Badrul Farooqi

About

Hi, I’m Badrul. I’m a product leader and early stage investor based in New York City. I’ve built mobile apps, fulfillment systems, and creative tools loved by millions of people around the world as an engineer and product manager.

Previously, I lived in San Francisco and Ann Arbor. I grew up in Detroit and it continues to shape me.

Investor, Present

I’m an early stage investor, supporting a new generation of startups building the future. I’m drawn to companies that help people express their ideas, prioritize user experience design, and have a long term view.

Some companies I’m fortunate to partner with:

Creative tools: Runway, Modyfi, Rive, Diagram*, Play, Eraser

Developer tools: tldraw, Knock, Replay, Playbit, Dynaboard*, Partykit*

Product, 2016 → 2022

I was the first Product Manager at Figma. I joined before the the public release and led the product teams that built the core design tool, Plugins, Figma Community, and more.

Kevin Kwok’s post about Figma covered much of my work. I'm also widely considered to be the funniest person to have ever worked at Figma.

At Square, I led the team responsible for global product onboarding and our internal developer platform. We leveraged machine learning, experimentation, and more, to help small (and large) businesses find the perfect product in Square’s vast product ecosystem.

Engineer, 2011 → 2016

I was an engineer for several years and launched award-winning mobile apps at Expedia, scaled fulfillment systems at Teespring, and created interactive experiences for millions of people around the world at Hook.

These experiences helped me refine my sense of product quality, craftsmanship, and operating at scale.