Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Yamashita: Software Tools Differ From Consumer Apps Due to Unpredictable Behavior

Yuhki Yamashita · 20Product: Figma CPO on How Figma Builds Products: What Works, What Does Not | How Figma Does Testing and Product Reviews | The Future of Design, Engineering and Product with Yuhki Yamashita · May 16, 2025 · at 42:55

Yuhki Yamashita, CPO at Figma, explains why building creation tools requires extended beta testing compared to optimizing traditional consumer product funnels.

0:00 / 0:23exact quote · 23.2s
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“Some of these are pretty sophisticated products, and the kind of interesting thing about building a tool is a tool is very different from, like, a typical consumer product where, you know, there's a funnel and you're trying to optimize the metric. Like, you're building something so that other people can build other things. And so it's hard up front to imagine all the ways in which someone will take your tool and build something, right?”

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