Lessons from Praveer Melwani, Figma CFO

On Finance Strategy and the Role of the CFO

On the CFO as a "truth seeker": "I view the role of Finance as a truth seeker or spiritual guide for the organization." [1]
On the evolving perception of Finance: "The role of Finance hasn't changed as much as people's understanding of its importance. All of a sudden, a lot more people want to know what EBITDA stands for." [1]
On driving conversations with data: "I pushed my org to always have a pulse on the core sets of drivers and metrics for what is actually the heartbeat of Figma and how can we use that to help drive conversations with the product or to go-to-market teams." [2]
On the importance of financial rigor from the start: "We had aspirations of where we wanted to go. We felt that if things keep going, we're going to be in a position where we're going to have wanted to have the rigor a couple of years prior, so that we have a set of financials that folks feel are reliable and thoughtful." [2]
On elevating the role of Finance in uncertain times: Melwani aims to "elevate the role of Finance under the guise of uncertainty, as a tool to motivate and drive his team." [1]
On providing strategic insights: "I found myself being able to provide insights and it actually informed some of the product decisions and the ways in which we structured our sales orgs." [2]
On the primary concern for CFOs in a downturn: "Cash runway should be the number one cause of concern for CFOs. It's crucial for leaders and teams to understand their key metrics, therefore, to ensure runway and be nimble and flexible." [1]
On the finance team's broader impact: He created a culture where finance could be a "motor for innovation" and encouraged his team to explore every aspect of the company to lend insight. [2]
On the future of the CFO role: The role is changing, especially in high-growth tech companies, requiring a deeper understanding of business drivers and metrics. [3]
On maintaining transparency with the board: "Regularly presenting your board with key health indicators is one of the ways to maintain transparency." [1]

On Scaling a Business and Product-Led Growth

On the importance of charging for a valuable product: "Customers explained, 'The only way that we can continue to invest in Figma as a tool for our broader design team is to know that you guys are actually charging for it because that's how we can know this tool isn't going to go away.' And so, part of our story is: if you've got something, charge for it, because people will know that you see value in it." [2]
On defining product-led growth (PLG): "Product-led growth to me is... your product is almost centering around your go-to-market strategy... for us, it's taking the form of having your end users having had a ton of familiarity with the tool prior to having to make a purchasing decision." [4]
On the power of PLG's viral loops: "The more people that they're then sharing it with, you continue to get more features that they're getting exposed to, you end up with these viral loops that build off each other all again centered around your product." [4]
On scaling business operations in a hypergrowth PLG company: A key to Figma's success has been not just collecting, but "actually harnessing their data to drive revenue growth, particularly as they moved up-market." [4]
On investing in systems early: "I wanted to be really thoughtful about investing in the systems early so that they can scale with you over time. I didn't want to penny-pinch there." [4]
On balancing manual and automated processes: "You're going to have some manual processes early but you want to build automation into it so that it isn't a headache for you to manage if your business just kind of goes through the roof." [4]
On the journey from self-serve to a sales team: "Over the next couple of years, we then went from a one-tier company to having a couple of tiers. We went from purely self-serve to having a sales team." [2]
On expanding Figma's product suite: "We started as a design tool but have since expanded to serve more parts of the software development process." [5]
On the importance of clean data for scaling: "Without consistent, clear data, you miss opportunities. If your conversion is lagging and you don't have a clear understanding of your sales and pipeline data, then you're not going to see the early indicators and know how to respond." [6]
On the impact of AI on design and product development: "We believe AI has the potential to lift the ceiling for what's possible in design and product development, while lowering the floor to participate." [5]

On Leadership and Team Building

On hiring for expertise: "I still would say that today, I'm by no means an expert, but I have tried to hire around myself so that I can feel confident in the collective expertise at Figma." [2]
On empowering the finance team: "Individuals were getting rewarded for it. They were seeing that the conversations that they were getting pulled into were really unique... The experiences that they were having at Figma were materially different than they had in other places because they were pushed to do more." [2]
On seeking advice and learning from others: "When someone asks me what they should do when they're new in a role, I always say: find that individual that you can ask questions to and not feel any shame. Honestly, no question is a dumb question, especially when you're trying to build something for the first time." [2]
On the value of a professional network: "Being able to just pick up the phone and learn from folks, whether it's an idea either for benchmarking or for the type of person to hire, I don't think I could have been able to do it without having folks in my corner." [2]
On hiring the right people: This is a key piece of advice for CFOs fighting market downturns. [1]
On fostering a culture of curiosity: "I've always had that desire and excitement to go and learn about an area that you may not necessarily need to know everything about for your core craft on the finance team." [2]
On his hiring process: He would give applicants a "silly Excel test" to see if they "understood the ins and outs of the financial statement." [2]
On building a team to tackle any financial task: He built out a team that could "tackle any financial task that was thrown their way." [2]
On communicating with other teams and leaders: This is a key aspect of the evolving CFO role. [3]
On the importance of over-communicating: "It's best to over-communicate and do what it takes to be viewed as competent." [1]

On Data-Driven Decision Making

On the importance of data pipelines: "I spent a lot of my energy making sure that the data pipelines were really flowing between our financial systems and what we were seeing on the product side." [2]
On building a single source of truth for GTM data: This was a crucial step for Figma in operationalizing its data. [4]
On the initial state of data at Figma: "The data was there but the individuals and teams that were going and spending time going and looking at it did not really exist." [4]
On the importance of data consistency: "You get consistency across systems and no one is seeing one number in one place and having it look differently in a different place." [4]
On structuring a team to own data: "Structure a team that is owning those derived set of tables and has to go and then take ownership of what they look like." [4]
On the importance of clean data: "Data had to be clean everywhere." [4]
On using data to understand user behavior: His early work focused on "how our users are navigating our funnel and what they're doing once they're actually on one of our paid plans." [2]
On using data to predict monetization: Figma identified "a few very specific features that were unique to our business that were good predictors of future monetization potential." [4]
On enriching data for better insights: "We enrich our enrich the domain to have an understanding of like where are they, what industry, what is their total employee size or Revenue base to help us understand what potential could look like." [4]
On establishing trust through reliable data: "I'm able to build a reputation of credibility and trust with the broader company and our shareholders with the confidence that our underlying data set and systems are clean and accurate." [6]

On Career and Personal Growth

On his capabilities as a structured thinker: "I view my capabilities as someone who can come in as a structured thinker and help someone frame a problem in a thoughtful way." [2]
On his desire for a broader footprint: "I get excited about learning and I get excited about having a much broader footprint than just like the core spreadsheet and operating model." [2]
On the inevitability of mistakes: "Mistakes are inevitable. Be upfront about them but make sure you use them as learning opportunities to get to know the business really well." [1]
On the role of luck in his career: "It was just a little bit of luck and good fortune." [2]
On life's timing: "It's funny how timing works out. My wife's due date was the same day we were scheduled to announce [the Adobe acquisition]." [2]
On the future of Figma post-IPO: "The fundamental business direction of Figma will be maintained, and we will continue to consider small-scale talent acquisitions." [8]

Learn more:

Lessons from Praveer Melwani, Figma CFO

On Finance Strategy and the Role of the CFO

On Scaling a Business and Product-Led Growth

On Leadership and Team Building

On Data-Driven Decision Making

On Career and Personal Growth

Written by Antoine Buteau

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