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When I launched the Email Love Figma Plugin on June 25, 2024, it marked the culmination of an exciting, challenging, and personal journey. The story of this plugin didn’t start in a high-tech office or a brainstorming session with a team of experts. It started with years of freelancing as an email designer and my constant frustration with the tools available for the job.

For years, I relied on Photoshop for email design, and to be honest, I hated it. It was clunky, confusing, and prone to errors, and I never fully learned how to use it properly. It felt like fighting with the software was part of the process, and that always left me drained. Then, I discovered Figma—and everything changed. Figma was intuitive, sleek, and refreshing. It allowed me to design exactly how I wanted without getting tangled up in unnecessary complexity. For the first time, I felt empowered as a designer rather than held back by my tools.

That’s when the idea started to take shape: What if you could export your Figma designs as code directly from the platform? I thought about all the hours I’d spent turning designs into HTML for email campaigns—tweaking code, troubleshooting issues, and losing precious time on every project. A tool like that could save designers and marketers like me countless hours.

The moment of clarity came in July 2023, on a foggy afternoon in San Francisco. I was on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour with my parents, soaking in the sights of the city wrapped in the iconic fog we affectionately call Karl. As we cruised through the streets, the idea kept circling in my mind. I pulled out my phone and Googled “Figma email plugins.” That’s when I felt a pang of disappointment: several similar tools already existed. For a moment, I thought the idea was a dead end.

But as the bus continued its route, I started to think more carefully. The market for email design is massive—surely there was room for more than one plugin. Maybe the tools already out there weren’t solving the problem the way I envisioned. By the time we hopped off the bus, I’d made my decision: I was going to build it.

At the time, I was working full-time in a corporate job and I’m not a developer, so I knew I’d need help. My first step was to find a designer to mock up the vision. I turned to Upwork and connected with an incredible designer who brought the initial layout to life in just a few weeks. Next, I needed a developer. After some trial and error, I found someone who really understood what I was trying to achieve.

It wasn’t easy juggling a full-time job while coordinating a remote team. Many evenings after work were spent reviewing designs, managing development progress, and testing features. But by early 2024, I could see it all coming together. On June 25, 2024, I finally launched the plugin, thanks to some pushing from my Co-Founder, Matt—and it was one of the proudest moments of my career.

Now, six months later, I want to share the journey so far. This blog post is a deep dive into what’s worked, what hasn’t, and where there’s room to grow. Whether you’re a designer, a fellow entrepreneur, or just curious about building a business in the digital space, I hope you find value in these insights.

The Plugin as a Driver of Dual Revenue

When I first envisioned the Email Love Figma Plugin, I thought of it as a standalone product—a tool to help designers and marketers create beautiful, responsive emails directly in Figma. However, over the past six months, it has become clear that the plugin is far more than that. While it delivers value on its own, many customers have struggled with the initial learning curve and setup, which highlighted the need for training and enablement. To address this, we introduced tailored services to ensure users could unlock the full potential of the plugin. These services have since evolved into a key part of our business model, driving substantial revenue and customer success.

Revenue Breakdown and Services Impact

Since its launch, the plugin has generated $25,440.16 in total revenue, with 88% ($22,300) coming from services like onboarding, support, and custom design systems and 12% ($3,140.16) from direct plugin sales. While plugin sales provide steady revenue, the real strength lies in how it acts as a gateway to premium services. On average, a plugin sale is worth $62.40, but the average services project is valued at $3,186—roughly 29 times higher. This dual revenue model not only helps customers succeed but also provides a scalable path for growth.

Why Services Became Essential

The need for services became apparent early on. While the plugin itself is a powerful tool, customers often struggled to get started without proper training or enablement. As one customer put it:

“Ideally, the initial setup and learning curve would be a bit easier, but once that was done, it worked well. Error handling would be good in Figma. Initially, it was failing, and I didn’t know why (from memory, it was because I needed to flatten the images). If we didn’t have support from you, we probably would have abandoned the plugin.”

This feedback reinforced that providing hands-on guidance was critical to helping customers succeed. Without support, some users might have given up entirely, but with the right enablement, they were able to save time and money—avoiding the need to hire a developer and completing their campaigns faster. As this customer concluded:

“The support from yourself has been excellent. Without that, it would have been a challenge for us. Overall, it saved us time and money, which was a win!”

How the Plugin Bridges to Services

The plugin acts as a proof of concept, showcasing the power of streamlined email design and building trust with users. Many teams and organizations start by using the plugin and then reach out for additional help to maximize its potential.

This demand led us to develop two tailored service packages:

Enterprise Onboarding & Support Package:

• Priced at $24,000 per year, this package offers large organizations everything they need to integrate the plugin seamlessly, including training, a custom design system, ongoing support via email and Slack, and quarterly Q&A sessions. It ensures teams are set up for success while providing peace of mind with premium support. Fun fact, we’re onboarding our first Enterprise customer at the moment!

Custom Design System Package:

• A one-time service starting at $2,000 for 10 components and scaling to $4,800 for 40 components, this package focuses on creating branded, reusable components tailored to each client’s needs. Smaller teams and agencies use it to scale their email production while maintaining brand consistency.

These services have transformed the plugin from a simple tool into a platform for delivering tailored, high-value solutions. One notable example is a U.S.-based marketing agency that purchased the plugin shortly after launch. Within a week, they reached out to discuss custom solutions, and this conversation turned into an engagement worth several thousand dollars, including ongoing support and quarterly check-ins.

Why It Works

The plugin’s ability to drive both sales and services revenue stems from three key factors:

• It Solves Real Problems: Many teams struggle to bridge the gap between design and email production. The plugin shows them how seamless this process can be, creating demand for deeper solutions.
• It Builds Trust: Using the plugin provides clients with firsthand experience of our expertise and thoughtfulness, making them more comfortable investing in additional services.
• It’s a Natural Next Step: The plugin sets the stage, but many organizations need help scaling or customizing their workflows. Services meet these needs and open the door for long-term relationships.

Scaling the Services Model

While services have been a major driver of revenue, they come with challenges, particularly scalability. Custom work is time-intensive, so scaling requires thoughtful planning.

To address this, we’ve taken steps such as:

• Standardizing Offerings: Creating templates and frameworks to streamline custom work.
• Expanding Capacity: Hiring an additional technical resource and exploring partnerships to handle demand.
• Productizing Services: Turning certain offerings, like design system updates, into scalable, subscription-based products.

The Email Love Figma Plugin has evolved into more than just a product—it’s a solution that empowers users while opening the door to premium services. By addressing the challenges customers face during setup and adoption, we’ve been able to transform frustrations into opportunities. This dual revenue model not only supports growth but also deepens relationships with our customers, helping them achieve their goals and laying the foundation for a sustainable future.

Distribution Channel Effectiveness

One of the biggest advantages in launching the Email Love Figma Plugin was leveraging the Email Love brand—a website and blog I’ve been running for several years. As a trusted resource for email inspiration, Email Love has built an audience of designers, marketers, and developers who are passionate about creating exceptional email campaigns. This existing platform has been the cornerstone of the plugin’s success.

When I was preparing to launch the plugin, many people advised me to create a separate brand for it. They reasoned that a standalone brand would give the plugin its own identity, free from the constraints of an existing website or niche. While I understood the logic, I felt strongly that Email Love already had something far more valuable: an audience of highly qualified potential users.

How Email Love Drives Plugin Discovery

The Email Love website is at the heart of the plugin’s growth, serving as its primary lead source. Here’s why this strategy works so well:

Audience Alignment:

• The website attracts professionals who are already thinking about email design. These are the exact users who would benefit most from the plugin.
• Designers, marketers, and developers visit Email Love for inspiration, and while they’re there, they discover the plugin as a tool to help them bring their ideas to life.

Built-In Trust:

• After years of curating high-quality content, Email Love has become a trusted name in the email design community. Launching the plugin under this brand meant it already had credibility and goodwill with the audience.
• Visitors are more likely to try a plugin associated with a site they already know and trust than they would be to try something from an unknown brand.

Effortless Discovery:

• The plugin fits seamlessly into the website’s ecosystem, appearing as a natural extension of the tools and resources offered. Visitors browsing for inspiration or reading blog posts come across the plugin as a logical solution to their needs.

A Unified Brand vs. Starting Fresh

In hindsight, choosing to launch the plugin under the Email Love name was one of the best decisions I made. By leveraging an established brand, I had an instant audience of people already interested in email design, eliminating the need to start from scratch in a crowded market. Visitors to Email Love were not just any web traffic—they were highly qualified individuals actively seeking inspiration and tools for email design, making the plugin a natural fit for their needs. Additionally, this approach significantly reduced costs; instead of pouring resources into ads or SEO for a new brand, I was able to channel the website’s existing traffic into plugin discovery, resulting in an efficient and cost-effective launch strategy.

The Results

This alignment between the Email Love website and the plugin has delivered incredible results:

• Consistent Traffic: The website drives 700–750 monthly visitors to the plugin page, providing a steady and reliable lead source.
• High Conversion Rates: Visitors from Email Love convert at a rate of 2.35%, far exceeding the average conversion rate for typical web traffic.
• Audience Fit: The synergy between the website’s content and the plugin ensures that the right people—those who will benefit most—are the ones discovering and purchasing the plugin.

Looking Ahead

The decision to launch the plugin under the Email Love name has proven to be a smart one, but it also underscores the importance of leveraging trusted platforms to get in front of the right audience. By aligning the plugin with the Email Love brand, we were able to overcome one of the toughest challenges of launching a new product: finding and engaging with the right customers. While the name Email Love Figma Plugin may feel like a bit of a mouthful (I can’t help but chuckle every time someone says it out loud), it has undoubtedly served its purpose well.

At some point, the plugin may undergo a name change as part of our long-term vision. As Matt and I continue to expand our portfolio under the EmailStack brand, refining how the plugin fits within a broader ecosystem of tools and services might make sense. That said, I have no regrets about launching under the Email Love name. It gave the plugin the credibility, reach, and alignment it needed to succeed in its early stages.

For now, the focus is on continuing to deliver value to our users while staying true to the principles that made the plugin successful: solving real problems, listening to customer feedback, and building on the trust we’ve earned with the Email Love community. Next, I’ll explore how the plugin has become a bridge to high-value client relationships and premium services.

Opportunities and Risks

As the Email Love Figma Plugin continues to grow, there are exciting opportunities to capitalize on and critical challenges to address. Here’s an updated view of the biggest opportunities, the risks we face, and the steps we’re taking to ensure sustainable growth.

Opportunities

• Scaling Services
  Expanded Team Capacity: To meet growing demand for custom design systems and templates, we’ve recently hired an additional technical resource. This allows us to deliver these services more efficiently while maintaining high quality. With this added capacity, I’m no longer the bottleneck in scaling services.

• Productized Services:
  Packaging these offerings into standardized services, such as fixed-scope design system projects, opens up more opportunities to scale. This could also include subscription-based maintenance or ongoing design updates.

• International Expansion
  With plugin adoption in 13+ countries, there’s clear demand beyond the U.S. Targeting high-performing regions like Canada, Germany, and Israel with localized marketing efforts could help drive further growth.

• Leveraging the Email Love Ecosystem
  The Email Love website continues to be our strongest lead source, driving consistent, highly qualified traffic. By expanding its content offerings to include tutorials, case studies, and more examples of the plugin in action, we can deepen the connection between the site and the plugin.

• Developing Complementary Products

• With the plugin serving as a strong entry point, there’s an opportunity to create additional products, such as:
• Standalone email design tools.
• Pre-designed email templates for various industries.
• New Figma plugins that address adjacent needs in email production workflows.

Risks

While the Email Love Figma Plugin has seen some success, there are a few key risks to navigate for long-term sustainability. One major challenge is the heavy reliance on services revenue, which currently accounts for 88% of total revenue. While services have been a significant driver, they are inherently less scalable than plugin sales. To mitigate this, we’ve already taken steps by hiring an additional technical resource, allowing us to handle more projects efficiently. Moving forward, we’ll focus on standardizing service offerings and exploring recurring revenue opportunities to balance the revenue mix.

Another risk is platform dependency, as the plugin is closely tied to the Figma ecosystem. Any changes to Figma’s API, user base, or policies could impact the plugin’s functionality and reach. To address this, we plan to diversify by exploring complementary platforms and developing tools that operate independently of Figma.

Additionally, scaling challenges pose a risk as growing demand for custom work and support could stretch the team, potentially leading to delays or reduced quality. The recent addition of a technical resource has already alleviated some pressure, but building streamlined processes for delivering design systems and templates will be critical for maintaining consistency and scalability.

Finally, market competition remains a factor, as the email design space is competitive, and new tools and plugins frequently emerge. Staying ahead requires continuous improvement, listening to user feedback, and ensuring that both the plugin and accompanying services deliver exceptional value to users.

Final Thoughts: Reflecting on the Journey and Looking Ahead

When I first started working on the Email Love Figma Plugin back in September 2023, I never imagined how much it would grow—not just as a product, but as a full-fledged business. What began as a simple idea to make email design easier has evolved into a thriving ecosystem of tools and services that solve real problems for designers, marketers, and developers.

Looking back, the decision to align the plugin with the Email Love website was pivotal. While some advised creating a separate brand, leveraging an existing, trusted platform was the right call. EmailLove.com has been more than just a lead source—it’s been the foundation of the plugin’s success, connecting us with an audience that truly cares about what we’re building. This underscores an important lesson for anyone launching a product: Distribution is everything. You could have the best product in the world, but without a way to get it in front of your ideal customer, it won’t matter. For us, the Email Love website ensured that didn’t happen.

Key Takeaways

The past six months have been filled with valuable lessons:

1. Listen to Your Audience: The plugin’s evolution—from a standalone product to a bridge for high-value services—was driven by feedback from users who expressed a need for onboarding, training, and custom design systems.
2. Leverage What You Have: By building on the existing audience and credibility of EmailLove.com, we avoided the uphill battle of building awareness from scratch. This saved time, reduced costs, and allowed us to focus on delivering value to customers.
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Scale: Hiring an additional technical resource was a critical step that ensured we could meet growing demand without sacrificing quality. Scaling isn’t just about growing revenue—it’s also about sustaining the business and preventing burnout.

What’s Next for Email Love

As we look to the future, our focus is on scaling thoughtfully while continuing to deliver exceptional value to our users. One key priority is leveraging AI to make the plugin easier to use with existing email designs in Figma, helping users streamline their workflows even further. We’re also focused on rolling out new integrations that enhance the plugin’s functionality and expand its usability for a broader range of users. At the same time, we’re exploring ways to standardize and scale our services, particularly onboarding and design systems, to make them more efficient and accessible. This includes considering subscription-based models for ongoing support and updates.

This journey wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible support of the Email Love community. Whether you’ve downloaded the plugin, used one of our services, or simply visited the website for inspiration, thank you. Your trust and feedback are what drive us to keep improving.

As we move forward, I’m excited to continue building tools and services that empower you to create better emails. If you’ve been part of the journey so far, I’d love to hear your thoughts—what’s working, what can be improved, and what you’d like to see next. Here’s to another six months of growth, learning, and innovation!

Much love,
Andy

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @emaillove