An AI Platform That Turns Designs Into Production-Ready Code

The Challenge

Two developers, Avi and Dan, had a vision: designers shouldn't need to know code to ship their ideas. They'd seen too many beautiful Figma designs die in handoff—lost in translation between designers and developers, or never built at all because founding teams lacked engineering resources.

Their idea: Build an AI platform that converts Figma designs into pixel-perfect, production-ready code. Let designers ship products themselves. Let non-technical founders launch MVPs without hiring a dev team.

The problem? They were backend engineers. They could build the AI engine and code generation pipeline, but they had no idea how to design a product that designers would actually want to use.

They posted on a design forum: "Looking for a Head of Product Design to join a 3-person founding team. We're building Figma-to-code AI. Need someone who understands both design tools and developer workflows."

I responded. We met. I joined as the third co-founder and Head of Product Design.

My Role: Head of Product Design

As the design lead on a technical team, I owned:

Product Strategy & UX:

• Defined the end-to-end user journey for both designers and developers

• Conducted user interviews with 50+ designers to understand pain points in design-to-code workflows

• Mapped out the core product philosophy: "AI with an eye for design"

Interface Design:

• Designed the entire product UI in Figma (yes, using the tool we were building for)

• Created a design system that balanced simplicity with power-user features

• Built interactive prototypes for user testing before any code was written

Design-to-Development Collaboration:

• Worked directly with the engineering team to ensure designs were technically feasible

• Tested every feature iteration to validate that generated code matched design intent

• Created detailed design specifications for complex interactions and edge cases

The Product Vision

The Problem We Identified:

After interviewing designers, developers, and founders, we found three core pain points:

1. Designers spent weeks creating pixel-perfect Figma files that developers rebuilt from scratch, losing 60% of design details in translation

2. Developers wasted time recreating layouts instead of building features

3. Non-technical founders couldn't validate product ideas without hiring expensive dev teams

Our Solution:

Build an AI platform with three core capabilities:

• Design-to-Code: Import Figma → Get production-ready React/HTML/Vue code

• Clone & Remix: Import any website → Get editable code + AI-powered redesign

• Playground Database: Built-in backend so users can ship full apps, not just static sites

Design Process (17 Days Sprint)

Week 1: Research & Strategy (Days 1-5)

User Research:

• Interviewed 30 designers about their Figma-to-code experiences

• Surveyed 20 developers on what makes generated code "production-ready"

• Analyzed competitors (Figma Dev Mode, Anima's predecessors, manual handoff tools)

Key Insights:

• Designers don't trust AI-generated code → Make it visual, show before/after

• Developers hate bloated code → Generate clean, semantic HTML/React

• Users need iteration speed → Real-time preview, chat-based editing

Product Strategy Decisions:

• Focus on speed to production over pixel perfection

• Build for designers who don't code AND developers who want speed

• Make the interface feel like a design tool, not a developer tool

Week 2: Design Execution (Days 6-12)

Interface Design:

Using Figma (and later testing our own platform), I designed:

1. Import Flow

• Drag-and-drop Figma file import

• URL-based website cloning (Chrome extension integration)

• Clear visual preview: "Your design → Generated code"

2. AI Playground (Main Workspace)

• Left panel: AI chat for iterative design changes

• Center: Live preview canvas (responsive, real-time updates)

• Right panel: Code output (React, HTML, Vue with syntax highlighting)

3. Database Builder

• Auto-detection: AI suggests when your design needs data storage

• Visual schema builder (no SQL required)

• One-click backend setup integrated with Supabase

4. Publishing Flow

• One-click deploy with auto-generated subdomain

• Share live link instantly (no manual hosting setup)

• Export code to GitHub/VSCode for developer handoff

Design System:

• Dark theme (95% of designers prefer dark mode for coding tools)

• Purple/blue gradient accent colors (conveys AI + creativity)

• Monospace fonts for code, clean sans-serif for UI

• Micro-interactions: smooth transitions, loading states, success animations

Week 3: Testing & Iteration (Days 13-17)

Usability Testing:

• Ran 15 user tests with designers (5 beginner, 5 intermediate, 5 expert)

• Tested with non-technical founders to validate "no-code" positioning

• Gathered feedback from developers on code quality

Key Iterations:

• Added "Clone Website" feature after users asked to remix existing sites, not just Figma files

• Simplified AI chat prompts - users didn't know what to ask. Added suggested prompts like "Make this section responsive" or "Change color scheme to match my brand"

• Made code export more prominent - developers wanted GitHub integration, not just copy-paste

• Added real-time collaboration - teams wanted to work together in the same workspace

Final Polish:

• Designed empty states, error messages, onboarding flow

• Created help tooltips for complex features

• Built responsive mobile experience (even though it's a desktop-first tool)

Tools We Used

Design:

• Figma (all UI design, prototyping, design system)

• FigJam (user journey mapping, brainstorming)

• Maze (remote usability testing)

Development (My Involvement):

• Claude Code (AI-assisted prototyping and code review)

• Cursor (collaborative code editing with AI)

• Supabase (backend/database integration)

Collaboration:

• Notion (product roadmap, user research notes)

• Linear (design-to-dev task tracking)

• Slack (daily sync with co-founders)

The Results

Shipped in 17 Days, Scaled to 1.5M Users

Launch Metrics:

• MVP live in 17 days (from first design to production)

• Beta launch: 500 users in first week

• Product Hunt: #1 Product of the Day

• 10,000 Figma files converted in first month

Current Scale:

• 1.5 million users across designers, developers, and founders

• Used by Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Walmart, Deloitte

• Integrated with Bolt.new, Replit, and other AI coding platforms via API

• Y Combinator backed (Spring 2024 batch)

User Impact:

• Designers ship products 10x faster (3 weeks → 3 days)

• Developers save 15 hours/week on layout implementation

• Non-technical founders validate ideas without hiring engineers

Community Validation:

"Anima is the only one that works perfectly!" - @enzofaleiro

"The BEST design-to-code platform." - @andrewbaisden

"New Bolt + Anima Figma to Code just got released. Spoiler: it's the best tool by far right now." - @MiguelFdezDev

Design Highlights

1. "AI with an Eye for Design"

Most design-to-code tools produce ugly, bloated code. We obsessed over:

• Visual accuracy - Generated code matches Figma pixel-for-pixel

• Semantic HTML - Clean, accessible markup (not nested <div> hell)

• Responsive by default - AI detects breakpoints and generates media queries

• Design system preservation - Extracts colors, typography, spacing into CSS variables

2. Chat-Based Iteration

Instead of re-importing Figma files, users can chat:

• "Make this section responsive"

• "Add a contact form with validation"

• "Connect this to my database"

The AI understands design intent and generates code updates in real-time.

3. Built-in Database (Playground Database)

We noticed users wanted to build apps, not just static sites. I designed:

• Auto-detection: AI suggests when you need data storage

• Visual schema builder (no SQL)

• One-click Supabase integration

• Real data in live preview (not just placeholder content)

4. One-Click Publishing

Removed all friction:

• Click "Publish" → Get live link in 10 seconds

• Auto-generated subdomain (animaapp.com/yourproject)

• Share with clients/team instantly

• Export to GitHub for production deployment

Co-Founder Testimonial

"Our design lead turned a technical product into something designers actually love using."

We knew how to build the AI engine. We knew how to generate clean code. But we had no idea how to make a product that designers would choose over manual handoff.

Ketih joined as our Head of Product Design and completely transformed the vision. He didn't just make it look good—he made it feel like a design tool, not a developer tool. He ran user interviews, iterated on the UX obsessively, and designed features we didn't even know we needed (like the Clone Website flow).

17 days from first design to launch. 1.5 million users. Design was the differentiator.

— Avi Cohen & Dan Shapiro, Co-Founders @ Anima