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Melanie Perkins, Making Beautiful Design Simple For All
Co-Founder & CEO at Canva. A story of determination and grit. đ¨

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LEADER DEEP DIVE đľđť
Melanie Perkins - CEO at Canva
Melanie Perkins (born 13 May 1987) is an Australian billionaire technology entrepreneur. She is Co-Founder & CEO of Canva, a company she founded with Cameron Adams and her (life) partner, Cliff Obrecht.
Perkins is one of the youngest female CEOs of a tech start-up valued over $1 billion dollars. And as of May 2021, one of Australia's richest women, topped only by a boring, rusted on oil magnate.
Canva is the darling of the Australian, and Iâd go as far as saying Southern Hemisphereâs tech ecosystem. Melanie was the powerhouse driving force behind it. But the Canva story is also somewhat of a love story. More on that later.

Melanie Perkins.
There has been some great cultural phenomena to come out Australia over the years. Crocodile Dundee took over cinemas in the 1980s. Heath Ledger wowing us as The Joker in The Dark Night. All while the global debate raged over whether Vegemite is delightful or disastrous. But there is no better good news story than the story of Melanie Perkins and Canva.
Well itâs simple, they created an entire category, dominated it for yearsâwho is Canvaâs closet rivalâand did it all with an energy and spirit that other leaders could learn from (**cough cough ELON cough**).
Add to that, she did it all with her life partner, and COO, Cliff Obrecht by her side. I havenât seen something that wholesome happen in Australia since the famous case of the kangaroo that adopted a wallaby. (*made up case). Letâs see how she did it.
Early years
First, we need to go back to the beginning, to a far away land of Perth, Australia. Perth, for context, is 2044.56 miles (3290.40 km) to the west of Sydney. Or slightly less than the distance between London and Azerbaijan.
Melanie, or Mel, as we'll call herâwas a regular happy child, running around doing all the typical things kids do. But with a certain entrepreneurial streak.
Mel first made money selling spray-on tattoos at a local fair. And later founding her first business at 14, when she sold handmade scarves to people in her community. No one would have predicted she would go on to become one of the most successful tech CEOâs in the world. But something inside her was brewing.

Baby Mel on the left of her two bros sometime in early 90s.
After finishing high school Mel went on to study commerce but couldnât help herself and started tutoring fellow students on the side.
Mel would go on to recall: âI never forgot the freedom and excitement of being able to build a business. That was one of the driving forces that led me to launch what would evolve to be Canva.â
It wasnât long until that energy boiled over into her first real foray into business, her and her partner Cliffâs little startup; Fusion Books.
Fusion Books
The idea for Fusion Books came while Mel was part-time tutoring. She was working with Photoshop and InDesign students, and noticed the design tools she was teaching with were very hard to use.
It would take a whole semester for students just to learn the basics. I realised the future of design would be entirely different, that it would be online, simple, collaborative and accessible to everyone.
With problem in hand, Mel and Cliffâbut mainly Melâsaw an opportunity to create a novel solution. They would create a platform that let students and teachers in Australia design and print yearbooks on their own. So they went out and started building.
Operating out of Perkins' mother's lounge roomâFusion Books ran on a shoestring budget, often employing the old fake it tilâ you make it technique.
When customers called to speak to the manager, Cliff would change his voice and pretend to pass the call on, giving the impression they were much larger than they were.
![]() Mel & Fusion Books in late 2000âs. | ![]() DIY Yearbook via Fusion. |
During this time the workload was a lot for Mel. âI was doing customer service, quality assurance, all of the product management and marketing.â In the end, juggling her studies and business was too much, so she decided to drop out and go all in on the business.
Mel had a vision for the future from day one at Fusion. Something you will notice that runs through her entire entrepreneurial career. She wanted to make design accessible to everyone. And she wanted to do it on the largest scale.
Mel is definitely the grand visionary, she had the vision when she was teaching design at university. We just attacked the grand vision at a micro scale.
Take a quick look at this image from the first Fusion Books pitch deck.

âHey Google, hey Microsoft, Fusion Books hereâcatch me if you cannnnâ.
For a quick moment, I want to break the fourth wall here a little and ask you to look at the above image one more time. Take a good look at it. This image ooooozes confidence. The image reeks of conviction.
Not on does Mel have the cojones to pitch Fusion Books beating out Google and Microsoft, but she does so in somewhat of a mocking tone. Itâs simple awesome. And her technical ambition was equally high.
I remember your first pitch so clearly. Before you told us anything you tested us⌠you made Peter (our dev) do a drag and drop grid zone, which in Internet explorer 6 was incredibly difficult.
I mentioned Fusion as a âlittle startupâ in jest earlier. The ruth is though, that within five years, Fusion Books had superseded all incumbents. They were now Australiaâs largest yearbook provider. But this story is not about Fusion Books.
This story is about the dominant global powerhouse that is Canva. And it all started in a chance meeting with a kitesurfing obsessed venture capitalist.
Canva, the startup
Fusion Books, come late 2000âs, was thriving Australian market. So Much so that Mel & Cliff entered a competition to be crowned the Western Australia Inventor of the Year. The budding powerhouses actually missed by one spot from taking the award, but were invited back the next year to attend. This is the sliding doors moment of the Canva story.

The local term for a suit in Australia is âbag o fruitâ.
It was after the awards the following year that Mel and Cliff were able to have a quick chat with Bill Tai, an investor from Silicon Valley. Tai had flown over for the awards, and their meeting had opened up a whole new world Mel never knew existed. And she was keen to explore it.
Only problem was, shortly after the meeting and flying back from Aus, Bill went unresponsive.
I sent him a bunch of emails trying to set up a Skype chat that elicited no response, but then decided I was going to just go all in and say that I was going to visit San Franciscoâtrying to act somewhat cool by pretending I was just going to be in the hood rather than making a special trip to meet with him.
Here is Melâs exact email to Bill: âHi Bill, hope all is well. Iâm going to be in San Francisco from 21st May to 1st June. Are you still interested in an investment in my area? If so, would be great to meet up and have a chat.â
I am going to pause here for a minute, to highlight Melâs tenacity. This will be another theme through the story of Melanie Perkins. Nothing seemed too hard, nothing was impossible. Ever.
âItâs never too late to exercise the power of determination. Figure out something youâd like to succeed at, and then do it,â she would later go on to say. And itâs fair to say it worked out well.
Not only did Mel get a response from Bill, he added: âYou should also meet up with Lars Rasmussen at Facebook (ex Google Wave lead), Iâll intro you separately.â Lars would go on to become a pivotal early investor in Canva.
The 2-week trip that Mel, had originally planned on ended up being a 3-month deep-dive into the world of Silicon Valley.
On her first meeting with Bill, Mel would later go on to tell the story: âIâd read that if you mimic someoneâs body language theyâll like you more. So I tried to do that too at the same timeâwhen Bill put one arm behind his chair, I realised it was too far. I didnât have enough hands to flip the pages in my deck, eat my lunch and put my hand behind my chair. It was quite distressing!â
Overall though, at the time, she thought she had bombed the meeting. Interestingly, Mel shared something she did ~2011 during challenging times raising money and building Canva. She wrote a letter to herself.
Mel youâre extremely tired. You are in a challenging situation, though you can pull through. Nothing bad is really happening, youâre just feeling depressed because you are used to achieving things quickly. Itâs a hard environment. There is no doubt you will succeed and you will find the team you need, get the investment you need and build the company you have always wanted. You have chosen to put yourself in a challenging situation. If it wasnât challenging you wouldnât feel as satisfied when you get to the end goal.
I find that quite incredible. Iâm not sure Iâve ever heard of someone writing a motivational note to herself in times of high stress. And it was high stress.
For all the success that was to come it actually took more than 100 rejections for Canva to start seeing success in their seed round. And to get there Mel had to learn a new sport, kitesurfing, along the way.
I learnt to kite-surf to go to a kite-surfing and entrepreneurship conference but it's a terribly dangerous sport, but when you are from Perth and have no connections in Silicon Valley the door opens a tiny crack, you do what you can to wedge it open and walk through that door.
It wonât surprise you when I tell you that Bill Tai and Lars Masmussen are avid kite surfers. Check the hints in their LinkedIn bios. And now, so is Mel!
![]() | ![]() |
*Note: the internet tells me this image is of Mel but I am only 60% sure it is.

Once things started to come together for her, Mel forwarded an email to Cliff with some exciting news. Cliff replied with: âYou are the best business woman in the world and I am so proud of you, well done you WILL SUCCEED I HAVE NO DOUBT.â (love story part I told you about again)
The eventual raise panned out well for the tenacious founders. They had their first believers, they had their team and they had their money, with Blackbird leading the round of which ended up a $3M dollar raise.

Operation complete and utter world domination: ACTIVATED.
đĄ Learn more about Canvaâs first backer Blackbird VC through our interview with Co-Founder & Partner, Niki Scevak.


A digression
Startup founders are wild creatures. They are the crazy ones. I often think Hunter S. Thompson was referring to startup founders when he penned is famous line; âA high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.â That is what I think of when I think of Mel.
And before you judge me for throwing shade at the star of this story, know that Mel thinks of herself in the very same, or similar, way.
In a 2018 blog she wrote, Mel shared a Derek Sivers clip and would go on to say:
âI love this video clip below â I sometimes feel a little bit like that crazy guy dancing alone on the mountain and Cliff helped to turn me from being a âlone nutâ into a movement.â
Nikola Tesla claims to have been visited by aliens, van Gogh cut off a left lobe Nikola Tesla said he had an alien encounter, van Gogh cut off a left lobe and Marie Curie had a penchant for carrying test tubes filled with radioactive isotopes around in her pockets.
Fun fact: Bill Tai, our kitesurfing angel from earlierâoriginally wrote Mel and Canva a check for $25k, one of their first investments. But Mel wasnât having it. She sat down with him and debated him for an hour until he committed to investing $100k.
All. The. beSt. PeOpLe. aRRe. aBiT. cRAaaazYy.
Canva, the scaleup
Canva officially launched in 2013 with more than 50,000 people signing up in the first month. This is what you would call immediate product market fit. Mel saw the future, predicted it, spoke it into existence and then built it.
âI think innovation is solving a problem. That can be a small problem that just affects you, that can be a large problem that affects society. Innovation is getting to the crux of a problem and solving it,â Mel would later say.

In the first few years of Canva, Mel was not shy about telling the world her plans. Even if they seemed ultra ambitious.
Itâs world domination.
Today, Canva is available in 190 of the worldâs 195 countries and over 100 languages. And 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Canva, making it one of the most used graphic design tools on the market.
The business has over 60 million monthly users. If Mel said it was world domination sheâs after, Iâd say sheâs well on her way.
So how did an Aussie upstart figure skating hopeful create one of the world's largest private companies? Through visionary thinking, returning to first principles and building a product users LOVE.
"Their first product was a really great product. It was really well executed and beautiful. It's rare for a product to come out into the market and get so much love early onâ original lead investor from Blackbird, Rick Baker would say.
The chart below shows what happens when an incumbent product gets complacent and stares down the barrel of an upstart with incredible user-centric design.
In 2018 Mel was kind enough to put her thoughts onto paper as to what she has learnt and why Canva has been so successful.
Hereâs a few other growth lessons weâve learnt:
1. Solve a real problem. I think the most critical ingredient has been providing a product that solves a real problem that lots of people care about.
2. Offer a free tier that delivers a lot of value. If you can offer a free tier that provides a lot of value it will naturally help your product to spread much more rapidly.
3. Start niche and go wide. By starting ânicheâ (with Fusion) and then going wide (with Canva) we were able to really get a deep understanding of our customersâ problem and solve it well.
4. Our whole company focuses on growth, but not in the short-term optimisation sense. Everyone is either working on long-term growth initiatives or shorter-term optimisations. For example, internationalising our product or launching Canva on a new platform like our iPad, iPhone and Android apps all unlocks new markets, so we consider them long-term growth initiatives.
5. We structure our whole company around goals. The old school hierarchies of years gone by with rigid structures and hierarchies were certainly not made for rapidly growing startups. We structure each team around âcrazy big goalsâ with a lot less emphasis on titles. Every team has a goal and then celebrates when they hit that goal.
6. Ensure great onboarding: so users get immediate value and then share your product. We use user testing a lot to test our product and watch userâs reactions. We spend a lot of time refining every detail.
7. SEO: when people are looking for your product it would be crazy not to let them find it.
8. Learn to love every type of data: we got off to a rocky start with A/B testing, when investors were asking if weâd A/B tested our vision. Itâs important to use the right data for the right occasion â from user testing, to A/B tests, user surveys, Google surveys and many others.
9. Provide real value: the power of this cannot be underestimated in both your product and marketing.
10. Aim to make your product affordable: while of course this doesnât apply everywhere â a pretty apparent macro trend is that most things are getting cheaper, faster and more efficient. Doing this bring more equality and is good for business.
Plug these tactics and strategies in at your startup and you are sure to be a unicorn in no time. Cheers Mel!
Melanie, the leader
On leadership, Mel is incredible as one would imagineâan example I love is the fact that she personally onboards all new hires still to this day.
On the call, she serves to inspire; where Canva came from, where it is today and where they are going into the future. All while discussing their culture and ensuring everyone understands the vision for the organisation.
đĄ We use the exact same process at Athyna. The first call with our new hires is a welcome call with me, and then I also take them through a âbrand story & vision.â Itâs a great way to kick off.

Just a girl from Perth a massive dream.
Mel is also super deliberate about how she builds culture. One this she believes in is that everyone in the Canva team should have lunch together. âHaving lunch together is one of strongest things you can do for culture,â Mel says. âWhen people are feeling strong friendships and social networks, they feel part of something.â
Having lunch together was one of the most important ways in which they bondâMel, Cam and Cliff all agree. âWe used to have lunch around mumâs living table,â Mel reflected. âNow we have a chef who comes in and cooks.â
Whatâs next for the juggernaut that is Canva? Simple.
Further global expansion / domination
Canva is a juggernaut. Recently tipping over the $1B ARR milestone. Think about that. One-thousand-million dollars, paid to you on a recurring basis, by users who adore you. Thatâs Canva.

Cute cat.
But whatâs next, and why should we want to follow along. Well itâs simple actually. In a 2021 campaign, Canva announced their simple two step plan for the future.

An action plan for maximal impact.
âWe have this wildly optimistic belief that there is enough money, goodwill, and good intentions in the world to solve most of the worldâs problems, and we want to spend our lifetime working towards that,â Mel said as part of their launch.
âWe truly believe that good for humanity is good for business. And the more that we can do to grow Step 1, the more that weâll have contributed to Step 2.â
On the heels of this announcement, Canva launched a pilot program with GiveDirectly, helping distribute $10 million to some of the worldâs poorest people in Southern Africa.
Melanie, the philanthropist
On a personal level, in December of 2021, Mel and Cliff signed up to The Giving Pledge. Committing to giving away their fortune during their lifetimes. That could happen in several ways, including setting up their own charities.
âWe have this wildly optimistic belief that there is enough money, goodwill, and good intentions in the world to solve most of the world's problems,â their pledge letter read.
The opportunity that we have is only superseded by the responsibility we feel. We hope we can live up to it over the years to come. So lucky to turn a wild idea into reality with the best team, community and investors. Exciting progress on our 2-step plan:
bit.ly/3zczurUâ Melanie Perkins (@MelanieCanva)
11:18 PM ⢠Sep 14, 2021
Playbook
Working from first principles: Mel asked herself - âwhy are students wasting all their time on the unimportant task of learning the tool before even doing the work.â
Visionary thinking: Mel identified a gap in the market with Fusion Books, and expanded that vision to Canva. She saw the future: user-friendly design - catering to non-designers.
Determination and drive: There arenât many entrepreneurs with THIS level of determination. One word: kite-surfing.
Build a global footprint: Mel aimed for global reach from day 1 of Canva, ensuring the platform catered to different languages and cultures around the world.
Continuous learning, innovation and user-centricity: Canva is the best product in the world, by a mile, for the people that it serves. And it is always asking those people how to serve them deeper. And their users love them for it.
Future
The only player I could see disrupting Canva is the Sam Altman lead AI movement. AI may kill designers, could it kill design-tech also. Canva seem to be harnessing the power of AI better than most. So, I think not.
And Canva is a category builder. A behemoth in the design industry, whose product development cadence seems to be accelerating rather than slowing.
Itâs my firm belief that Canva will continue to grow into one of the worldâs biggest companies while doing lots of good on the way. Before we finish, Iâd like to leave this deep dive with a final thought from Mel herself.
I donât think anyone truly appreciates the power that they have to shape this world, itâs certainly not their fault. When you think weâre on a planet with seven billion other people, itâs very easy to think that surely someone else has more experience, more knowledge, more power to help improve this world. But itâs a pretty frightening realisation that we are on this planet with seven billion other first timersâthat are all just giving this thing called life a crack.

Melanie Perkins - an entrepreneurial phenomenon.
Fun facts
Kin of Pierre: Perkins is derived from the Anglo-Saxon corruption of âkin of Pierreâ (Pierre kin>Pierrekin>Perkins), brought to England by the Normans.
Figure staking kid: Mel was an aspiring figure skater as teen, getting up to train at 4.30am each morning before attending Sacred Heart College in Perth.
A Turkish engagement: Cliff proposed to Mel with an engagement ring worth just $30 in Turkey's Cappadocia area.

Amazing. After this deep dive, I actually feel like part of the family.
Backing by the stars: Gary V, Owen Wilson, and Woody Harrelson all invested into Canvaâs Series A round.
From the very first check: Blackbird VC have participated in every single investment round in Canvaâs history. First check until forever as they say.
Extra reading
21 questions from Aussie startups - January, 2018
A message for those who feel theyâre on the outside - September, 2018.
A note to the Canva Community - September, 2021.
And that's it! You can find Melanie on Twitter, also on LinkedIn here and you can up your low-skill design game here at Canva.

BRAIN FOOD đ§
Watched this episode of the 20VC podcast with Reid Hoffman a couple days ago and I found it pretty great. They mostly dive into some weighty topics like US politics, the TikTok ban, and the future of AI with Elon Muskâs involvement.
Hoffman has had some solid predictions in the past, so it was interesting to hear his take on whether nuclear power can realistically transition us away from fossil fuels and what role quantum computing might play in our future.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK đŁ
If we're being honest with ourselves, we might think we want money, but only because we think it will get us something else.
Why do we think we want money?
Because we think it will give us an incredible lifestyle.
And why do we want an incredible lifestyle?
Because we think⌠x.com/i/web/status/1âŚ
â Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson)
7:31 PM ⢠Dec 10, 2024
Cool productivity tool I use 1-3 times a month: CaveDay
You set a time to work with other people (usually 50+ on a call), a facilitator starts you off for 2 minutes, then you all just work the remaining hour.
I use it when I'm being lazy.!
(Not a sponsored post I just like it)â Neville Medhora (@nevmed)
8:33 PM ⢠Dec 13, 2024
And the greatest bait and switch of 2025 goes toâdrumroll pleaseâprediction markets.
â Bill Kerr (@bill_kerrrrr)
4:39 PM ⢠Dec 20, 2024

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