How to build zero-to-one products inside a company: Mihika Kapoor

Executive overview

Most product ideas die not from bad execution but from losing momentum — the vision fades, stakeholders forget, and the flame goes out. Mihika Kapoor, a design-engineering PM hybrid at Figma, has led multiple zero-to-one launches including FigJam, and is known internally as the go-to person for building new products from scratch.

Her framework has three parts: craft a vision that people can feel, build conviction early and communicate it loudly, then spread hype until the company is clamoring for the thing to exist.

The keeper of the flame is the PM — stoking momentum is not optional, it's the job.

Crafting a compelling vision

• Vision is the anchor that makes every setback feel like forward progress rather than defeat.
• Cross-pollinate early: research, design, and engineering should inform the vision simultaneously, not sequentially.
• Build a single shared artifact — a Figma deck with interleaved pain points, prototypes, and user testimonials — rather than separate readouts per function.
• Prototype before the project gets a green light; at Figma, seeing is believing.
• Structure pitches as: pain point → solution → proof point, repeated — not a linear slide deck.

Building and communicating conviction

• Start with an opinion, even an imperfect one. An A-minus hypothesis gets better reactions than a blank page.
• Draw conviction from an ever-growing library of user conversations — the more you have, the faster intuition sharpens.
• Signal your confidence level explicitly: "I feel medium confidence — if you feel stronger, I defer to you." This keeps strong opinions from silencing the room.
• Hold strong opinions lightly: be ready to kill your darlings the moment external signal contradicts them.
• Use the one-way door / two-way door test — most software decisions are reversible, so bias toward action.

Building internal hype

• Hype cannot be manufactured for something you don't believe in; it works by getting others to see what you see.
• Find high-visibility company forums (hackathons, sales kickoffs, all-hands) and push your product into them, even before it's polished.
• A scrappy demo in an unexpected context generates more excitement — and more product signal — than a formal readout.
• Put the product on internal staging early and keep it there long. People who give feedback feel ownership, which turns colleagues into advocates.
• External hype follows internal conviction: Design Twitter celebrated Figma launches because the team believed first.

Driving user empathy

• Talk to non-users as much as users — "why aren't you using this?" surfaces perception and marketing gaps that users never mention.
• Use yourself as a litmus test and create artifacts (Loom walkthroughs, use-case demos) that the sales team can distribute.
• Keep a running backlog of sales-call insights via a Slack-to-Asana integration; groom it weekly.
• At larger companies, a tight feedback loop with sales is a substitute for direct founder-user contact.

Pitching a zero-to-one idea inside a company

• Expect the first few pitches to fail. Translate "no" to "not yet" and return with more evidence each time.
• Use hackathons as a forcing function: a working prototype in a company-wide demo day is more persuasive than any strategy doc.
• Scope your fakery deliberately — swap an icon, change two lines of code — to make the new thing feel real without over-building.
• The idea spreads when teammates present it alongside you; get them on stage.

Culture as a product skill

• Culture establishes the trust that makes teams durable when roadmaps change.
• Hot seat: two minutes on the clock, anyone can ask anything. Costs nothing, builds genuine knowledge of what motivates each person.
• The Figgies: Oscar-style awards with absurd categories, assembled cheaply on Amazon. Celebrates the quirks people bring, not just the output.
• Any PM can drive culture bottoms up — top-down values (e.g. Figma's "play") just create permission.
• Ask new engineers directly: "How much do you like being involved in product decisions?" Then calibrate involvement to the individual, not the average.

Navigating change and building zero-to-one in an existing company

• Founding inside a company offers distribution, platform leverage, and lower risk — the trade-off is that every decision requires buy-in.
• Your scope is not your current project; it is the world. If your passion falls outside the company, that tells you something about your next career step.
• The three requirements for zero-to-one success: the right idea (empathy), buy-in (vision + hype), and spread (staging + advocacy).
• Shout your insights from the rooftops — others seeing you do it creates a more entrepreneurial culture around you.

Weaknesses worth knowing

• High conviction can read as "just building what she wants" — counteract with constant user proof points.
• Scrappiness under deadline pressure is a feature for you and a stressor for teammates who prefer earlier starts.
• Getting absorbed in details is powerful but needs deliberate off-ramps to avoid slowing the team.
• Hire to cover your blind spots; spiky individuals, well-rounded teams.