Figma's CEO sent cold emails to and bought coffee for his ‘heroes' while convincing ex-coworkers to use his product before its $68 billion success
Job-seekers are all turning to out-of-the-box ways to advance their careers: from delivering donuts to Silicon Valley bosses, to waitressing at tech conferences to hand out CVs. However, Figma CEO Dylan Field used some age-old tricks to get people on board with his now $68 billion breakout success.
The 33-year-old CEO was just 19 when he founded the online design tool in 2012, and the aspiring tech entrepreneur pulled on any loose thread he could find to persuade others to use it.
'Really, the first users of Figma, a lot of it was cold-emailing and people in-network,' Field recently revealed at Y Combinator's AI startup school. 'So folks that I had interned with…and from that, there were people I could reach out to that could tell me others to talk with.'
Field had dropped out of the Ivy League school Brown University and took up Peter Thiel's prestigious fellowship, granting Field $100,000 to launch his startup. But if it weren't for his nine-month research assistant job at Microsoft, four-month data analytics internship at LinkedIn, and two internships at aggregation software company Flipboard, he may not have amassed a base to get his business running.
Field didn't stop at hitting up his ex-coworkers and gaining steam behind a screen—he also scraped the internet for the best tech talent. If they agreed to hear out his Figma dream, he took them out for coffee and sang his praises of their influence. Surprisingly, in a world of rampant ghosting, a lot of people took the bait.
'I just looked online, like, 'Who are the designers that I think could be really helpful to us and I respect their work?' If they answer my email and they let me buy them a coffee, it'll just be like a personal moment for me, because they're my hero,' Field recalled. 'And a lot of them replied. It's kind of wild that people reply to cold emails, but they do.'
Fortune reached out to Figma for comment.
Millionaires and executives at Google and Squarespace who put themselves out there
Figma's CEO isn't the only one admitting to reaching out to the upper echelons of business for help out of the blue—and actually finding success from it.
Venture capitalist and multimillionaire Rashaun Williams, now a host on the iconic investing show Shark Tank, found success by employing a strategy he calls 'sneaking into the party.' With few business opportunities growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he would insert himself into any event, starting every conversation with 'Hear me out.' Williams told Fortune: 'I don't mind cold-calling people. I don't mind pulling up at conferences.'
Google executive Sameer Samat also didn't achieve success by sitting on the sidelines. He began his meteoric rise in tech by plucking up the courage to cold-email one of the biggest names in his industry: Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
At the time Samat was in his twenties, trying to make it in the startup world, when a cofounder at his company Mohomine was weighing leaving the business for graduate school. Unsure of how to convince them to stay, he emailed Brin at 3 a.m., hoping for some words of wisdom. A mere minute later, Brin replied and invited Samat and his entire team down to Google's headquarters, interviewing them on the spot. Brin offered Samat a job, but the now executive turned down the opportunity, opting instead to build up his company.
Even the CMO of $7.2 billion company Squarespace calls cold-calling employers the 'life hack to avoiding long interview processes.' Years before her success in tech, Kinjil Mathur spent her summers as a college student skimming telephone books to find the contacts of businesses and professionals in her city. She would go to the company listings section, and started cold-calling businesses inquiring about internships—stating she was even willing to do without a paycheck.
'I was willing to work for free; I was willing to work any hours they needed, even on evenings and weekends. I was not focused on traveling,' Mathur told Fortune. 'You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job—just really remain open.'
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Permian Basin Royalty: Q2 Earnings Snapshot
DALLAS (AP) — DALLAS (AP) — Permian Basin Royalty Trust (PBT) on Wednesday reported net income of $2.4 million in its second quarter. The Dallas-based company said it had profit of 5 cents per share. The owner of royalty interests in oil and gas properties posted revenue of $3.1 million in the period. _____ This story was generated by Automated Insights ( using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PBT at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Inside the James Cook deal
Running back James Cook has his new deal with the Bills. We have the numbers on the new five-year (not four-year) contract. Here they are, per a source with knowledge of the terms: 1. Signing bonus: $9 million. 2. 2025 base salary: $1.28 million, fully guaranteed. 3. 2026 option bonus: $7.4 million (see below for guarantee details). 4. 2026 workout bonus: $250,000. 5. 2026 base salary: $2.01 million (see below for guarantee details). 6. 2026 per-game roster bonus: $340,000 total. 7. 2027 workout bonus: $250,000. 8. 2027 base salary: $9.13 million, guaranteed for injury at signing; on the fifth day of the 2026league year, $6.22 million becomes fully guaranteed, with the remaining $2.91 million vesting in on the fifth day of the 2027 league year. 9. 2027 per-game roster bonus: $340,000 total. 10. 2028 workout bonus: $250,000. 11. 2028 base salary: $9.681 million, $1.18 million of which is guaranteed for injury. 12. 2028 per-game roster bonus: $340,000 total. 13. 2029 workout bonus: $250,000. 14. 2029 base salary: $10.41 million. 15. 2029 per-game roster bonus: $340,000 total. For 2026, $5 million is fully guaranteed at signing. Another $4.41 million is guaranteed for injury; it converts to full guarantee in on February 9, 2026. The contract includes a $1 million escalator for 2028, if any year from 2025 through 2027 he participates in 45 percent of the offensive snaps and the team makes the playoffs. The contract also includes a $1 million escalator for 2029, if any two years from 2025 through 2028 he participates in 45 percent of the offensive snaps and the team makes the playoffs in those same two seasons. The new-money average on the four-year extension is $11.5 million per year, with $15.28 million fully guaranteed at signing. By 2026, the full guarantee increases to $25.91 million. The total injury guarantee is $30 million, with $28.82 million fully guranteed by 2027. From signing, the contract has a value of $10.254 million per year over five years; Cook was due to make $5.271 million in 2025.
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Fed grappling with impact of tariffs as it ponders rate decisions, Goolsbee says
(Reuters) -Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank is grappling with understanding whether tariffs will push up inflation just temporarily or more persistently, which would inform its decision on when to cut interest rates. "As we go into the fall, these are going to be some live meetings and we're going to have to figure it out," Goolsbee told the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce in Springfield, Illinois. "The hardest thing that a central bank ever has to do is to try to get the timing right when there are moments of transition." Goolsbee said he is uneasy assuming tariffs will be just a one-time shock to inflation and wants to see more data including wholesale price data due out this week and broader inflation data next month before coming to a view on whether a rate cut is warranted. The Fed left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range at its meeting last month, a decision that drew dissents from Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman and Fed Governor Christopher Waller. Bowman and Waller wanted to cut rates to head off what they worried was incipient weakness in the labor market. Two days after the end of that policy meeting, the U.S. Labor Department revised its earlier estimates of job growth in May and June sharply downward and reported a smaller-than-expected job gain in July. President Donald Trump called the data rigged and fired the commissioner in charge of producing it. Even so, allies including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have seized on the recent jobs report to call for rate cuts that Trump has pushed hard for all year. Some Fed officials also feel the July jobs report bolstered the case for easing policy. Goolsbee cautioned against reading too much into slowing job growth since that may reflect the sharp drop in immigration. He said he puts more weight on data like the unemployment rate, which at 4.2% is historically low. "I think the state of the labor market is pretty strong, pretty solid," Goolsbee said. Data earlier this week showed consumer prices rose 0.2% on a monthly basis in July, a downshift from the 0.3% reported for the prior month. Goolsbee said he took note of the rise in services inflation, which is not directly related to tariffs, and would be concerned if upcoming data continued to show a broadening of price pressures. Sign in to access your portfolio
