Sheila Joglekar Vashee, CMO of Figma, discusses marketing operations and product release velocity.
Insight
A single breakthrough creative idea outperforms automated iterative message testing
“You could have any iteration of a message across a bunch of different platforms that you could automate and test and, you know, quantify, whatever. But, like, a single breakthrough idea even then was far more effective, right?”
Insight
Dropbox being a tool for everyone made enterprise positioning harder than Figma's
“Dropbox was a tool for everyone. So that made it harder to be specific about what needs you were serving even as you moved into enterprise. Whereas like, Figma was way more focused on the core audience, and even for prosumers, even for SMBs, it is a profession…”
Insight
SEO is now about LLM search; product consideration happens via peers
“SEO is now like, how do you have, how do you grab attention within LLM search results? The consideration phase of helping people, you know, feel comfortable with your product is now mostly third party conversations, right? Through social or other places. They …”
Insight
Marketing is the only team spanning product, revenue, and community
“The only team that sits across all of those things is marketing, and it's the job of marketing to make sure that it all works together and all of those touch points speak to each other because they represent your brand.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Two-thirds of people building in Figma are non-designers
“So if you look at Figma, two thirds of people who build in Figma are non-designers. They're engineers, they're marketers.”
Insight
CMOs evaluate resource allocation through a CEO or board-level lens
“When you're a CMO, you have to think about the company and the business in a bigger way. When you're a VP or SVP, you have to keep that in mind, but your job is to get an initiative through. Launch a campaign do a big product push, et cetera. When you're a CMO…”