Figma, the design tool that is now valued at $46 billion, is a tortoise, not a hare.
If you haven’t read the venture capitalist Sarah Guo’s recap of Figma’s early days and how long it took for the company to find product market fit, stop what you’re doing and give it a read. Per Guo, who previously worked at Greylock, which led the company’s Series A round, it took Figma CEO Dylan Field more than four years to go from founding the company to taking it to a public launch. The Greylock investor John Lilly took a step back from the firm shortly after doing the deal in 2015, which was around the time that many funds were pulling back from doing consumer deals in favor of opportunities in the enterprise market.
The lesson? It’s not always obvious in the early years who and what the big winners will be. Venture is a long game. Figma ultimately made Greylock and its other investors an enormous return, but it would not have been obvious at the beginning. The company needed true believers who understood the vision, and saw how it would be possible to get there in the end. Guo spoke to other early challenges too in her post like concerns about the total addressable market, struggles with early customers, and a “terrifying” monthly burn rate. Greylock led the round at a moment when the company barely had a product.
This is highly applicable to healthcare, particularly as I’m witnessing so many investment firms move out of the sector because of a lack of exits. It’s my view that it’s far too early for that, and I think these tourist firms are making a mistake.
A quick blurb about some upcoming programming for the Second Opinion Community
Second Opinion Knowledge Sharing
Before we get started, I wanted to call attention to our upcoming knowledge sharing webinars for the Second Opinion Community.
Webinar Topic | Timing | Registration |
The future of media: Operating in a world of independent journalism (in partnership with Hospitalogy) | Sept 8 | Paid subscribers can sign up here |
Employers vs. Rising Healthcare Costs: Strategies for Employers to Cut Costs Without Cutting Care | Sept 4 | Anyone can sign up here |
When I speak with friends in finance about health-tech, they often point to the lack of companies worth more than $10 billion. Unlike other sectors, there is still a lack of mega companies that create massive bonanzas for investors.
more follows below…