Design is not unique. The same factors that drive demand for new and large use cases are arriving in most fields, especially in all forms of digital content.

The most active area undergoing this market transition now is the broader productivity space. Companies like Airtable, Notion, Coda, ...

When Figma started, it was a direct Photoshop competitor. But, over the next two years, they shifted their focus to designers working on the UI and UX of digital products.

The key for designers was a product that enabled collaboration. Building for collaboration led Figma t...

The best products map to how customers think about their workflow. They choose the right atomic concepts around which the entire product is built. They align with how customers think of their workflow and crystalise how they ought to. Great atomic concepts are refined and...

Companies with early success have yet to define what atomic concepts they focus on. Who are their competitors? Who are their customers, and which use cases should they build their workflows around?

Companies have difficulty navigating these questions because customers don't know wha...

Photoshop can do many things, but it is too low level. Photoshop's atomic concepts are images and pixels.

But Canva operates at a higher abstraction level and one that users care about. Canva designs start with their purposes in mind, such as designing a pitch deck, an Instagram post, or a ...

In 2010, Photoshop was commonly used for everything design from editing a photo, making a poster or designing a website. Today, Adobe still seems very strong, they have great stock performance and their transitions to SaaS has been seamless.

Yet, they are no longer the market leader...

Companies like Figma and Canva are able to thrive against a strong incumbent like Adobe because they have a distinct atomic concept. Their products are built around a different strategy than Adobe's product lineup. 

These different fundamental atomic concepts turn Adobe's a...