"I like to think of myself as half designer, half programmer and a little bit of an entrepreneur." Koen Bok's journey from award-winning Mac apps to building a $2B design platform.

The Sofa Foundation

The story starts in 2006, when Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk started Sofa, a studio known for award-winning Mac apps and work for clients like TomTom, Mozilla, and Nike. In 2011, Facebook bought Sofa, and they moved to Menlo Park, reporting to Mark Zuckerberg.

At Facebook, Koen worked as a product designer on messages, ads, and video. But the entrepreneurial itch remained.

From JavaScript Library to Product

Framer began as a JavaScript library that heavily relied on code to produce prototypes. It was a side project born from frustration with existing prototyping tools that couldn't handle complex interactions.

The founders soon realized the prototyping market wasn't expansive enough. They made a bold pivot: transform Framer from a code-heavy prototyping tool into a full visual website builder.

The Modern Flash

Some have called Framer "a modern Flash" - giving designers the power to create rich, interactive websites without writing code. The AI features, added in recent years, made it even more accessible.

The $2B Milestone

Framer raised funding at a $2B valuation, cementing its position as one of the leading design tools. Many designers use it every day to build production websites.

Koen also runs Festina, an early-stage fund, with his co-founder Jorn - continuing to support the next generation of designer-entrepreneurs.