How Figma got its users
A shared file link opens the product inside a non-user's browser. Sharing is the usage, not a side feature.
Confirmed. The team said it publicly, or the signals leave no room for doubt.
You could start this on Monday. No budget, no audience, no permission needed.
- Every shared file recruits the people who receive it
- A buying decision that spreads beyond the original team
- A product that works in a browser with no install
- A reason for the recipient to open the link rather than a screenshot
Viral product in 2026
The best channel when it exists. But it is decided in product design, not in marketing.
Everything on this channel →The play
5 steps, in the order they ran them.
- 1
Keep the product in closed beta while designers at your target companies test it and tell each other about it.
done whenDesigners ask you for access before you offer it to them.
- 2
Make the file URL the unit of sharing: anyone with the link opens the full editor in a browser, no install, no account.
done whenSomeone who never signed up opens and inspects a file.
- 3
Let engineers and PMs into files for free so the buying decision stops being the design team's alone.
done whenPeople outside the design team open files without being asked to.
- 4
Ship multiplayer cursors so a shared file is visibly a shared room, not a document.
done whenTwo people end up in the same file at once without arranging it first.
- 5
Open a community library where anyone publishes plugins and templates on an indexable page.
done whenThird parties publish resources you did not commission.
The product itself
read from figma.com, live“The intelligent canvas for infinite creativity”
Run this against your own product
Carries the play above, and is written to tell you no when this channel is out of reach for you.
The same twelve channels as an agent skill. It reads your repository and eliminates what you cannot run. Open source, MIT.
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/howtodistribute/SKILL.md https://howtodistribute.com/skill.md
How big it got
Acquired by Adobe, then listed publicly
What else they ran
They ran the same play
Want this verdict on your product?
Describe it. You get back the channel I would run in your place, the 30-day plan, and the number at which you stop.