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

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 - PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://billiondollarmoves.com Watch on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/sarahchenglobal Join the community: https://sarah-chen.ck.page/billiondollarmoves FOLLOW SARAH: LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sarahchenglobal Instagram: https://instagram.com/sarahchenglobal Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahchenglobal