Figma: Build Design in the Browser?

It is 2015. You are the VP of Product at Figma. The design world is dominated by Adobe Photoshop and Sketch. Both are native desktop applications. They are fast, powerful, and industry-standard.

Figma is a ghost. You've been in "Stealth" for three years. Dylan Field, your founder, has a radical and widely mocked vision: Professional design tools should run in the web browser.

Every designer you talk to says the same thing: "Browsers are too slow for real design. I need a native app that doesn't lag." Your engineering team has spent years building a custom graphics engine in C++ and WebAssembly to prove them wrong.

You are about to launch. If you ship a "lite" version, you'll be seen as a toy. If you ship a full-power tool, you might melt the user's laptop. You have to decide how to position Figma against the giants. This is a Tier 1 Strategy drill.

The principle: Building on a technically impossible foundation is the ultimate competitive moat.