎 Figma's developer strategy aims to centralize workflow
Paragraph 3 explores Figma's broader developer strategy, including the Dev Mode feature set and various integrations with developer tools. It sees Figma aiming to become the central hub connecting design, dev workflows, project management etc.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Figma
💡Design to code
💡Acquisition
💡Integrations
💡Developer efficiency
💡Adobe
💡Stock acquisition
💡Low code
💡Data integrations
💡Open source
Highlights
Figma acquired Dinoboard, an AI-powered low code IDE, to bridge the gap between design and development
Dinoboard valued itself around $30-60 million in 2022 but was likely struggling to raise more funding
Dinoboard is shutting down and integrating its team and technology into Figma
Figma has $1B from its failed acquisition by Adobe, which it's using to fund acquisitions like Dinoboard
Figma is courting developers with Dev Mode features to translate designs into code
Figma aims to be the connective layer between design, code, project management and more
Teams using Figma increased development efficiency by 35%, showing its value for developers
Adobe struggles with developers, while Figma courts them - an interesting contrast
Options like Retool and Refine provide low-code solutions if you need an alternative to Figma
Refine is an open-source React-based low-code platform that Figma aims to provide
Refine lets you easily combine data sources, APIs, UI libraries into applications
Figma's acquisition of Dinoboard shows its ambition to own the design-to-dev workflow
This could be game-changing if Figma nails developer workflows and integrations
Losing Dinoboard is disappointing, but Figma aims to provide those capabilities natively
It will be interesting to see if Figma can win over developers and collapse the design-code gap
Transcripts
we talk about figma a lot on this
channel which kind of makes no sense
because figma's for designers not
developers and we're a developer channel
that said figma's more and more crucial
to our workflows as developers
especially more web and application
focused devs because figma we the ideas
that our product teams or individuals
have shape with the designers what the
thing should be and then we go and code
it there's been a lot of work to make
things like AI tools that will turn your
figma designs into code that actually
works and runs but the tools that bridge
this Gap and make it easier for
developers to be meaningfully involved
with than using figma itself that Gap
hasn't been bridged sure we can export
svgs and CSS from our figma code but
that's not enough usually we're just
using it for Mock and then recreating
everything in our code bases this might
finally change though because figma's
made a massive acquisition I never would
have expected and this acquisition is
squarely targeting developers like
ourselves here so what the hell's going
on figma bought Dino board if you don't
already know Dino board which is totally
understandable I wasn't super familiar
before it's a low code AI supercharged
IDE but it's actually focused on the IDE
part it wants to be a way to build with
code actual web applications for my
quick read through of all the features
and things that Dino board supports it
seems like a hybrid trying to combine
what you would do with something like
the Wix codu design tools as well as
something like retool and how it gives
you a single surface area to attach
random data sources to third party
providers to off layers to all these
things with a single interface where you
can write code to get these things to
come together and then the design is
something you don't do the design like
how the UI looks how the buttons work
how all those things behave that's
abstracted into the component system
that they've built for you our job when
we use it is to use code to link all
these parts together it's a very
interesting place for figma to dive in
and the more I think about it the more I
realize it kind of makes sense some
quick important context here back in
June of 2022 they raised 6.6 million in
seed funding it's important to know that
that's not the value of the company
that's the money they raised probably
less than 30% of the company likely even
less than that like when I raised we
sold way less than 10% of the company in
our Race So giving up more than 30 would
be absurd if we assume a conservative
20% we do a little bit of math here that
would be 6.6 and this would be over a
value that we don't know compared to 20
over 100 so time 100 / 20 $33 million
valuation in 2022 assuming not great
percentage of the company being sold if
it was 10% instead of 20 you can double
that number which would be totally
realistic so this company by my
estimates valued itself in 2022 between
$30 and $60 million chances are they
were struggling to succeed with that
pitch over time and raising more money
when your valuation is already that high
becomes really difficult they convinced
investors from all of these places
including but not limited to mantis the
chain smokers yes like the band The
Chain Smokers as well as these other
firms as well as individuals from all
these places these people all invested
in a company that they believed was
worth at least $30 million there's no
way over the last 2 years they've become
more valuable than that and if they
spent the money that they raised at the
time they were probably running out of
it and if they were struggling to find
investors that would believe in them
enough to invest against a higher
valuation then they can't raise more
money then they die because $6 million
over two years is not a great burn
overall specifically because this is a
seed round this is pre-series a they
were still early stage in every regard
other than the amount of they had so
here we can see in 2021 2022 there was
just insane amounts of deals of
companies getting money invested in them
these numbers are really hard to
calculate super accurately but you could
see 2021 to 2022 the numbers were really
big and then as 2022 ended 2023 started
things started to get worse so it makes
sense that now if they were raising
during this huge Peak bubble and we're
also offering to compete with retool
which is one of the biggest recent early
stage startups in terms of how fast it
grew they went from Tiny to
multi-billion Dollar company in like 3
years the possibility of grabbing some
of that market was really exciting to
these investors many of which probably
felt like they missed out on the retool
deal and since they feel like they
missed that retool deal they're now
actively looking for potential
competitors to take some of that market
which if you're raising in that market
you can get a good amount of money for a
pretty good deal so with all that in
mind it's hard to know for sure what the
state of the company was but my guess is
they were low on money and didn't have a
great path to make a lot of money long
term but they did have a a good path to
work with a company like figma to help
them achieve their goals so let's talk a
bit about those goals din board aimed to
bridge the gap between idea and
production we believe figma to be the
best place to continue our work
designers and developers globally use
figma to design and build phenomenal
digital products we've long been
inspired by the groundbreaking
multiplayer canvas their commitment to a
high standard of Excellence and their
fun-loving creative Spirit Dino board is
excited to be joining figma to magnify
our impact together as we integrate into
figma we'll be phasing out Dino board
services on April 30th this year we have
paused new registrations and billing our
current customers will be notified via
email with more information and best
steps for transitioning your
applications and tools interesting this
is a full shutdown I would not have
guessed that immediately but makes sense
my guess is they're being brought on to
use some amount of their code but more
of their expertise to build something
similar within figma because figma's
been very clearly trying to Target
Devore I know this because they're
hitting me up all of the time to join
their I think it's like the figma
associates or something I don't remember
what it's called ambassadors they really
want me to be a figma ambassador and I
haven't done it because I don't show
things on my Channel that I don't use
regularly and it's not because figma's
bad it's just not where I spend my time
right now so not surprised that they're
going through all of these angles and
Loops to try and get devs to think about
figma more use it more and eventually
develop their applications using figma
to our dedicated customers collaborators
and Community Your Enthusiasm and
creativity have made this the adventure
of a lifetime We Are Forever grateful
you made a bet on us and shared our
dream of making web applications easier
to build we hope you enjoyed using Dino
board as much as we enjoyed building it
happy hacking Alex overall solid blog
post it's not quite as apologetic to the
users that are getting screwed as I
would have liked I don't know how many
there are and how valuable those users
are I get why they're doing what they're
doing I don't know how many employees
are at this company it seems relatively
small yeah it looks like there are six
Associated members which is not always
the most reliable thing but 2 to 10
employees sounds about right this
acquisition is only possible because of
how much the figma Adobe breakup sucked
you should probably watch my Adobe gives
up on developers video before going too
deep into this one CU I think it's
useful context figma was supposed to be
acquired by Adobe it failed because of
regulations in the EU and concerns about
monopolistic practices we could debate
all day whether or not that was valid
regardless figma got a billion dollar
breakup fee from Adobe that they're now
using to do Acquisitions like this so
this type of purchase might have been in
talks before the Adobe figma stuff even
started much less the breakup happened
but the additional money makes it much
easier for them to do things like this
interesting overall one more useful
detail about these types of Acquisitions
is pretty often when a company like
figma that's not publicly traded is
acquiring company like Dino board
they're not just paying out a flat fee
so if this Dino board acquisition was 10
million theoretically fig was not
handing $10 million to the owners of
Dino board they are allowing them to
trade some percentage of the stock for
equivalent valued again unlisted figma
private Equity so figma's worth $1
billion in Dino boards worth $10 million
they would take some amount of the stock
that exists at figma in this case 1% of
it and they would give that out to the D
board employees or stockholders whoever
as an exchange this also happens when a
company is acquired an example on the
publicly traded side is that when I was
an owner of slack stock and then
Salesforce bought them my stock got
traded into Salesforce stock some amount
of it was paid out cash immediately some
amount of it became stock at Salesforce
that's probably what's happening here so
these employees they don't just take
this money and run they now have to be
part of the figma bet so to speak in
order for their stock to be worth
something in the future they have to
help figma get to the point where it can
IPO at which point the stock they've now
traded has some value this is part of
why these Acquisitions aren't as
immediately lucrative and exciting as
people seem to think because even if
Dino board's Founders get aund million
out of this exchange that's stock on a
vesting schedule that is only worth
something if the company succeeds so
you're actually kind of giving up a
little bit of your control during these
Acquisitions where the founders of D
board now are part of a bigger machine
that they don't have much control of
they might be able to help in certain
ways but the value of their stock is no
longer determined by their efforts it's
determined by the leadership at the
place that they got acquired by so as
exciting and lucrative as these deals
might seem initially it's not always the
case in order to really understand the
impact here we need to see a bit more of
figma's strategy around devs last year
figma announced Dev mode which is a new
space in figma for devs with features
that help you translate designs into
code faster I have a whole video where I
go a bit more in depth on what's
exciting and different about the figma
Devo mode stuff but as you see here it
generates production ready CSS Snippets
primarily for your code Design Systems
they even have the ability to spit out
in this case that is a bunch of Swift UI
code it's cool that it has those options
but again it's just CSS and design stuff
keep work aligned and connected
streamline your workflow and stop
jumping between your design libraries
codebase and project management tools
when you bring everything together in
figma project management tools are they
going after linear as well that'll be
fun oh no they have it right there as a
plugin generally it seems like a lot of
figas Focus here isn't just adding code
to figma it's building an integration
layer between figma and all the other
pieces that developers work with because
developers are kind of where these parts
meet the gap between the design team and
your issue tracker is often the
engineers in the middle so having the
developer tool focus on integrating
GitHub jera storybook linear all those
types of things alongside your designs
in one place kind of makes figma the
home base for how your company
orchestrates development since design is
what what leads the development projects
in a lot of these companies it makes
sense that figma could become the home
for all of that it's also particularly
funny when you realize just how bad
Adobe is at handling developers that
figma is going like opposite way here
very very interesting stuff they even
put out a vs code extension because
again they're not pretending they can
build the solutions to all of these
problems they're focused on integrating
with existing solutions to make a good
experience teams using figma increased
development efficiency by 35% there's
even a report about that cool but
specifically this isn't just like or
efficiency this is development
efficiency up by 35% that's nuts that's
crazy that in the current state devs
using figma are already accelerating
that much more I'm excited to see where
this goes I do want to offer a quick
life raft to any of the people who are
being dropped there's a couple cool
options here obviously retool is the
popular one that everyone knows
beautiful website my CTO used to work at
retool so very very familiar with the
product wow they really W up their
website cool to see there's also an open
source alternative which I highly
recommend because if it's open source
you're much less at risk of this thing
disappearing when it gets acquired you
can host it yourself if you need refine
is dope quick bias check I'm an investor
in refine they were NY combinator and as
soon as I said what they were building I
knew I had to throw money at them
because I'm really hyped about it refine
is a react based open- Source tool for
low code building and attaching all of
these different crazy data sources I
think this picture perfectly summarizes
what is exciting about refine to me
where uh there are a ton of different
places that you might be getting data
from it platforms like Frameworks be it
off providers data providers live
services oh a Integrations like react
table react form access control stuff
and refine is the layer that let you to
combine all those things I'd almost flip
this a little bit where I'd put like
react and next and those things on the
other side and say that refine is the
layer that lets you take all of these
things and then render them in the ways
you want to really really powerful stuff
and if you're looking for a way to do
this that's open source and headless and
pretty easy to adopt so what do you
think are you a Dev that uses figma or
are you a figma user that hates devs
really curious what your thoughts are
let me know in the comments and in the
future we can talk more about figma
thank you guys as always and until next
time peace nerds
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