The key path
- Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company that employs 95% of the Fortune 500.
- Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience as a manager.
- Field described himself as “bad at it all” at first, but he learned how to become an effective manager over time.
Dylanfield learned the hard way that being a good leader doesn’t mean being a good manager.
Figma’s CEO assumed that because he had always been a leader, he was automatically ready to manage—only to learn that management was his own separate skill set.
On an episode of First time founder In a podcast that aired earlier this week, Field explained that he “didn’t know for sure” how to be a good manager at first. Before he co-founded Figma, a $19.45 billion design company that employs 95% of the Fortune 500, he interned at companies like LinkedIn and Flipboard. He had never been a manager before co-founding the company in 2012. Figma now has a workforce of 1,600 people.
“The good news is, if you’re a first-time manager, it’s all very learning,” Field said on the podcast. “It will eventually feel like muscle memory.”
Related: Instead of cuts, this $28 billion design company’s response to AI is to hire more people.
Field listed the management basics: knowing where his team is, running one-on-one, setting clear goals and holding people accountable.
“I think I was bad at it all,” Field said.
Investors also added to the pressure by expressing concerns about Figma getting a product to market too soon, he said. Field co-founded Figma in 2012, but it took three years for the company to ship a beta product. It took another year to open the product to the public, and until 2017 to add a paid plan, marking five years from idea to full product launch.
“Please don’t bring up that it took you five years to start a company,” Field said on the podcast. “You will die. We are outliers from a different time.”
Related: This billionaire founder hates being a famous CEO: ‘Like staring into a canyon and eating glass’
Field said what was “hugely helpful” for the growth was the hiring of the company’s first manager, SHO Kuomoto, who started as Figma’s director of engineering in 2015. Field learned “a ton” about management skills from Kawamoto.
Over time, field management improved, practicing skills like setting clear goals until they became second nature.
Field’s experience is similar to that of other founders, such as Dustin Moskowitz, who have had to learn how to effectively manage employees. Moskowitz co-founded Facebook and Asana, leading Asana for 15 years as CEO. In an interview in October, he said the CEO role was “exhausting” and didn’t fit his partisan personality.
“Personally, I don’t like managing teams, and that wasn’t my intention when we started Asana,” he explained. “Then one thing led to another, and I was the CEO.”
Related: The CEO of Airbnb says he personally manages 40 to 50 employees as direct reports.
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The key path
- Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company that employs 95% of the Fortune 500.
- Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience as a manager.
- Field described himself as “bad at it all” at first, but he learned how to become an effective manager over time.
Dylanfield learned the hard way that being a good leader doesn’t mean being a good manager.
Figma’s CEO assumed that because he had always been a leader, he was automatically ready to manage—only to learn that management was his own separate skill set.
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