The underlying logic behind Figma's 250% surge on its first day of listing: Why are collaborative platforms even more irreplaceable in the AI era?

Here's the English translation: Artificial intelligence technology is not eliminating collaborative platforms, but making truly collaborative platforms more scarce and precious. Have you ever wondered why in an era when AI can generate everything, a "drawing tool" has become even more valuable? On July 31st, Figma officially went public on the New York Stock Exchange, with a first-day closing market value of $56.3 billion, with a P/S multiple exceeding 60 times. In comparison, the average P/S multiple in the SaaS industry is only 7 times, a figure that not only far surpasses the valuation levels of mature SaaS companies like Adobe and Salesforce but is even more stunning than Adobe's $2 billion acquisition offer two years ago. More thought-provoking is that this valuation was given in the context of AI design tools emerging, ChatGPT capable of quickly producing design drafts, and Midjourney generating beautiful images. By conventional logic, when AI can automate design work, the value of traditional design tools should be diminished, but reality is precisely the opposite. [The rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach, maintaining the original text's nuances and technical terminology.]

At the same time, this time axis compression also brings a deeper challenge: although AI helps improve efficiency and assists in content generation for various tasks, we also know that AI's biggest problem is errors and inaccuracies. When multiple roles begin to use AI to quickly produce content, ensuring brand consistency and design quality becomes a critical issue. This is precisely the value of collaborative design platforms - Figma ensures that content generation across different roles does not fall apart through online collaboration and design systems, guaranteeing the consistency of enterprise software, experience, and brand.

Looking further, the application of AI technology actually increases the complexity of design decisions. This complexity requires teams to have stronger collective intelligence and decision-making mechanisms, and collaborative platforms are the carrier for this collective intelligence to play a role. The platform not only needs to carry the diverse content generated by AI but also provide effective evaluation, discussion, and decision-making tools to help teams make the optimal choice among numerous options.

From a business perspective, the growing demand for AI-driven collaboration creates new revenue opportunities for platforms. Traditional SaaS models primarily charge based on user numbers and usage time, but in an AI-enhanced collaboration mode, platforms can price based on collaboration complexity, AI workload, and the value of intelligent services. This multi-dimensional value creation and value capture model brings greater commercial imagination to collaborative platforms.

New Logic of Platform Economy: From Function Stacking to Ecosystem Synergy

76% of Figma users use multiple products, not because of numerous features, but strong collaboration. AI allows data, processes, and permissions to span multiple roles and scenarios. The deeper users flow in the ecosystem, the higher the migration cost. Customers with annual payments exceeding $10,000 surged by 47%, indicating that enterprises now view Figma as a "high-stickiness collaborative platform" rather than a single-point tool. This is the new paradigm of a platform company's moat.

Deeply researching Figma's business model evolution, I discovered a key characteristic of platform economy in the current era: multi-product synergy is becoming the core factor determining platform value, while traditional functional competition is gradually losing meaning. This change not only redefines software companies' product strategies but also provides a new perspective for understanding platform economy's development laws.

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Deeper opportunities arise from cultural and work style differences. Chinese enterprises emphasize collective decision-making and cross-departmental collaboration, which presents unique demands for collaborative design tools. For instance, Chinese enterprises are more accustomed to refining design proposals through group discussions, placing greater importance on real-time communication and rapid feedback during the design process, and requiring design tools that support large-scale team online collaboration. Simultaneously, Chinese enterprises generally have faster decision-making speeds and shorter product iteration cycles, necessitating design tools that can support high-frequency version updates and rapid design changes. These demand characteristics significantly differ from overseas markets, and MasterGo has precisely established strong product advantages in these aspects.

From market performance, MasterGo has gained high recognition from top-tier customers. Through the "Co-creation Program", MasterGo has deeply connected with leading enterprise customers such as China Telecom, China Merchants Bank, Meituan, Baidu, and iFlytek. Within three years of launching, it has achieved nearly 80% enterprise market share, with over a hundred top enterprises paying to use the platform. This customer base not only brings stable revenue sources but more importantly, builds powerful word-of-mouth effects and industry influence. MasterGo's NPS (Net Promoter Score) exceeds 50%, with 63% of users believing its experience ranks first, a user satisfaction level that is extremely rare in enterprise software.

From payment capacity and commercial potential, the Chinese market demonstrates enormous value creation space. I noticed an interesting data point about Figma: although international users comprise 85% of its total users, international revenue only accounts for 53% of total revenue. This user-revenue mismatch reflects differences in payment abilities, payment habits, and value perception across markets. Chinese enterprises typically demonstrate strong willingness to pay and higher price tolerance for tools that significantly enhance efficiency and competitiveness. Especially in first-tier cities and among top enterprises, investing in professional design tools has become a standard configuration for enterprise digital transformation. This provides an excellent market foundation for MasterGo's commercialization.

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