Member-only story
The precipitous rise of Figma and fall of InVision
What we can learn from their stories.
Published in
6 min readFeb 21, 2021
In business, things change quickly. Trends come and go; tools wax and wane. Companies have to stay abreast of trends and constantly innovate in order to survive. InVision was once an industry darling, enjoying rapid user growth, strong market momentum, and an almost $2 billion valuation. Three short years later, it’s almost an relic.
In 2017, InVision was the top prototyping tool, with 60% of UXTool survey respondents indicating they used it. Only three years later, their user share fell to 23%, with more than half of those people only using it as a secondary tool. In contrast, Figma has seen an explosion of growth and popularity, rising from about 8% of respondents using the tool in 2017 to about 57% in 2020.
Where did InVision go wrong?
Lack of product focus and strategy
- InVision started as a prototyping tool to be used alongside Sketch. They never expanded their functionality to include design functionality though, failing to capitalize on becoming a holistic ecosystem for Designers.
