Sean Whitney
@sean__whit
Followers
916
Following
279
Media
15
Statuses
344
Investor @craft_ventures . Early @Figma strat finance & biz ops. Washed up hockey player. Golf nut.
San Francisco, CA
Joined June 2016
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Mother's Day
• 2156128 Tweets
Arsenal
• 538453 Tweets
Ángel
• 209581 Tweets
Travis
• 168200 Tweets
Cataluña
• 86422 Tweets
Spurs
• 86392 Tweets
Sarah
• 84942 Tweets
Racing
• 55788 Tweets
Illa
• 53989 Tweets
#Amici23
• 53671 Tweets
Pacers
• 42119 Tweets
The Knicks
• 35075 Tweets
Hawks
• 34768 Tweets
Vitória
• 34619 Tweets
Trae
• 34362 Tweets
Abel
• 27024 Tweets
#ConexiónHonduras10
• 23492 Tweets
Rony
• 23454 Tweets
الزمالك
• 22967 Tweets
Pistons
• 22434 Tweets
Costas
• 17938 Tweets
雨の月曜日
• 17758 Tweets
Veiga
• 17112 Tweets
Rory
• 12743 Tweets
Belgrano
• 12439 Tweets
土砂降り
• 11729 Tweets
Rossi
• 11127 Tweets
Jara
• 10760 Tweets
@DavidSacks
@theallinpod
@figma
What I mean by vertically integrated...
Pre-Figma: Sketch + Abstract + Dropbox + Invision + Zeplin + more
Here is a visual from one of our old fundraising decks
4
7
86
We’re excited to announce that
@craft_ventures
led the $12m Series A in
@knocklabs
- the notification infrastructure platform for engineering and product teams.
Check out the blog
@DavidSacks
& I wrote to learn more about why we invested:
1/4
🔥 Announcement time🔥
I’m excited to share Knock’s $12M Series A led by Craft Ventures. David Sacks is joining our board.
Quick thread on what we’re building and where we’re going from here. 👇
34
16
355
16
8
81
@DavidSacks
@theallinpod
My inside take-aways from early BizOps
@Figma
:
1) Vert. integrated products provide better UX & capture greater value, but are hard to build
2) Valuation is a lagging indicator to the momentum of true PMF
3) PLG can start slowly but compounds beautifully; VCs afforded us patience
2
8
65
I sat down with
@tonigemayel
to talk about growth marketing in
@figma
's early days. He dropped some serious growth knowledge, so I summarized a few 🔥 takes in this blog (including a quick highlight vid):
If anyone is interested in the full recording, lmk
4
11
50
I put together some thoughts on a few of the factors that helped contribute to
@Figma
's success. But what truly set it apart was the incredible people who made it all happen...
2
6
38
Had a blast working w/
@bobbypinero
&
@chris_burgner
reminiscing on the early days of
@figma
finance. Rebuilding this model in
@heyequals
really had me wishing we had the tool back then!
As I like to point as much as possible - all the credit goes the legend himself
@pravs34
!
Today we're sharing the model that
@figma
used to understand and forecast their self serve business.
@sean__whit
built it. He was one of Figma's first 40 employees.
Figma still use it.
Blog post, video, and template below 👇
6
21
412
1
4
38
Two sessions coming up this week to relive
@figma
glory days
1/31: AMA with
@heyequals
on the model that powered self-serve👇
2/2: hanging out w/
@KyleHParrish
to talk building the sales team & process. This guy leads like Mahomes (I mean real 🐐 TB12)
Two weeks ago, we released a template for
@Figma
's original forecasting model, and it blew up. Now, we're hosting an AMA with
@sean__whit
, employee
#40
at Figma, who built and ran the model in the early days.
👇 Register now and submit your questions:
2
4
26
1
5
33
It all starts with the form. But so much more behind the scenes to drive efficiency in revOps and get the right leads to the right reps with the right information.
@nicoaferr
and team have been grinding to build an awesome product, I’m excited to see
@withdefault
out in the wild
Excited to announce that we’ve raised $6.6m from
@craft_ventures
,
@8vc
,
@jaltma
,
@BoxGroup
,
@gtmfund
@basecasevc
,
@caffeinatedcap
, and
@kearnyjackson
for Default, the go-to-market platform built to help the next generation of digital companies go from 0 to $100M and beyond.
75
51
476
2
1
25
The most ludicrous: by blocking the deal Figma would extend beyond UI/UX design to compete directly w/ Photoshop & Illustrator. It's remarkably out of touch. The implication is Figma has magical powers: it can snap fingers to easily create viable alternatives to Goliaths
4/14
2
2
22
I was incredibly impressed w/
@kracov
& his vision for
@dock_us
when we met in 2020. It's been impressive to watch the team execute on that vision over the years. I'm beyond excited to partner w/ Dock to help them continue to bring that vision to life:
I’m excited to announce that Dock has raised $3.5m from Craft Ventures.
I’m incredibly grateful to have the capital we need to bring our full vision to market.
Thank you to the customers who have supported Dock on our journey over the last year.
Your feedback and support…
19
14
239
2
2
22
Slapping a fairly simple SaaS app on top of an open-source AI model creates no moat. It seems obvious to me that, just like always, you need a unique product experience for true value creation. Then layer in some awesome generative AI features for your users.
3
1
19
Finally, where is the DOJ/FTC? Even if the US's interpretation of this deal matches the EU/UK, how is it that the fate of a deal involving two American companies can be almost entirely decided by foreign regulatory agencies? Maybe I'm naive, but the process feels broken
13/14
3
0
16
Somehow gov employees w/ legal expertise are tasked w/ assessing competitive dynamics for products they've never used. They lack insight into a market's important nuances. Case in point: CMA referring to the market as 'screen design' until continually corrected by experts
11/14
1
3
16
As an early Figma employee, I'm biased to the outcome of this case & what it would mean for my family. But I'm compelled to share my POV of the process. I haven't spoken to any Figma execs/anyone "over the wall". My POV is based on media reports & convos w/ friends
2/14
2
0
15
What generational SaaS companies began monetizing shortly after founding? I can’t think of any. Best products take time to build, no?
5
2
15
Figma has never invested $1 to these product areas. It's taken the company a decade+ to establish its position. Hasn't this notion been disproven in how Adobe failed to accomplish the inverse w/ XD?
And how is it the regulatory agency's job to predict the distant future?
5/14
1
1
14
I recently sat down with my good friend
@KyleHParrish
to talk about lessons learned & advice for building & scaling a product-led sales org. Kyle and his team were integral to the success of Figma - unlocking what was necessary to sell into the world's largest companies.
2
1
16
As said, I'm biased when it comes to this deal. But having a dog in the fight has educated me on this process & enlightened me to just how absurd it is
Figma is & will remain an incredible company, and I'm excited to see what the brilliant people there continue to produce
14/14
3
0
14
This article from
@PatrickMoorhead
perfectly details the flaws in the arguments put forward by the UK's CMA, but I'll provide some quick reactions to direct excerpts from their announcement today
3/14
2
3
12
The next claim is "reduced innovation": Adobe would've continued to build XD into a competitor. Laughable. The reality: tmk in my time at Figma we rarely, if ever, lost a deal to XD. The beauty of Figma's PMF is the only "loss" reason is customers remain on free/Pro plan
6/14
1
0
14
Congrats on the big launch
@mattrasto
&
@respellai
- I'm excited to see what everyday tasks people use Respell to power
0
1
13
Last week's thread on
@Adobe
/
@figma
elicited a few responses that boil down to 'Adobe sucks, so it should be blocked!'. Though that POV isn’t relevant in an antitrust case, I'll provide more detail on competitive aspects/nuance of the design market to ease your concerns 🧵:
2
3
13
This is awesome. Every biz ops person has felt the pain of having a massive csv file that they wish they could easily SQL query. Go to snowflake > 'CREATE TABLE ...' > upload > error > retry > etc. etc. before you're able to start.
Now you can do it all in 2 mins with Equals
Fun new
@heyequals
launch today. It's one of our most requested.
Now you can turn a CSV into a database. Meaning, you can...
Query it with SQL.
Access it from any workbook.
Update it once and it updates everywhere.
Share it with anyone.
Learn more 👇
1
1
22
0
2
13
If anything will "reduce innovation" it's the blocking of the deal. Not only will Adobe & Figma be able to create powerful new user experiences, but the wealth creation put back into the system will spark more innovation in our industry via company & product creation
7/14
1
2
10
I was fortunate to be an early employee
@figma
& learn from incredible people across the business. I'm excited to host convos with some of these people - starting with with the growth legend himself
@tonigemayel
on 11/16.
@craft_ventures
RSVP:
2
1
10
I wish we had
@SecodaHQ
while at Figma. It would have saved me countless hours of searching through schemas and old SQL queries. We're super excited to double-down on our partnership with
@MizrahiEtai
&
@andrew_mcewen
Some killer (and real) AI features as well. Check it out!
I’m so excited to share that we’ve closed a $14M Series A led by
@craft_ventures
with participation from
@ycombinator
,
@AbstractVC
,
@jthandy
,
@CSandersonData
,
@jrdntgn
,
@s_breitenother
and many other great investors in the data space!
We're building the the all-in-one data…
31
31
401
0
0
10
@jenny_wen
@andykreed
You really never know what you’re gonna find on this website, but it always delights
0
0
9
Stepping away from the specifics of the deal - as
@tmrohan
points out, anti-trust laws fail in a digital world. Switching costs ("reduced choice") are almost non-existent. Example: pro designers have paid for both Figma & Sketch for years
10/14
Anti-trust laws are outdated in a digital world.
Consumer switching cost is effectively zero online; other options are almost always a mouse click away.
We moved on from the world when walking to your corner store presents the only practical option to buy goods.
0
2
6
3
1
9
The most powerful AI experiences will be built on top of new-age & comprehensive SaaS solutions - allowing the user to do things with & without AI. Co-pilots alone leave the work stuck in a black box.
@heyequals
as taken this approach perfectly with their AI Assist(ant) .
New in
@heyequals
🚨
We’ve completely rebuilt and redesigned AI Assist. And today, it’s ready to chat.
It's a next-generation Clippy for the next-generation spreadsheet.
Watch 👇
8
6
73
1
0
8
Continue to wish I had
@heyequals
as an operator
Our biggest-ever
@heyequals
launch is right around the corner.
Join the list 👉
And enjoy the sneak peek 🍿
3
4
36
0
0
8
Fired up to continue diving deep on this with
@heyequals
.
Not enough founders and early teams think about this sort of thing enough - it can have massive impacts on your roadmap and business decisions.
For all of you that loved the Figma self serve model we shared!
Next week we're hosting a live Q&A with
@sean__whit
, the model's creator and Figma's 40th employee.
It'll be fun to get inside the early Figma days.
Link below to reserve a spot and submit questions 👇
0
1
9
0
1
8
Big day at
@craft_ventures
!
Big news: We've raised $1.3 Billion to continue our focus on B2B software in the era of generative AI.
Craft Ventures IV ($712M) is our fourth early-stage fund and Craft Ventures Growth II ($608M) is our second growth fund.
More on the blog:
15
19
148
0
0
7
The
@brevdev
team and
@NaderLikeLadder
continue to stoke the fire for AI developers in SF. This will be awesome.
Why is every hackathon just using OpenAI APIs?
We're hosting a hackathon this weekend
@brevdev
,
@metaphorsystems
, and
@TheCeloCenter
The only rule is that you train your own model. We're offering free GPUs, food & drink. So come and let it rip 🤘
6
22
138
0
2
6
Nothing to see here, just an all-time legend
@KyleHParrish
dropping knowledge on everyone
@saastr
@HarryStebbings
.
#needstoworkonhisgolfswing
0
1
7
Maybe this whole thing is intentional? It's been 14mo since deal announce and we're just now at 'provisional findings', asking for complex remedies with the deadline looming. As they say: time kills all deals
12/14
1
1
5
Very excited to be a partner in
@Modyfi_
's journey
We’re incredibly grateful to our partners at
@NEA
,
@generalcatalyst
,
@redantler
and
@craft_ventures
for supporting our mission to build the design and image-making platform that creatives deserve.
We’re excited for this next chapter, and can’t wait to show you what’s to come!
5
14
38
0
1
6
Next: the idea that Adobe's product quality would deteriorate is silly. Figma represents <5% of $12B Creative Cloud ARR, & the deal would somehow mean complacency? We've seen the innovation over the LTM w/ Firefly+more (reflected in $ADBE), which has nothing to do w/ Figma
8/14
1
0
6
These demos from
@Modyfi_
are really exciting. Using AI to manipulate stunning visual assets at the pixel level, non-destructively, will enable anyone to be a high quality graphic designer. Best of all, this is in a real-time & collaborative browser app - we all know that story!
0
0
5
I wish we had
@heyequals
when building and scaling finance operations at Figma. It's an incredibly cool product that all startup biz operators should be looking into.
Been fun to get to know
@bobbypinero
since joining Craft. I'm excited to see what Equals can do.
Equals is the fastest way for startups to do any analysis.
Today I'm thrilled to announce that we've raised a $16M Series A led by
@a16z
and
@kshenster
.
Plus:
@heyequals
is now FREE for founders, analysts, and early operators to use.
And we're hiring across the board.
More...
49
35
482
1
1
6
#5
: There are increasingly more options available for digital product design
Figma is the leader in UI/UX design, but it's not the only show in town.
@sketch
still exists. Startups like
@createwithplay
,
@uizard
,
@Galileo_AI
, and more are innovating in the space
1
0
6
Craft is lucky to have
@Mike_Rob_Craft
- he's a growth investing sensei. This is a great thread to help everyone hype focus on efficiency
SaaS lost momentum in ‘22; focus has shifted to fundamentals: revenue durability, growth efficiency & healthy unit economics
@davidsacks
&
@jefffluhr
shared how to operate during a downturn
Here are 8 actions to improve efficiency🧵
6
43
200
0
0
5
Dock has the opportunity to reshape how customer-facing teams work together and with clients.
Congrats
@kracov
,
@VictorKmita
,
@lucchaissac
& the entire
@dock_us
team!
0
1
5
Finally, the absurdity showed in the "remedies" the CMA hints at. Ideas like Adobe selling XD to a willing competitive buyer (when they've publicly admitted it's failed spectacularly) or even the outrageous proposal of Adobe divesting a flagship product like Photoshop
9/14
1
0
4
Can someone please tell me how to easily add a Zoom to a Google calendar invite on mobile?
3
0
5
Huge launch from
@thisisgrantlee
and the
@MeetGamma
team. Gamma now takes all the hard formatting and structure work out of docs & presentations.
The most valuable skill in business is about to become obsolete.
Designing a killer slide deck used to take days. Now AI can do it in seconds for anyone.
Introducing Gamma: your AI design partner for presenting ideas beautifully.
Launching today at
143
314
2K
0
0
4
Pumped to be working with
@mfolgs
& everyone at
@SceneryCo
. Witnessed what the shift to collaboration in the browser did for design first hand at
@Figma
, and excited to watch it play it for video editing. Congrats!
I'm thrilled to have
@crazyfoo
join our board and to work closely with
@mayafrai
and the
@Greylock
team. I am also grateful for the help from
@jefffluhr
,
@ArraMalek
@sean__whit
and the
@craft_ventures
team. Check out my blog post on the round:
8
1
13
1
0
4
I’m a huge believer that the browser will win in almost every product area, especially creative tools. It’s just a question of when the right team will utilize the tech needed to build an incredible UX. That’s exactly what’s happening right now with
@Modyfi_
Modyfi is going into Beta today! Modyfi is the image editor you’ve been waiting for. AI-native design, powerful creative tools, and real-time collaboration. All in your browser. Sign up for the waitlist at .
7
15
87
2
0
4
@diamondbishop
I’ll never forget the famous tweet “If this is the future of design than I need a new career.” This wasn’t obvious. Category defining products rarely are.
1
0
4
Huge launch day at Figma. Been really fun to see how much hard work has gone into this by so many awesome people
0
0
4
@indelicatoart
@figma
@Adobe
Yeah, they “let” them… requiring them to spend countless hours in courtrooms and $1b in legal fees:
0
0
4
@bobbypinero
@OnlyCFO
@chris_burgner
I think one of the most interesting parts of this is how many business decisions are nested inside this exercise. This isn’t accounting with established rules - for example: what constitutes “forgivable” churn. How and when is it logged? It all depend on your product & billing
1
0
4
1
0
2
@skuwamoto
@figmadesign
Sho, you are a legend! Great thread buddy. Consider myself privileged to get to work with you. Congrats on 5 years!
1
0
3
Congrats to
@joe____b
@pierscowburn
@Davidmhornsby
on the beta launch! Excited to see
@Modyfi_
getting out to the world.
0
0
3
Said another way, your product can’t just be some SaaS layer that calls ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion, full stop. And I feel like these are everywhere, what am I missing?
1
0
3
When
@chevy_pop
talks, I listen.
#bobbo
gm to all creators, collectors, curators, and culturists. We're going to make a massive, positive impact and we appreciate you all.
9
5
42
0
0
3
Next up in the series on early Figma learnings is
@KyleHParrish
on 2/2. We'll talk about what worked & what didn't as he scaled the
@figma
sales team to the machine that it is today ... as well as the benefits of working on a TRX stability ball 😂
event:
0
1
3
The only crypto project I've ever followed from day 1. Highest quality talent driving this. I'm excited to see it's adoption once the mainnet launches
1/ 🐟 We’re excited to announce Iron Fish Mainnet is launching on March 14th (3.14 — that’s right, Pi Day 🥧 )
Our goal is to be the privacy platform for crypto — even for assets on other chains — with support for custom assets and compatibility with bridges.
71
234
480
0
0
2
@tonigemayel
@nikolasklein
Figma 2019 most improved smash player right here. I’ll beat both of you
#thatlldodonkey
1
0
2
0
0
2
@cm_brown90
@seanjudgehcp
Was there as well! Never forget Horton’s arm just hanging in mid air after that hit
Sneaky unreal game is TB/BOS gm7 that year. Best 1-0 game maybe of all time (Horton GWG)
Best hockey game I’ve ever watched - 2010 gold medal game, despite the tough ending
0
0
2
We covered a lot:
- building a product-obsessed sales org
- trade-offs of process-building vs diving into sales
- leaning on reliable product data to educate sales decisions
- and much more...
I summarized 3 key insights from Kyle:
2
0
2
0
0
1
@ZacharyDeWitt
@SlackHQ
@zoom_us
@zoom_us
is also in a category all by itself for bottoms-up SaaS businesses. Regardless of macro - that business is incredible and the stock should keep going up
0
0
1
0
0
1
#1
: Not all designers are the same
This is important to drill home & seems to be lost on a lot of folks. No one uses Photoshop for UI/UX design. Before Figma came along product designers & developers worked in Sketch & InVision, not Adobe products
2
0
1