Jonny Burch

Life after Figma is coming (and it will be glorious) As code becomes source of truth, design tools become interfaces on code, not the other way round. We'll see hundreds

I can't wait to see what we build.

My latest post: jonnyburch.com/life-after-...

We're seeing it already with tools like Pencil and Agentation. And it's just the start. The era of one monolithic design tool is ending. What comes next looks more like the developer ecosystem: hundreds of choices, open standards, composable tooling.

Redlining tools, visual canvases, component inspectors — not as features in someone else's SaaS, but as modular packages layered on top of your actual production code.

So what replaces Figma? Not another platform. Dependencies.

Design tools are starting to look like NPM packages you install into your codebase.

AI coding tools are letting designers work directly in code. The bottleneck in product teams is shifting upstream. And maintaining two sources of truth - one in Figma, one in the codebase - is becoming indefensible overhead.

Figma has ~90% market share today. And it's dying.

Not because of a single 'Figma killer' (I don't believe one will exist), but because the category itself is dissolving.

Buzz Cut Coffee Low Caffeine coffee for all the taste and half the shake

So here’s my ask: if this sounds interesting, please do validate my decision to launch so quickly by placing a Christmas coffee order! (You can also buy gift cards). Get it in by tomorrow night and I’ll guarantee pre Christmas delivery.

Order at buzzcutcoffee.com

The real work starts next year as I find out what the market’s like for this. But in the mean time I’d love to sling some beans this week.

Well. 40kg of roasted beans arrived today, and I think what we’ve put together is pretty special. Smooth, chocolatey medium roast that goes like anything in our home espresso machine, tastes like the real deal but isn’t punishing me despite an extensive tasting this morning.

Today: Coffee, packaging and other printed stuff arrived. Tasted (a lot), took (bad) pictures, asked Nano Banana for better ones. Website live.

Monday: Confirmed coffee order, signed up for Shopify, settled on name and brand (not perfect but time wasn’t on my side)

Tuesday: picked a theme for the website. Designed packaging and sent to print.

Wednesday: Tested website, set up subscriptions

The only problem was I had no name, no website, no brand, no packaging. No clue. Cue a monster sprint to pull together a coffee subscription business in 6 days to beat Christmas delivery.

Here’s how it went.

Weekend: started working on brand, look and feel. Worked with supplier on coffee.

Until last week, when I emailed probably my 10th coffee roaster, asking whether they would help.

They said yes! And what’s more, with a quick enough turnaround time to be able to make Christmas delivery.

But the mixing bowl technique wasn't going to work long term, and as I mentioned this to others I'd hear their stories of similar hacks. So began a journey of developing my own blend. A couple of months of very stop start - and ultimately no - progress.

It worked! And for a while (until I fessed up) my wife didn't even notice I'd swapped the beans in the coffee machine.

But after the third cup things start getting weird, and if I have a coffee past about 2pm it affects my sleep. So I got to thinking, what if I could get a premium coffee hit without the full whack of caffeine?

So a few months ago I started mixing half caff and half decaf. In a big bowl.

I just launched a half caff coffee brand in under a week.

Why? I like to have 4-5 cups of coffee a day. I like the ritual, and I don't like having to switch to tea.

Kae Tempest was absolutely spellbinding tonight. 90 minutes, non stop. Couldn't look away. And he didn't even play my favourite track!

Browser wars Notes on chatGPT Atlas one day in

But let's be honest, when Atlas is at feature parity with the hot young things of the browser world, (which seeing how fast they ship, will probably be next week), can anything stop it?

Anyway, I wrote more about it here jonnyburch.com/browser-wars/

First thoughts on Atlas, the chatGPT browser.

This really blurs the lines between web browsing and chatting, with shared conversation history across both. Makes me feel a bit funny — right now I'd rather a separation of church and state.

Northern founders, unite! (again)

After a couple of months off while we navigated school summer holidays, wedmin, house moves and various other life events, Found Up North is back with another meetup for northern founders on 7th Oct.

Grab a ticket at foundupnorth.com, see you there!

Hack Weeks - Hands-on AI sprints for non-engineers Hands-on AI sprints for non-engineers, designed to gain practical AI knowledge.

Here's to liminal spaces. If you're in one, let me know. I'd be fascinated to hear more.

And if you want clarity over the technology, come join our hack week next week (at hackweeks.com)

Voltaire said "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd".

Challenging assumptions is key as we go through what I believe will be a significant change to our working lives. An open mind. Willingness to learn and explore - not just technology but ourselves.

So if you're feeling like you're in a liminal space — maybe between jobs or careers, or facing up to a growing sense that what you've learnt to do or be isn't going to get you where you need...

...stay there.

Don't dismiss it and stick with your comfort zone.

With the pressure of everyday life, a state of play can be tricky. Just remember, the discomfort now is a down payment on way more clarity in the future. Clarity over what you love, what the world needs from you, where to focus in the future.

But to hold yourself in that place of discomfort and to see that journey as its own destination (as much as is possible), requires safety, permission, accountability and a state of play.

I suspect many of us will be thinking hard about this over the next few years. What got us here, won't get us... where? It all feels so unclear.

Many will have to adapt fast just to stay in place, or choose to make big moves into unknown territory.

(An aside: I hadn't put a name to what I was doing until reading
@neuranne.bsky.social‬'s new book 'Tiny Experiments' in the last couple of weeks. I'd recommend it to anyone in a period of transition.)

But this is a place I'm holding myself in generally right now.

Trying things. Not jumping into big decisions. Allowing the answers to come to me.

Extremely uncomfortable to be honest, but it feels important.

Liminal space. That in-between state, neither one thing nor other.

How do we hold ourselves in an in-between place?

As humans we're terrible at this. "It's the not knowing that's hard."