
InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F - kaboro
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/invision-valued-at-1-9-billion-picks-up-115-million-series-f/
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nf__85
As someone who uses InVision daily, I have become more and more frustrated
with the experience.

Building a large project feels like building a house of cards. I often run
into small but infuriating UX issues inside their app. One example of this is
uploading artboards from Sketch using the InVision Craft plugin. Uploading a
new artboard that has the same name as a previously uploaded artboard
overwrites the original without asking or telling you what happened. I spent
way to long trying to figure out why one of my artboards wasn't uploading, and
then it took me even longer to figure out where it ended up once I realized
the problem. When you have hundreds of screens in a project every upload from
Craft starts to feel scary.

These little interactions are all over the app and the amount of frustration
they cause becomes exponential over time, like a repetitive strain injury.

I've been an InVision user for a long time and it seems to me that the core
features have not improved, but have actually degraded over time. I assume
because they put all their resources into Studio.

I hope they use some of this money to improve their core offering. Sketch
users aren't going away and I think it would be wise to try and keep as many
of them as possible using InVision.

~~~
dharma1
I think it's a pretty good product, and has grown fast (hence the valuation)
but they really need to improve the core product. It's got too many bugs and
feels like it's had zero effort in the past 1-2 years.

Sketch and Figma now have very similar clickthrough prototyping tools built
in, and it's probably a question of time until they catch up.

~~~
nf__85
Agree about the sketch and Figma click through stuff. One of the only things I
see holding all of the competitors back from eating InVisions lunch right is
that it's easier to share and collaborate (internally and externally) with
InVision. Being able to login, comment, and share a URL seems to be a big part
of it.

I would also say the inspect feature is a big plus, but that doesn't even play
nicely with some sketch plugins right now.

~~~
cercatrova
You can share a link, comment and even collaborate in real time (with 2
cursors, each person working on a separate part of the file) with Figma.

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zackmorris
Can someone please create Series as a Service (SaaS) to facilitate connecting
startups with funding?

InVision is cool and everything, but these funding rounds are on the order of
1000 times larger than what a couple of indie devs need to create similar
functionality. I would like to live on a beach, or in a cabin in the woods
(preferably both, seasonally) and create software remotely. I also need to be
left alone for a year so I can create the next-gen tools in the spirit of
Firebase, Elixir etc so I can focus on the work instead of the
minutia/infrastructure surrounding it.

Unfortunately after writing this, I realized it's all about the customer base
so never mind. Actually, can someone create Customer Base as a Service (CBaaS)
to facilitate connecting startups with customers?

~~~
avinium
> Unfortunately after writing this, I realized it's all about the customer
> base so never mind. Actually, can someone create Customer Base as a Service
> (CBaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with customers?

Someone did. It's called Google, and businesses pay through the nose for a
chance to reach customers through it :)

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drewrv
Invision must dogfood their own ui design tools, right? The thought of trying
to mock up ui changes to their app within their app cracks me up.

~~~
Umofomia
It's not too different from having a C compiler written in C. Once you
bootstrap[1] the first version, you can create subsequent versions from the
first one.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28compilers%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28compilers%29)

~~~
drewrv
Sure I get that. It's just visually I know that when I'm taking screenshots of
app windows, and I have said windows open, I confuse myself sometimes. If I
were trying to mockup a mockup app I'd want to use a different, visually
distinct, tool.

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jdhn
If I were Invision, I would either invest in or buy out Figma, and have it
replace Invision Studio. Figma is on the up and up, and from what I heard
Invision Studio looked good, but the execution was poor.

~~~
pixelpp
Yep, it is a fat client with lousy performance. They tried to build Sketch +
Principle in the same tool. Both those tools are super complicated software
products. They should have created separate tools which complement each other.

~~~
mortenjorck
Worse, they tried to accomplish this not with a Cocoa app (as Sketch and I
believe Principle are), but in a heavy Electron app.

[edit] Sorry, I typed "Figma" for some reason when I meant to type
"Principle."

~~~
whoisjuan
Figma is definitely not a native app. It's a WebGL app that has been heavily
optimized for performance, but it relies on a browser or browser-technology to
do its job.

[https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-
to...](https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-
web/)

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jeremiahlee
$100M ARR and fully remote!

~~~
warent
This is definitely worth highlighting. Why so many businesses are still
deluding themselves into thinking that work is better done when cramming
people into an office is beyond me. Remote work is still the minority. My
hypothesis is that it's actually just covert ego/power/distrust at play
because founders and executives like to be able to say they have an office,
and they like to see their employees "working." This mostly only applies to
"new" businesses though (i.e. founded in the last 5-10 years); older
businesses have an excuse because they're just doing what they already know.

In any case, huge respect to InVision for being one of the leaders in
advocating remote work.

~~~
anongraddebt
Is there a company, equivalent (or larger) in size to InVision, that is an
example of a remote work org.? $100M ARR isn't anything to scoff at, but I'm
not sure InVision's success (so far) puts the nail in the coffin to the idea
of a non-remote work org.

I'm young and still find it invaluable to be able to walk over to Jane in
engineering or Bob in marketing to hash things out in-person.

~~~
cercatrova
GitLab is also a fully remote company.

~~~
dsumenkovic
That's right. You can read more about it at
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/). There you'll
find how remote work is changing the workforce, how it changes the
organization, advantages for employees and organizations and what did we learn
about remote working.

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JPWH
I'm curious, what reasons would lead a company with $100M ARR to seek a
funding round for close to their ARR? Are there no other avenues for securing
capital that are close to you ARR?

~~~
tguedes
Probably cheap capital in case the markets turn down. It's expected that the
venture capital money will dry up a bit and the fed raising interest rates
means that taking loans will be more expensive. I've seen a lot of VCs say if
you can take it now, take it.

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InGodsName
Hey UI/UX experts, I am wondering how should you go about mastering UI/UX of
mobile app/web app.

I've a girlfriend who wants to start in this area but is pretty clueless. Can
anyone please provide a path to follow?

Is this good:

1\. Learn UI design in Paint.net/MS Paint

2\. Read book on color theory, typography, whitespace

3\. Design in dragdrop software like photoshop/illustrator

4\. Learn CSS and recreate your design in CSS.

5\. Lean some JavaScript for animation and visualization/charts etc...

Is this a decent path? What software tools/books do you recommend for a new
self learning student?

~~~
whytaka
My advice is to skip 1 and 2.

She should learn Photoshop/Illustrator (or equivalent software) and recreate
famous interfaces. (Facebook, Google Docs, Gmail, etc.) If she can get them to
be pixel perfect, she has enough technical skill and can start exploring.

She should work on industry tools right away. She should skip theory - she'll
learn more from doing. She can go back to theory if she feels like she's
missing something.

~~~
Vanderson
I'd actually advise #2, but I'd do it at the same time as the others. Why?
Because I did a lot of design classes and studying and I really, really wish I
had taken typography.

The designers that works with fonts well make the nicest and most pleasing
designs. Just copying others will ensure you can copy well. Understanding the
theory behind those designs will allow you to make anything you want, and do
it well.

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tenryuu
I've used invision multiple times for university courses. It's really great
how they made an extension to photoshop to render out artboards to generate
the screens. My support experience is also quite pleasant. Even just with a
single free prototype, it takes a lot of hassle out of making interactive
demos when I'm exporting straight out of what is essentially mockup material

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misiti3780
I know this will sound trite, but this is NOT a startup, and I dont know why
the editors techcrunch cant seem to figure that out.

> nVision, the startup looking to be the Salesforce of design, has officially
> achieved unicorn status with the close of a $115 million Series F round,

You are no longer a startup when you are on series F

~~~
yread
How do you define a startup? I thought it's usually defined as a company
that's more focused on growth than profit and return to shareholders. That
would not limit the number of funding rounds

~~~
treve
Before the start-up hype I think in the Netherlands you need to be in business
for 3 years to no longer be considered one. But that definition has shifted
quite a bit there too.

The company you describe I would describe as any typical corporation. In my
head I still see start-ups as a scrappy, small team in a fairly young
business.

The dictionary definition says:

1 : the act or an instance of setting in operation or motion 2 : a fledgling
business enterprise

Both of these definitions suggest it really just describes 'new' ventures.

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reneherse
Random question for anyone who uses InVision, as we're considering making it
central to our process. Is it easy for frontend devs to recreate the
designers' prototype in code? What pitfalls should we look out for?

~~~
jbob2000
> Is it easy for frontend devs to recreate the designers' prototype in code?

No. The designers have to build the designs in a very particular way in order
to get anything useful from invision. Good luck telling your design team that
the way they build their sketch files is all wrong.

I have used invision professionally for 2 years now, it is a glorified
screenshot host. It's biggest pitfall is that you have to use it in a very
particular way, otherwise it's totally useless.

~~~
daleco
From UX perspective, it's one of the best tools for managing the design
process. 1-click to update / push mockups from Sketch. Ability to do light
interactive mockups, commenting, and CSS specs.

We've been testing most of the tools on the market (Zeplin, UX Pin,
Avocode...). InvisionApp beat all of them.

~~~
jbob2000
I am happy that you found some use for it. Have you asked your devs how they
use it? I do understand that mockups aren't just for developers, but you might
be going to all that expense and effort for nothing. When I joined my team,
after 6 months the designers asked me for some feedback on how I was using
invision and I said it's just a screenshot host and they were shocked. _But
all the design specs are in there!_. Yeah great, I know what 3em padding and
16pt font looks like, I'm not spending 2 hours poking through a clunky web app
to find that out.

The CSS specs invision spits out aren't helpful. If you are developing with a
framework like React or Angular, and use a CSS preprocessor like SASS, then
you have to rework everything invision gives you. It would be far easier if my
designer would just email me a list of hex codes and some basic rules for font
sizing and whitespace.

~~~
daleco
The basic rules should be documented in the style guide, design system, and/or
libraries. What would be interesting is to bridge the gap between the Invision
Specs and what you expect.

Indeed, I ran a survey on 8 devs, and I've been monitoring how they typically
use it over the years (Invision, Zeplin, basic screenshot hosting...). Some
Devs won't use the specs at all, sometimes delivering something off. Others,
love it since it will reduce the back and forth during audits.

You're right, specs will only be usefull to provide the dimensions and colors.
However, this part is automated on the UX side, it prevents us from writing it
down, which would be a waste of time: Mockups always change, we'd have to
manually update the said specs so many times... This wouldn't scale well.

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ux-app
sorry for inserting my own product into the conversation, but I am running out
of ways to understand the failure of my product.

I wrote a prototyping application ([https://www.ux-
app.com/dev/editor](https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor)). It's on life support
at the moment and brings in only a couple hundred $ per month.

I think it's a lot more powerful than inVision and many of the other
successful tools. If you have time then add a mobile table view to see how
powerful the editor is.

Why is it failing so hard? Any ideas?

Thanks, Eli

~~~
reneherse
I would jump over to the Indie Hackers site and ask for feedback there. I'm
sure it will spark a useful conversation.

From my quick survey of your marketing site, there's a lot of work that needs
to be done to improve the UX on mobile. I would suggest working with a
designer to improve the graphics and checking that the layout works on
different browsers/OSes/breakpoints. Might be easiest just to start over with
a premade template for the marketing site.

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thrownaway954
Congrats to them!!! The founders have been nothing but awesome people through
the years (especially in the ColdFusion community), even before finding
InVision. Glad to see they are succeeding!

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ixtli
Their main application is down right now. Bad timing, I guess.
([https://status.invisionapp.com/](https://status.invisionapp.com/))

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EGreg
What makes Invision - a mockup app - worth THAT MUCH??

~~~
mattnewton
From the article, sounds like good old fashioned customers who need a mock-up
app and are willing to pay.

~~~
NorthOf33rd
That's still an absurdly high multiple of ARR.

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artur_makly
Not bad for a 100% all-remote team. We use it daily. Only wish their main app
had an API. Kudos!

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devmunchies
both InVision and plaid announced funding today from spark and Goldman sachs.
Thats a lot of cash.

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Kluny
"Chrome has quit unexpectedly. Do you want to send a crash report?"

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CameronBanga
In my 9 years of making mobile apps, I've never hated a tool more than I've
hated InVision. But congrats to the team on this pick up I suppose.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
As a general rule, these kinds of comments are not helpful and don't add to
the discussion in any way. As the other respondent said, if you don't like the
product, please let us know why! I've used InVision and have always liked it,
but I've really only used it from a "designers sent me an InVision deck to
build", so I'm genuinely interested in how other stakeholders may find
problems with it.

