Everything I make happens in Figma. Client websites, app screens, pitch decks, ads, the thumbnail on this week's video, all of it.

I've been designing for over 8+ years and I tried a lot of stuff. Sketch, Adobe, Canva for a while, Framer. I keep coming back to the same place. And for what you'll actually do as a founder, it's free.

For years I told founders to stay out of Figma. Just tell me what you want, I handle it. To me that was the whole point of hiring a designer. I was wrong about that, and AI is kinda the reason why.

So here are 7 things you can do in there, even if you never designed anything.

You can also watch the YouTube video if you're more of a visual consumer:

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1. Steal from the community

You don't have to design anything from scratch. There is a lot of free files in there, made by people who spent weeks on them.

• ​iOS and iPadOS 27 UI Kit, the official one from Apple, comes with the whole Liquid Glass library
• ​Untitled UI, biggest free kit I know, 420+ page examples in there
• ​shadcn/ui, if your devs already use shadcn this one matches the code
• ​App Icon Template for App Store stuff
• or just browse all the free UI kits and pick whatever fits

Drag a component in, change the color, change the copy, you're done. It's not cheating, everyone does this, I do this.

2. Pixel-perfect Design with AI

Here's my usual workflow when I vibecode:

I sketch the screen in Figma first. Rough, ugly, doesn't matter. Then I connect the Figma MCP to Claude, copy the frame, paste it in, and it ships it pixel perfect.

When I type "make it clean and modern" I get whatever the model thinks that means, which is usually a purple gradient. When I hand it a frame, it just builds the frame.

Figma put their setup guide on GitHub with skills for Claude Code and Cursor. Took me like 10 minutes to get running.

3. Everyone can actually see it

This is where AI tools fall apart for me. You generate something great and then what, you screenshot it into Slack? Send a Vercel link and hope people click it?

Figma is just great at collaborating on ideas. You don't need to be a designer for it.

Figma link, everyone's in, same file at the same time. And people can comment directly onto a screen.

Your cofounder, your advisors, that one investor who has opinions about button colors. All in one place.

4. Prototyping in Figma

You can put together something that looks real in about an hour. Few screens, connect them, that's about it.

Then you hide the Figma UI in presentation view so nobody sees the toolbar. Add &hide-ui=1 to the URL and it's gone.

We embedded one on a live website once and people thought it was the real product. Which was kinda the point, we wanted to see if anyone would sign up before we built the thing.

Good for user testing, investor demos, or a waitlist page that shows something instead of just promising something. The only downside is that you can't track clicks or any other metrics, so I'd use the Figma prototypes mainly for in-person qualitative research.

5. Your Content Creation Hub

I create all my content in Figma. It's the best place to take an image, remove the background, drag some text on it and then add a cool graphic from the Figma community files.

Figma replaced like three tools for me here. And with the new AI tools, you can do so much! The "Remove Background" feature in Figma is one of the most reliable I've seen so far.

6. Map it before you build it

FigJam is another tool in the Figma Suite. Sticky notes and arrows, that's it.

User flow, sitemap, onboarding steps, all of it before anyone opens a code editor.

Every confusing product I audited had this in common, nobody ever mapped it. They built screens one by one and hoped it adds up at the end. I also use it for our design workshops. Sometimes 5 people added sticky notes at the same time!

7. One brand system

Define it once. Colors, type scale, spacing, buttons, logo files. Everyone pulls from the same place so nothing drifts.

Then you feed that same system into AI so the output stays on brand. I actually built a small plugin for this (Figma to DesignMD) because I got tired of AI ignoring my colors.

And a lot of other stuff

Pitch decks, device mockups, LinkedIn carousels, thumbnails, one-pagers. I do all of it in there.

On decks, I made a Figma file with 50+ real pitch decks from startups you know and some you never heard of. It's free, grab it if you're raising.

The last 20%

The point is not that Figma is magic. It's a tool, tools are boring.

The point is you can get to 80% good on your own now. Free libraries, free files, AI that ships working code. Which is fine, honestly. Most founders never even get close to 80%.

But that last 20% is taste, and taste takes years. It's the part people notice and can't really explain.

If you want to know where your website or product is losing that last 20%, I'll do a free audit for you. You get a full breakdown of what's broken and what to fix first. You can book a call with me here.

That's about it.

Nik