Make With Notion 2024: Crafting beautiful tools (Akshay Kothari, Dylan Field)

TL;DR

Field’s design instincts were shaped by repeated exposure to inefficiencies and UX/design-process failures during internships, especially in typography- and layout-heavy products.

Briefing Cornell Notes

Briefing

Design tools and product-building partnerships are often treated as “creative” stories, but the conversation between Dylan Field and Akshay Kothari framed them as a practical system: learn from design friction, build workflows that reduce inefficiency, and keep updating mental models by staying close to users across the world.

Field traced his path into tech through early curiosity about computers, then hands-on exposure via internships and research. A key turning point came from working around technical communities even when his immediate environment wasn’t full of programmers. He later described a formative internship experience after high school—living with startup founders he met through early startup-weekend events—where he bounced between roles and learned by doing. Another major influence was time at Microsoft Research with Dana Boyd, followed by work at LinkedIn and other product-focused companies.

That background fed directly into his design instincts. Across multiple internships, Field noticed recurring problems in the design process—especially how complex products become when design, typography, and UX constraints collide. At Flipboard, he absorbed ideas from magazines and translated them into digital experiences, including the “social magazine” concept built around feeds, full-bleed imagery, and dynamic layouts. Those experiences sharpened a belief that design isn’t just aesthetics; it’s a workflow problem with measurable friction.

When Figma began, Field credited a partnership dynamic with co-founder Evan Wallace as the engine of early progress. He met Evan at Brown, where Evan served as a teaching assistant, and the collaboration later became a division of labor: Field took on non-engineering work while Evan’s engineering multiplier made Field’s coding less efficient than focusing on design and product collaboration. The two also worked together on design and product decisions, with Evan described as contributing strong ideas across both areas.

The partnership wasn’t portrayed as smooth sailing. Early-stage adversity repeatedly forced them to confront uncertainty and “lack of direction,” moments that Field described as catalyzing rather than discouraging. As Figma scaled, Field said challenges didn’t get easier—they changed shape—requiring better mental models and a willingness to learn from domains outside one’s own.

Community-building emerged as another throughline. Field said Figma’s user conference strategy grew out of earlier advice: build user groups first, travel to understand usage spikes, and learn constraints faced by users outside the United States—ranging from infrastructure and pricing to collaboration norms and procurement realities. He also shared an early “outlier” user story: a person spending 16 hours a day coding in underwear in Japan while designing in Figma, which led him to reach out and learn directly.

Finally, the conversation connected product strategy to long-term values. Field and Kothari both pointed to Jeff Weiner’s influence—vision, mission, values, and the habit of “seeing the chessboard” beyond immediate tasks. The closing advice was blunt and actionable: meta-advice is to treat others’ guidance as if it were meant for you, then make more stuff—keep building.

Cornell Notes

Dylan Field’s path into design tools started with early tech curiosity, then internships and research that exposed him to recurring design-process failures. Those lessons shaped Figma’s early focus: reduce inefficiency in how teams create, iterate, and collaborate on interfaces and layouts. Field credits co-founder Evan Wallace for a high-leverage partnership—Field handled non-engineering work while Evan’s engineering strength multiplied outcomes, and both collaborated on design and product. As Figma scaled, Field said challenges changed rather than disappeared, so mental models must keep evolving. Community work—traveling to user groups worldwide, learning constraints, and iterating from real feedback—became central to how the product stayed relevant across regions and devices.

How did Field’s early experiences translate into a design-first mindset for Figma?

Field described a pattern across internships: design and UX problems were often more complex than they looked, especially when products had to balance typography, layout, and user needs. At Flipboard, he absorbed how magazine-like typography and full-bleed, dynamic layouts could be translated into a “social magazine” experience. Those exposures led to a core realization that many failures weren’t about taste—they were about inefficiencies and gaps in the design process, which later informed Figma’s approach to making design work more fluid.

What did Field say about the division of labor with Evan Wallace, and why did it matter?

Field said Evan was a major engineering multiplier, making it inefficient for Field to spend time coding early on. Instead, Field focused on non-engineering responsibilities, while Evan and Field collaborated heavily on design and product decisions. The partnership also helped Field manage insecurity: he later noticed that even respected engineers shared similar doubts, framing the dynamic as normal rather than a personal shortcoming.

How did adversity shape Figma’s direction in the early days?

Field described repeated moments of uncertainty—times when the team lacked direction or faced hard problems they couldn’t immediately solve. Those “stare existentialism in the face” episodes were portrayed as catalysts: they forced rapid learning and clearer thinking, even when progress felt unclear. The takeaway was that early-stage pressure can sharpen decision-making rather than just slow it down.

Why did Field emphasize traveling and user groups instead of launching a conference immediately?

Field said Figma’s early community strategy began with advice to avoid jumping straight into a user conference. Instead, the team supported user groups worldwide first, then traveled to places where usage spikes appeared. That travel revealed constraints outside the U.S.—infrastructure differences, pricing and power, and cultural/procurement barriers—so product decisions could reflect real-world conditions rather than assumptions.

What does the “16 hours a day” story reveal about how Figma learned from power users?

Field described writing a query to find time-spent outliers after launch. Most users clustered around hours, but one person showed an extreme outlier: 16 hours a day. The user, Ivan, was coding in underwear in Japan while designing in Figma. Field reached out to understand that behavior directly, illustrating a hands-on approach to learning from unusual but informative usage patterns.

How did Jeff Weiner’s guidance connect to the conversation’s advice for builders?

Field highlighted Jeff Weiner’s emphasis on defining vision, mission, and values, and on “seeing the chessboard” to understand the broader ecosystem beyond immediate tasks. He also stressed values-driven decision-making—when facing hard calls, returning to values helps find the answer. That theme aligned with the closing advice: treat advice as if it were meant for you, then keep building—make more stuff.

Review Questions

What design-process problems did Field say he repeatedly encountered across internships, and how did those observations influence Figma’s priorities?
How did Field describe the engineering/design division of labor with Evan Wallace, and what effect did it have on early efficiency?
What community-learning strategy did Field describe for understanding users outside the United States, and why did it matter for product decisions?

Key Points

1
Field’s design instincts were shaped by repeated exposure to inefficiencies and UX/design-process failures during internships, especially in typography- and layout-heavy products.
2
Figma’s early partnership model relied on a division of labor: Field focused on non-engineering work while Evan Wallace’s engineering strength enabled faster iteration.
3
Early-stage adversity—periods of uncertainty and lack of direction—was treated as a learning catalyst that sharpened decision-making.
4
Community growth started with user groups and travel, using real usage spikes to understand constraints like infrastructure, pricing, and collaboration norms across regions.
5
Power-user behavior was treated as a data signal; an extreme time-spent outlier led Field to reach out and learn directly from a user.
6
Jeff Weiner’s framework—vision, mission, values, and “seeing the chessboard”—was presented as a practical tool for making hard calls in startups.
7
The closing guidance emphasized meta-advice (process advice as if it’s for you) and a concrete directive: keep making more stuff.

Highlights

Field described a partnership where Evan Wallace’s engineering multiplier made it inefficient for Field to code early, pushing Field toward design and product collaboration.

Figma’s community strategy began with user groups and global travel to understand real constraints—rather than launching a conference immediately.

An early analytics outlier led Field to contact Ivan, who reportedly spent 16 hours a day coding in underwear in Japan while designing in Figma.

Jeff Weiner’s “see the chessboard” approach tied long-term values to day-to-day decision-making in startups.

The final advice boiled down to: treat advice as if it’s meant for you, then make more stuff.

Topics

Figma Origins
Design Workflow
Founder Partnership
User Community
Product Strategy

Mentioned

Dylan Field
Akshay Kothari
Evan Wallace
Dana Boyd
Jeff Weiner
Ivan