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Fortune

Emma Burleigh

Figma’s CEO sent cold emails to and bought coffee for his 'heroes' while convincing ex-coworkers to use his product before its $68 billion success

Figma Dylan Field Flipboard LinkedIn Google Sameer Samat Sergey Brin Squarespace Fortune

Photo of Dylan Field (Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images)

Figma’s billionaire CEO Dylan Field hit up his former coworkers from LinkedIn, Flipboard, and O’Reilly Media as the then 19-year-old was looking to get his design tool off the ground. The millennial cofounder also cold-emailed his tech “heroes” to invite them out for coffee. Now, Figma is a $68 billion success. And multimillionaires and executives at Google and Squarespace have found success the same way.

Job-seekers are all turning to out-of-the-box ways to advance their careers: from delivering donuts to Silicon Valley bosses, to waitressing at tech conferences to hand out CVs. However, Figma CEO Dylan Field used some age-old tricks to get people on board with his now $68 billion breakout success.

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