The Community Node-Graph Channel Strategy
Map the influence graph of an existing community, then go to its centres — for feedback, not a pitch.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Rather than building an owned community, Figma went all-in on the single channel where the design community already lived — Twitter. Dylan Field wrote a scraper that seeded a handful of known design influencers and mapped who followed them and who followed those people, producing a node graph of design sub-communities and their most influential nodes. Figma then DM'd the most influential people — asking for feedback, never selling.
Origin
Built by Figma co-founder Dylan Field, a scrappy engineer, in the pre-launch era; Claire Butler operated the resulting channel strategy. The code was later shared publicly and Figma reused the technique when launching to new audiences such as developers.
Core principles
- 01Early on they will not come to you — go to where they already are.
- 02One channel, done properly, beats presence everywhere.
- 03Influence is structured: communities form clusters with identifiable central nodes.
- 04Approach the influential node for feedback, not a pitch — the feedback ends up selling.
- 05People, not the brand handle, must be visibly present in the channel.
How to run it
- 1
Find the pre-existing community
Locate the platform where your target IC audience already congregates and shares best practices with each other, independent of you.
Pro tip An existing community is a distribution channel you don't have to build — a major, underrated prerequisite for this whole motion.
Watch out If no such community exists for your audience, this strategy is much harder to run.
- 2
Seed and scrape the influence graph
Pick a handful of people in the community you admire, then map who follows them, who follows those people, and the influence they hold — producing a node graph of clusters.
Pro tip The clusters map to sub-disciplines (iconographers, graphic designers, product managers) each with their own central influencers.
- 3
DM the central nodes for feedback
Contact the most influential people in each cluster directly and ask for feedback on the product. Do not pitch.
Pro tip 'We'd love your feedback on Figma' outperforms any pitch, and it genuinely improves the product.
Watch out Selling to an influential practitioner burns the relationship permanently.
- 4
Push your technical content into the same channel and engage as humans
Distribute your deep technical content into that feed and spur conversation. Have the founder, CTO and engineers reply, answer questions and fix bugs in public — not just the brand account.
Pro tip Passive following is the win: people can follow along for a year, building confidence, before switching tools.
Watch out A strong two-way channel means users also communicate loudly when they're unhappy — you must be prepared to answer.
In the wild
Field seeded a scraper with design influencers he wanted to learn from, mapped their follower graphs and the resulting clusters of design sub-communities, and identified the most influential people in each. Figma then DM'd them asking for feedback on the product.
→ It became Figma's primary early user-acquisition and feedback channel; the code was shared publicly and Figma reused the technique years later when launching to a developer audience.
Dylan, CTO Evan and CTO-level people like Kris respond directly to users on Twitter — asking what people need in the editor, taking bug reports and fixing them live.
→ Twitter remains Figma's largest feedback and community surface years later, and the two-way channel proved decisive during the Adobe acquisition backlash.
Common mistakes
Building your own community space too early
Users don't know you and don't care about you yet — they will not join your Slack. You have to go to their space first.
Using an influence map to sell
Figma explicitly never sold in these DMs; it was always about feedback. Feedback requests build relationships; pitches destroy them with practitioners.
Is it for you?
Best for
Early-stage teams targeting a technical practitioner audience that already has an active public community
Not ideal for
Audiences with no pre-existing public community, or products where the buyer is an executive with no public presence
From the transcript
“we really went all in on Twitter”
“he built this tool or this SC this scraper where he identified a couple influencers in the design Community”
“what we did is we found the people who were most influential to start”
“it was always about feedback”
From the episode
An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion
Claire Butler (first GTM hire)