Speculating on Zoom's Next Product: Payments or AI-related?

This week, we have special guest Adam Fishman, original proclaimed Growth Daddy (defined as a father and a growth expert), a Reforge mainstay, and formerly of Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods.

Today he and our hosts are discussing Figma for Dev, Zoom’s COVID strategy, and Twitter’s Creator Payouts.

🎨→ ⌨️ Figma for Dev from Unsolicited Feedback

Figma for Dev offers deep lessons and the experts agree it’s a brilliant move.

💰 Figma unlocked unparalleled PLG through their unconventional pricing strategy: Most tools price per seat, but Figma realized that this creates unnecessary friction because when you pay per seat, there’s often approvals that need to happen to add someone. At Figma, anyone who is not editing does not incur any charges.

🚀 Now, they want to capture revenue from the audience that’s already in their funnel: In every project, there are 5-15x more engineers than designers, greatly increasing the TAM if companies now opt to pay for seats for their engineers who are already used to the platform.

🎯 Focus is the name of the game here as Figma takes a step into the Dev audience: Figma could have built a wide range of features for engineering. Figma chose to focus on the part of engineering that is closest to design.

📹 Zoom’s COVID Product Strategy:

Zoom delivers a Growth Daddy Cage Match between Fishman and Balfour, with Mosavat as the mediator.

Background: Zoom has recently launched several new products, including Zoom Apps, Zoom Events, and Zoom Video Engagement Center.

Round 1:

• 🐟 Fishman asks, "Is this just a spaghetti at the wall strategy? Who are they building for?"
• 🔎 But, Balfour commends the Product Velocity of the engineering team. Very impressive!
• 🔑 Mosavat errs toward Fishman in round one, pulling in a Mike Spicer quote from Sutter Hill Ventures. Mike tweeted that the right strategy is to take a series of sequential bets, not a bunch of bets across a bunch of different things because you learn more each time. Fareed feels like none of these are sequential bets.

Round 2:

• 🐟 Fishman zooms in on clips and basically makes the argument that it lacks all of the pizzazz and UGC magic that makes Loom successful. So combined spaghetti strategy + half-baked products, Fishman is not feeling much love for Zoom right now but challenges Balfour to prove him wrong.
• 🔎 Balfour decides to take the pro-zoom case! He feels this might just be the Microsoft strategy (which notably has been a successful company). Build 80% of the market and bundle it. Their strengths are tech and their sales machine. That is a winning bet. Bundle and sell when you have great tech and sales.
• 🐟 Fishman wonders if they are big enough to pull that off.
• 🔑 Mosavat sides with Fishman here. Microsoft has a billion people using 365, and by the way, is Zoom's biggest competitor with Teams. It's a bad strategy to fight Goliath with the same strategy Goliath is using. "If you don't have a navy, don't go to a sea battle."

Final Round:

• 🔎 Balfour suggests that strategy and execution should be separated.
• 🐟 Fishman disagrees, arguing that execution cannot be separated from strategy. If Figma had attempted that strategy and produced subpar products, they would have been criticized as well.
• 🔑 Mosavat identifies Zoom's original sin as the lack of presence or identity outside of meetings. Fareed often quits Zoom between meetings.
• 🔑 Fareed's lesson is to lean into what Zoom does well. However, ultimately he agrees with Balfour that Zoom is still a great business. It has the following benefits:

1. 📉 Low acquisition cost
2. 💻 Low R&D cost
3. 💰 Great margins
4. 💸 Profitable at IPO
5. 💰 Hadn't raised much money

COVID may have created some challenges, but these five core elements remain strong.

For more analysis, the opportunity to hear Brian Balfour rap, and to hear what the trio had to say about Twitter's Creator Payouts, listen to the full episode. Like what you're hearing? Please give us a review and a subscribe.