CEO Series: Melanie Perkins, Co-founder & CEO of Canva

Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital

As of January 2024, Canva’s design platform attracted around 170 million monthly global users from 190 countries. BUT it was not too long ago that now 36-year-old Canva founder Melanie Perkins was rejected by 100 VCs.

Just like some of the best companies today, Canva took awhile to get to an inflection point: between the first idea in 2006, to launching 2013, that was a span of 7 good years.

Today, Canva is a $26 billion design startup is ready to take on Microsoft and Google and compared to other behemoths; and people have created over 3 billion designs since.

This week, we are taking a deep dive into Melanie Perkin’s story of building the online designing empire Canva.

TIMESTAMPS / KEY TAKEAWAYS

0:00 - Intro

02:13 - Canva: from being rejected by over 100 VCs to a $26 billion design startup

05:00 - Lesson #1: Solve the problem you know intimately first: don’t be afraid to niche down, in the beginning

07:34 - Lesson #2: Good things take time—stay grounded, lean and persistent

11:19 - Lesson #3: Focus on what you can change, not what you can’t

15:07 - LESSON #4: Get comfortable going against the grain

17:44 - Lesson #5: You can do it all, but not all at once

21:17 - 3 Actionable Questions for You

About Melanie Perkins

Melanie Perkins is an Australian billionaire technology entrepreneur, who is the CEO and co-founder of Canva.

Perkins is one of the youngest female CEOs of a tech start-up valued over A$1 billion. As of May 2021, Perkins was one of Australia's richest women.

Credit/Source:

Canva makes staff instant millionaires after $3.6b share sale

https://thenightly.com.au/business/canva-makes-staff-instant-millionaires-after-36b-share-sale-c-14205704

Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People: Melanie Perkins: CEO of Canva

https://guykawasaki.com/melanie-perkins-canva-ceo/

Carmine Gallo and Canva CEO, Melanie Perkins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xysjW_wZgxM

Sunrise Australia Day 1 - Melanie Perkins Keynote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXtGE811GCw

Melanie Perkins of Canva on Dealing with Rejection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31uR1WhrEQ

Melanie Perkins - Canva - Founder stories from The Sunrise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1uyh2IRWWM

How Canva CEO Melanie Perkins turned her small Australian college startup into global unicorn | E939

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TBSg79Gf0M

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