Why now?

Figma’s beginnings 📐

1. He likes Cryptopunks
2. Even 40+ years from now, Dylan would choose to work on Figma over & over again #dedication
3. The early days of Figma started with memes

Confession 🤫

Why now? ⏰

1. New technology. Creates completely new services that would have not existed before or could reduce costs to create. e.g. WebGL for Figma, crypto for NFTs, GPS enabling Foursquare or social/local services, the Internet!, mobile phones!
2. New regulations. These can be supply-side, where regulations allow you to deliver your offering, or demand-side, where regulations spur demand. e.g. Obamacare for health innovations, Prop 22 for gig worker benefits
3. New and accepted business models. Opens up new solutions & use cases that couldn’t have existed otherwise. e.g. ad models allowed free content, membership subscriptions to own an audience over ads platforms for creators
4. New distribution channels. Creates new acquisition channels for rapid growth and being first to market. e.g. Facebook ads in the early days for Zynga virality, SEO growth for Yelp, Clubhouse for event management platforms
5. Shift in consumer behavior. A departure in behavior creates wider adoption and a market for new businesses. e.g. generational usage of social media & tech, Gen Z for more eco-friendly commerce. One caveat: it’s important to make sure the behavior change is real otherwise you’re betting on a fake future.
6. New source of customers or demand appears. You want to make sure your market is “big enough” so you don’t come in too early. e.g. credit card penetration hits high enough in emerging markets for any startup to enter the market

“There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas… They’ll all happen. I’ve become convinced...Every smart person that comes in here with a crazy idea, it’s all going to happen at some point. They will all happen. It’s just a question of when.” -Marc Andreessen

De-risking a risky thing 📉

1. Forces you to understand market structures or limiting technologies that prevented anyone else from trying it in the past (vs. learning about it only when you start building your product and testing)
2. Immediately gives you your competitive advantage
3. Makes it easier to raise funding (investors will 100% ask this!)
4. Creates hype meaning free marketing. If the change is significant, other people are probably writing about it or doing the marketing for you. Just ride the hype wave.
5. Prevents incumbents from copying you immediately. A new, emerging trend is perceived a risky bet & likely difficult to build quickly (hence high cost to merit resources). By the time incumbents might decide to work on it, you would have already built, iterated, & gone to market, enough that you could be a good acquisition target.
6. Validates that your idea is in a growing market. You’ll be one of the first to dictate the market’s future.

“Why now” your life/career 💼

1. Why now, not earlier? In other words, what are you waiting for? Force yourself to really think about the excuses you’re making for pushing your decision out.
• What’s the biggest risk? What do you need to believe to de-risk it?
• Are you working on a project that excites you?
• Are you waiting to learn something that you can’t learn elsewhere?
2. Why now, not later? This helps you create conviction in your decision of making the jump now vs. later. If you have a lot of strong answers to this question, you should probably make the jump.
• Will continuing to stay make it harder for you to leave? Will it be more of a risk not taking this “risk” than it will be waiting?
• Is there something about your current life situation that makes it easier for you to make the jump now vs. later?
• Are you eager to learn something that you can’t learn in your current position? Have you staggered in growth?

• I wanted an awesome co-founder and a general problem space I was excited about.
• I wanted my big project out to be a success with or without me.
• I needed personal runway and my visa situation squared away.

• Golden handcuffs - staying at a comfortable job was really nice! Too nice that the longer I stayed, the harder it was going to be leave.
• I’m relatively young and have fewer obligations that could change my psychology of leaving.
• I felt like I needed to quicken my cycles of learning and a startup was going to help me achieve that.

Nudges of the week 👀

1. Elad’s “How can you tell if a market is a good one?”
2. Avichal’s “Why now?”
3. Erik Torenberg’s Frameworks for Startup Ideas

Always de-risking, Mika