Figma CCO Nairi Tashjian Hourdajian on Config community-building, four-to-eight product suite, and the brand strategy behind B2B going consumer

yourself for the stream? Tell us who you are, what you do. Sure. Hi, I'm Na Hurajian. I'm the chief communications officer at Figma, which basically means I'm lucky to work with this amazing design community on events and how we engage them all around the world, including config.

How are how have the comms been different this year than in years past? Um, you know, I think that the launches really set the tone for how we bring the community together at Config every year. And, you know, we were just so excited about the launch slate this year. Four new products taking us from four to eight. Yep.

We had uh we had Andrew Reed on from Oh, good.

from Sequoa earlier and he said that a few years ago they were giving Dylan a standing ovation for the team for a font picker and to see this year it's make site you know buzz oh my god I remember in 2020 two was a dark mode was like similar like oh my god everyone's so excited but now it's like and it's just been really amazing to see the response so far already and we're excited to see them the community play with the product, get feedback, and keep iterating.

Do you think about uh who you're communicating with as specific customer avatars or cohorts, or is it all just kind of one big happy Figma family? Uh, and yeah, if you put on the headphones, you'll just be able to hear yourself a little bit better, better, a little more authentic podcast mode.

Um but yeah uh in terms of in terms of the types of uh communities that are here obviously there's uh there's consumers who might use Figma just to design you know a wedding invitation or birthday card and then there's all the way up to an enterprise that has you know probably hundreds of seats if not more um who uh do you think about communicating to different groups in different ways or is it kind of just a big celebration of the broader Figma community?

Yeah, I mean Figma can be really good for figuring out your wedding seating. So, I don't want to discount that use case, but um in general, we're really serving people who are making software. Yeah.

So, going from idea to product uh and all the tools that they need to be able to do that and you know, obviously the product design community is a huge part of that. But over the past several years, the way people are building has changed. Yeah. The entire process has become more blended, interdicciplinary.

Today you heard from an engineer, a product manager, designers, and they're all just working together um to build to go from idea to product and AI is changing that. And so we really think of serving that entire development. Oh, it's crazy. The entire org chart can now make things.

It's totally, you know, which is insane. Like the idea that that someone at in legal could create a marketing asset or or you know, some type of material for hire, you know, it's pretty unheard of. Yeah. even even just like a oneoff internal tool. Yeah. To be built.

Can you talk about uh kind of the pressure, you know, around Figma? A lot of companies say they have a community, but they really just have, you know, an audience or a customer base. But, you know, something that feels very obvious here and even online is that Fig Figma's community is a real community, right?

you have people coming in from Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, like all all descending here and and you don't get that without, you know, people um and these aren't, you know, some people are coming on behalf of a company, other people are like a oneperson studio that's just like I'm spending my own money to get here because I need to be there.

Can you talk about how how you've approached, you know, comm specifically at Figma, knowing that when you send an email, people are going to open it and they're going to care a lot about what they're hearing.

And I just feel like that's very different than even some big important companies where they're just sort of this monolithic organization and, you know, people are going to buy their stuff, you know, whether regardless of how they feel about, you know, the company. Totally.

Well, you know, a lot of that goes back to the very earliest days. And you know, I think because Figma was in the browser and suddenly made design collaborative, it completely changed how designers worked completely like radical change in their day-to-day.

And so that we we always try to bring it back to the product solution that we're offering, but um you know, we think of config as being an event for the community by the community. always has been that way since the first one back in 2020 right before the pandemic that predates my time at Figma.

Um but the talks are by the members of our community, the um like activations um even some of the other events that are being sponsored and put on by people who are just here gathering. And so for us, the way we think about it is just to maintain authentic relationships with people.

We ask for a lot of feedback, sure, on the event, but also on product. And so we're just trying to have a really open and engaged dialogue with folks. Um, you know, we're happy that they tell us when they like things. We're also glad when they tell us what they don't like.

Last year we had a lot of overcrowding at Config. On the one hand, that was like, you know, an interesting problem to have to like more of a Coachella. Yeah, it was it was not easy for folks to get in and around. And so we heard that and I think it feels like much more roomy and spacious this year.

And so just trying to make the experience always feel as authentic and connected as the keynote was still standing room only I noticed but you know it's we maxed out the number of chairs we could put in there I think of course can you talk about the trade-offs between um batching these four product releases into one big event versus splitting it up you could imagine like quarterly releases there's obviously trade-offs there uh in the age of the internet there's a lot of demand on companies to just hey as soon as it's done give it to me I want it now even if it's rough around the edges let's iterate we get that at the same time uh you're becoming more of like the Apple like annual release and there's something beneficial from a commas perspective about concentrating all the energy and attention to really break through with one big day of the year because you can't really dominate the internet every day even if you're the best in the business.

Um but yeah, how how do you think about it? Was it ever a trade-off or do you just love the annual release cycle? Honestly, we really look at the road map and let the road map kind of dictate what will end up at config and what ends up outside of config. We're not necessarily on a big annual release a year.

Obviously, config is a catalyst for a bunch of stuff. Um, we've never launched four products in one launch ever. Um, and yeah, and going from four to eight. So, for us, it's not set.

We really we believe in the philosophy that you just said of like get product into users hands fast, even if it's not, you know, like even if it's early. Yeah.

and learn and keep iterating faster from there because you know our philosophy is that design is always and product development are always iterative always living and so you're constantly going to be tuning it and the faster you can get it to users the better.

Dylan always tells the story of the early days of Figma where, you know, they didn't ship for Yeah. a few years. He talks about that as being something he would do differently if he could go back again. And it's advice founders. Yeah. It's we were talking about this with with Andrew, too.

It's just so much part of the lore of, you know, just basically, you know, building in in relative obscurity and then just coming out and and uh and how most I do think that that's that that made sense in the context of building novel functionality in the browser and the super complex product.

But, um, now that there's a platform taking that kind of iterative approach, yeah, you know, makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you learn faster the more people get their hands on it. Uh, can you walk me through some of the other like comm's best practices from amplifying an event like this?

Like obviously we're here having fun kind of in the new media streaming very different world but I imagine that there's like a series of press releases that go out and how how do you work on getting coverage across like what is the what is the market map of like getting attention at level?

Well, um, because this is an event for and by our community, a lot of what we do is really about that direct and owned communication and the owned channels across social especially. And then of course like the other events that are, you know, the constellation around config.

Like we had a day zero block party outside on Howard Street yesterday called Config Commons. That was so much fun. Like great music, great vibes. People really warmed up.

Um, but I'm sure people joined not knowing what it was tried to join, not knowing what it was for, just being like, "Look, totally that looks like a fun party. " Exactly. But, you know, one of the things that we um like to do is just have fun with how our brand shows up. Yes.

Figma is a B2B SAS company, but we have a consumer patina to our brand and we get to lean into that, which is so much fun um and unique, I think, within enterprise software.

And so, you know, we changed our social handles to be called Config Crave, which I don't know if you all follow Pop Crave on Twitter, but you know, the Demois, the Pop Craves, and all these stand accounts that sort of get to feature celebrities for us. Even this morning, there was a bunch of really funny posts.

I saw that celebrities here are our our community, right? So, we wanted to feature them and we just are always looking for ways to do that authentically and have a little fun. You saw the I think we talked about the uh auto Yeah. Yeah. Big pal CGI video. Yeah. There's this like Godzilla auto. It's amazing.

We like to have fun and bring that vibe while also like sharing clear factual information. What's launching? When can you get your hands on it? So, it's really a balance um to do it all. It's the hardest thing. Clarity while trying to get Max attention. Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, this is your first config.

Tell me what you all think. No, it's insane. It feels like a It feels like being at Coachella. It really does. It feels like being at a music festival. So, um, it's so fun to have you here.

And And it's And it's so great that the diversity of different types of creatives that we've had on the show just today is so fascinating. The last one was was like production sort of stuff. Isn't he awesome? Yeah, it's great. He's so fun. He's going to do a great talk later today. Yeah, I'm very excited for that.

Um, we didn't even get to like how does he use Figma at all or what his but he's just speaking about design broadly. Yeah, we just think, you know, someone in our community Yeah. tweeted at us. You know who I want to hear from Fig, the production designer from Severance. And we were like, we've got you.

No, but but you can just tell like the dedication to the craft process that everybody even if you have nothing to do with production set design. It's like I want to apply a lot from our conversation not just to our set but how we do the show, right? And a lot of it just resonated.

Um personally I'm just excited to go make my first Figma site. So what are you going to make? I don't know. Oh, I I want like I have so many different I have so many different ideas at both at TBPN of just like what it enables just that like speed of iteration.

I think the the most frustrating thing for me was always hitting a wall on on no code like low code software like web development tools where I don't have an engineering background and it would just be so frustrating to like make something in Figma and then get to the point where I'm like okay now I have to wait yeah I've got to find like the right developer and they're like okay I can get to it in like a week and then you're like can you do it two days and then it's like you really want it like that day.

There's so many of the these ideas that are effectively like memes like they're oneoff web pages that don't do not merit any sort of real budget or weeks of engineering time like we wanted to do venture capital radio VC radio and so when you go to a specific VC firm's web page it plays a song that identifies with that fund and so that's really you go to Andrea Horowits American Dynamism is going to play like Freeird or something.

Yeah. Yeah, but there's this idea of it's like that that's not something that you would want to actually spend some developers time on, but you like ephemeral apps, websites, this idea of apps as meme as like memes, right, of like the internet used to be like this back when it was just an HTML page.

You would just kind of hack something together and then stumble upon would drive some traffic and then we kind of went into the social era and everything has to be either an image, text or video. But, you know, my hope is that something will break through and people will be able to build more interactive stuff.

Yeah, we talked about this. I want to enable, you know, we have a bunch of brand assets at TBPN and people will remix them and use them in different ways. And sometimes I look at an image, I'm like, "Oh, this is like hilarious.

" I, you know, I want to reshare it, but like the logo right maybe figuring out a way to make Buzz. I was going to say Buzz for that, too. And then see what people make for you. Yeah, that would be fun. Meme meme. You guys ones got to be getting me'd all the time. Rise of the meme. Love it.

How are you feeling for you guys are headed to uh London. London. We are. Last year right after Config SF, we took Config to Singapore. Okay. This year it's London. We're excited. Um we have Is it a lot of the same like set effectively or is it a separate set out there? We are bringing the inflatables. Yeah. Okay.

Those are easy to Yeah. pack up, collapse, pack and ship. The synth, the synth can't come. It's too expensive to ship, unfortunately. But, um, it's a, you know, in general in another like raw space where we can bring our own scenic and make it feel like Figma. Um, it's a smaller venue.

It's about, you know, for a couple thousand people. Like a full-time job now for Figma. Like, does the planning for 2026 start next week? Basically, it already has. It already has. Wow. It already has. We have to walk and chew gum. Our configs are measured in centuries. Um, but it's fun.

You know, I think there are great moments in companies lives that like rally everybody together and they differ for every company and for us this is one of them on an annual basis. Everyone on the product team, on the sales team, on the marketing team and we have a lot of fun with it.

And for, you know, it's just really important for us to show up and be present with our users and our community. Um, and make sure that they know how much we appreciate their feedback and how much we're working to ship for them. Totally. Yeah.

Uh, we need your help at some point finding apparently Dylan was in a Windows XP commercial when he was a kid. Oh, do you have Do you have that? I think I Well, there's that. Yeah, there's Dylan on the Today Show after he became a teal fellow with his mom. No way. Another good one. We got to get these.

The third best is in the early days of Figma when it was really small. They were trying to recruit this intern to come work at Figma. She was really into K-pop. So Dylan and the early team filmed a K-pop music video for her. That's like really hardcore recruiting for an intern. It must not have been very good.

She declined the internship. But those are some good videos from the early days I can share with you. She will, I'm sure, always regret that decision. We wish her well. We wish her well. But that came that video was so good. We showed it at our 10 year.

That's like the equivalent for like an intern like when the like the NBA general commissioner or like team team coach goes to like the parents and sits them down and says like, "Hey, we want them to join the join the team. " Or something or like college recruiting. Even more than that. Yeah. Even more brutal.

Uh yeah, Dylan did a lot of child acting. There's so there's so much good lore around that. Like Eric Gyman has that video of him speaking fluent Chinese on some game show. I don't know if you've seen this. Oh, it's a fantastic at ramp. Is he a fluent speaker? Yeah. Yeah.

So, so he's he was over in China for I don't know a semester, maybe a couple years or something. Went on a game show is telling all these jokes and like getting a aorious applause from everyone. It's remarkable.

And then of course Scott Woo at co Cognition has that video of him doing like the most complex math imaginable as like a child in his head. His head. What are What about the What do you all have in your Yeah, I don't know. We those up. That's tough. That's something meme those totally for 2025. Yes.

I'm trying to think if I when when was my There's probably a video interview from like my first company years ago, but I don't think it was too embarrassing. Okay. I don't have anything embarrassing. the um one I my mom was a was a graphic designer and uh Oh, cool.

So, my earliest memories doing design in a business context were working with her. These were like the the Photoshop years and I have like pictures. So, I had a skateboard company when I was 12 and I have pictures of me like holding up, you know, the finished product.

But the like I I it was so funny because at the time I I actually really remember how like single player the product was. It was like, you know, files and like versions and whatever. So anyways, I I I remember some of my friends in high school made like a student film and I was tall.

I'm still tall, but they made me play the dad, which is hilarious. And I was a terrible actor. Oh, you had to wear a suit. Yeah. Yeah, I did actually wear a suit. It was very, very embarrassing. Anyway, I do feel a little underdressed compared to you, too. Well, I mean, we're overdressed. Look at the community.

This is not This is not exactly the Goldman Sachs uh technology meeting. We were we were we were in LA. We had a meeting Monday and we we showed up to Milin, not for the event, but meeting somebody there and we didn't have our suits on. I had a suit on. Oh, you had I didn't have a jacket but Well, jacket doesn't count.

And then we were at Hill Valley and we felt right at home. Right at home. Everyone that was all of us Silicon Valley people putting on suits for the first time in years. Yeah. And all the DC we fit right in. But here here we kind of stick out.

But uh hope fortunately everyone's been very nice and I think they're they're having fun. I don't miss the bad suits from Washington.

That's not my know the joke is that you know you're at Hill Valley when everyone has their business cards in their suits from the last time they were there because they only go to DC once a year for Valley. Uh anyway, we're we're getting a hard stop. So we're we're going to stop in four minutes. Yeah.

But thank you so much for hopping on guys. Thanks for to be clear. I think we're getting booted from like for some reason otherwise we would keep podcast. Yeah. I mean, we we got another four hours in now. At least another four hours. Honestly, we're not used to being on couches and it's like is a little bit different.

Comfy comfy. We could I think we can I think I think we could easily put up another 12 hours easily. Easily. But anyway, well, thank you for having us. Why don't you meet us in London next week? We could. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The international travel. We have yet to take the show on the road internationally.

We've done Miami. We've done DC. San Francisco now. Okay. So, check in the boxes. We'll get We'll get out. We'll get out there. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for having us. Do you know where the next next config is or is that not really? Okay, let us know. Come back with breaking news on the show.

Love to maybe uh I don't know where where Sanrope or Sure. Uh John just wants to wants it to align with 2026 summer plans. Exactly. Sorry, John. Lake on Giri. I'm on Giri, you know, for more intimate settings.

I think we may not be the right, you know, company conference for those locations, but um I mean Singapore is very nice. London is fantastic. Um, you know, you should maybe Cam Lion needs to have TVPN. That's what you need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cam Lion would be great. That'd be fantastic. I feel that for you.

Anyway, thank you so much for tuning in. We will talk soon. We'll see you after the after the show. Thank you so much. Uh anyway, this has been a fantastic stream. Thank you for watching. We really had a lot of fun being here at Figma Config 2025. Had a lot of interesting conversations.

Uh really took us on a world tour having a having a Sequoia partner and the designer of uh of the of Severance. Um not every day that you see a technology and business show do both. But we are men of many talent. So how many guests do we have tomorrow by the way? Uh I think we have like six.

We can give everyone kind of a run through. I think it's going to be closer to seven. Seven. Do we want to Do we want to leak it? I think it might I don't I don't want to go.

But but we but we are we are hoping to get some great people from the government as well as uh our first our first post game of a major public company earnings call post earnings which we're very excited about.

And so we're going to be digging into that kind of uh cutting our teeth in the post earnings game which we want to get more into. And so stick with us. It's absolutely stacked. It's stacked. We we have to get back to LA actually right now because uh we have to prep because we're we're going wallto-wall tomorrow.

It's by far the most stacked show we I'm excited. It's going to be a big growth moment for the show together. So anyway, thank you so much for watching. We will talk to you.