How to Kill a Unicorn
I think this article is an example of attribution error. To conclude that it is a free model that has caused Canva, Figma, or Notion to take the lead is missing on multiple fronts. To me, the more likely conclusion about these products is that they were better products, and that they created fundamentally different user interactions.<p>I can't remember where I read it, but I read a great article that argued that Google Docs was successfully not because it duplicated Microsoft Word (many had tried and failed with this approach), but because it focused on how work had changed and the need for collaboration.<p>Canva is very, very successful, but I don't think that's at Adobe's expense. By any measure, Adobe is probably one of the best examples of a company shifting to SaaS:
<a href="https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/" rel="nofollow">https://producthabits.com/adobe-95-billion-saas-company/</a>. Also, regardless of whether they offered their products in a SaaS model (Adobe introduced them in 2012 I believe), there was still free trial.<p>Maybe a better explanation is that Canva tapped into a different audience - people that needed to produce graphics but did not have design capabilities.<p>On Figma, it seems to me to be a better online collaboration design tool than what has been offered by other companies. The author seems to forget that companies like InDesign existed at the same time, offered a collaborative tool, and had a similar freeium offer.<p>I won't belabor the point - freeium might have helped these companies succeed, but I think it is a big leap to say freeium = unicorn killer.