MELANIe Perkin’s inspiring startup story
I stumbled upon this tool Canva by chance, when I was looking for an easy and fast way to churn out a few marketing deliverables for the startups I was working with. The next thing I knew I was recommending this to everyone at work and talking about great the tool was. My boss at that time then sent me an article about Melanie Perkins, CEO and Co-founder of Canva. I found her humble beginnings, ambition, creativity and the desire to do good very inspirational and also quite rare amidst the many startup stories we regularly hear about.
It’s also a story of persistence and resilience
how patience pays off when one truly believes, lives, and breathes a vision and purpose!
I want to share key takeaways that stood out to me, and am hoping that you will find inspiration from it, just like I did.
THE AMBITION: To begin with, she comes across as a very creative person with many ideas, a passion for democratizing design, and wanting to make it easy for everyone to design. She uses writing as a medium to organize her ideas, passion and thoughts.
INCUBATING AND LEARNING: Canva was not her first start up. She first launched Fusion Yearbooks back in 2007, a software for creating high school year books.
She used this to test her vision and dream of simplifying design for non experts. This let her incubate her original idea for Canva through a strategic and iterative approach, where her MVP (Minimum Viable Product) focused on a niche market and specific use case of high school year books, before expanding into a broader design platform of what Canva is today.
She gained experienced in this domain and was able to understand the end user’s migraine pain points and solutions that would make these pain points go away.
She was able to generate the revenue she would need to eventually fund the development of Canva.
THE TEAM: The kind of team she had for incubating her idea was not necessarily the kind of team she needed to build out Canva’s first launch.
When she first started out, it was her and her co-founder (now husband) and her mother’s living room was their office.
However, when she was able to gain seed funding to build out Canva, she hired a CTO after many interviews and running candidates by her advisor/mentor first.
LEVERAGING HER STRENGTHS: She’s an introvert and doesn’t necessarily enjoy going up to a stage and making big speeches or loudly discuss ideas in a brainstorming meeting. However, she’s the kind to sit down quietly and effectively contribute through jotting down these thoughts.
HER RESILIENCE: She approached many VCs with her pitch deck, only to hear a no in many formats, from ~ 100 VCs.
Her approach was always the one to seek advice/guidance vs asking for funding.
Finally, one investor provided her with the support, guidance and network needed to gain the seed funding.
He suggested that she show up at a kite surfing event, to meet with an investor gathering there. She took kite-surfing classes solely to make this happen!
LEANING INTO RESPONSIBILTY: She always wanted to build the best company possible, however she never imagined that she would be the CEO of a 3000+ company. However, because she built Canva brick by brick, there was something organic about her growth that made the idea of being a CEO less intimidating for her.
CORE VALUES: She had big ambitions, a big vision and dream, with a focus of achieving something HUGE (democratizing design for everyone, making it easy for even those who don’t think they are good with design) but at the same time with a purpose of doing good. This speaks to her core values and seems to reflect throughout within the employees and culture at Canva. It’s not about making wealth as much but using the wealth to do as much as good possible in the world!
HER LEADERSHIP AND COMPANY CULTURE: When her startup grew from bootstrapping to what it is now, something she’s been able to uphold is the culture and the values. Canva and it’s employees are aligned to vision decks, where each team is aligned to the BIG VISION. They then back track and break that down into categories of common foundational pillars. They then have actional steps or goals that could fit into each of these pillars, they prioritize these goals and focus on executing them. I love this process that seems consistent across all teams within Canva. This enables them to all row in the same direction, as visualized by Melanie Perkins.
Are you an aspiring entrepreneur with a groundbreaking idea? Share your journey in the comments below. How did you structure your thoughts and take the first steps toward action? Let's build a community of innovators supporting each other. If you're ready to turn your idea into reality, contact Sapodilla Investment & Consulting for personalized startup coaching and investment strategies.
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