4 ms·

LucidChart was founded around 2008 (couple years before Figma). Their use of WebGL predates Figma's by atleast couple of years, and I remember it was famous eno

by achow 4y ago

LucidChart was founded around 2008 (couple years before Figma). Their use of WebGL predates Figma's by atleast couple of years, and I remember it was famous enough as a startup to be very visible as a web graphics tool. There must have been other older startups which I'm not aware of. The narrative seems to ignore this. Infact when Figma came around I thought the idea was to combine Sketch (which was truly a pioneer, but limited to only to Mac) and LucidChart kind of web graphics tool to make a platform agnostic 'Sketch'. Great idea - but it was mostly about execution, which was of course was beautifully done.

ramraj07 4y ago
This is like saying Symbian did everything and more than the iPhone. Technically true, but you definitely miss the point. I’m also not an iPhone fanboy. My phone history includes the 6600, the ngage, ngage-qd, and androids till 2016. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what apple did.
- achow 4y ago
  Hence Apple narrative is around Steve Jobs - great product manager, great marketing person, decisive; company elevating ordinary ('oldish' tech) to extraordinary using power of design,... etc. Apple is not about inventing new tech. Whereas this blog somewhat smells of “History is Written by Victors."
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    Apple's narrative, and what Steve Jobs got, was that to get a real hit it's not enough to ship a thing, it has to also be good. Figma did the same thing. Figma is so incredibly better than what it was replacing, it was obvious how successful it would be to anyone who used it.
    - achow 4y ago
      True but this argument is non sequitur. Figma as mentioned earlier executed beautifully, no doubt. But the blog narrative is somehow projecting that Figma had vision of WebGL vis-a-vis browser based graphic tools, which I know is not really true and somewhat akin to history is being written by victor. Instead, Dylan & I talked about the transition from Desktop to Web 2.0, and whether now was the right time to bring graphic design to the cloud. John Lilly & I had discussed a hypothesis about this while I was at Greylock, and it was one where I had come to have conviction. The basic premise was that the combination of Web 2.0, Social, and Mobile had finally created the possibility of building truly useful and user-friendly collaborative software in the cloud... This is also disrespectful to the pioneers - nary a word was wasted on people who came before Figma on browser as well as desktop. I wish there was atleast one line dedicated to 'Sketch' software - early version of Figma UI was copy-paste of Sketch one.
swyx 4y ago
what did end up happening to Lucidchart in the end? i see they had a $3b round, but definitely seem to have stalled out in terms of excitement. anyone know the company/product enough to offer some insight?
- MustardBob12 4y ago
  As someone who also developed a graphical editor, applied to YC (rejected), there is one big reason what also stopped me in favor of another startup: - Modeling tools are typically last in a company's budget
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
>Sketch (which was truly a pioneer, but limited to only to Mac) Fireworks had almost all the essential parts of Sketch a decade earlier. Adobe killed it after acquiring it, because despite owning 80% of creative tooling they don’t understand their own software.

by achow 4y ago

ramraj07 4y ago

This is like saying Symbian did everything and more than the iPhone. Technically true, but you definitely miss the point. I’m also not an iPhone fanboy. My phone history includes the 6600, the ngage, ngage-qd, and androids till 2016. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what apple did.

achow 4y ago
Hence Apple narrative is around Steve Jobs - great product manager, great marketing person, decisive; company elevating ordinary ('oldish' tech) to extraordinary using power of design,... etc. Apple is not about inventing new tech. Whereas this blog somewhat smells of “History is Written by Victors."
- ajkjk 4y ago
  Apple's narrative, and what Steve Jobs got, was that to get a real hit it's not enough to ship a thing, it has to also be good. Figma did the same thing. Figma is so incredibly better than what it was replacing, it was obvious how successful it would be to anyone who used it.
  - achow 4y ago
    True but this argument is non sequitur. Figma as mentioned earlier executed beautifully, no doubt. But the blog narrative is somehow projecting that Figma had vision of WebGL vis-a-vis browser based graphic tools, which I know is not really true and somewhat akin to history is being written by victor. Instead, Dylan & I talked about the transition from Desktop to Web 2.0, and whether now was the right time to bring graphic design to the cloud. John Lilly & I had discussed a hypothesis about this while I was at Greylock, and it was one where I had come to have conviction. The basic premise was that the combination of Web 2.0, Social, and Mobile had finally created the possibility of building truly useful and user-friendly collaborative software in the cloud... This is also disrespectful to the pioneers - nary a word was wasted on people who came before Figma on browser as well as desktop. I wish there was atleast one line dedicated to 'Sketch' software - early version of Figma UI was copy-paste of Sketch one.

swyx 4y ago

what did end up happening to Lucidchart in the end? i see they had a $3b round, but definitely seem to have stalled out in terms of excitement. anyone know the company/product enough to offer some insight?

MustardBob12 4y ago
As someone who also developed a graphical editor, applied to YC (rejected), there is one big reason what also stopped me in favor of another startup: - Modeling tools are typically last in a company's budget

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

>Sketch (which was truly a pioneer, but limited to only to Mac) Fireworks had almost all the essential parts of Sketch a decade earlier. Adobe killed it after acquiring it, because despite owning 80% of creative tooling they don’t understand their own software.