CMO Canva, Zach Kitschke: From Employee Number 5 To $40 Billion Valuation
Grit25 Jul 2022

CMO Canva, Zach Kitschke: From Employee Number 5 To $40 Billion Valuation

Canva CMO Zach Kitschke was the company’s fifth employee, joining right before the product launched to the public — or, that was the plan anyway. Emerging technologies like HTML5 and negative feedback from early testers delayed the debut of the design startup, but in the 10 years since its launch Canva has become one of the most successful companies to ever come out of Australia. “One of our values is to set crazy big goals and make them happen,” Zach says.

In this episode, Zach and Joubin discuss Zach’s first job in small-town bureaucracy, how he got introduced to Canva before the company was hiring anyone, helping teammates achieve their potential, “culture carriers,” the pressure of comparing your companies to others, Canva’s “underwhelming” launch night and finding product-market fit, the four pillars of success in Canva’s culture, localization as a growth strategy, predictable anxiety, the hypergrowth gap, and “the two-step plan.”

In this episode, we cover:

  • What Canva does, and where the idea came from (08:08)
  • Zach’s first impressions of Canva co-founders Mel Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (12:49)
  • Making bets on unproven people in an organization (16:41)
  • Setting “crazy big goals” and readying Canva v1 for launch (21:17)
  • The pre-launch inferiority complex (27:30)
  • An important cold email from the Huffington Post (33:59)
  • Wearing many hats in a startup and building company culture (36:17)
  • Learning on the job and managing a hypergrowth company (45:23)
  • How does Canva’s growth compare to what Zach expected? (51:09)
  • Canva’s unique approach to work-life balance, and Mel and Cliff’s philanthropic “two-step plan” (59:23)

Links:

Episoder(282)

The Silicon Valley Insider In The Pentagon | DoW Emil Michael

The Silicon Valley Insider In The Pentagon | DoW Emil Michael

Emil Michael went from scaling Uber across 600 cities to rewiring the world's largest military.In the midst of the Pentagon-Silicon Valley debate, the now U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research ...

23 Mar 40min

How Sierra Is Pulling Ahead in the AI Race | Co-founder Bret Taylor

How Sierra Is Pulling Ahead in the AI Race | Co-founder Bret Taylor

Few founders have seen Silicon Valley from every seat at the table.After co-creating Google Maps at Google, serving as CTO at Facebook, and later as co-CEO of Salesforce, Bret Taylor is now building A...

9 Mar 1h 12min

The AI Era of Cybercrime: How Malwarebytes Is Evolving Its Security Stack | Marcin Kleczynski

The AI Era of Cybercrime: How Malwarebytes Is Evolving Its Security Stack | Marcin Kleczynski

What began as a 14 year old fixing infected computers became Malwarebytes, an 800 person cybersecurity company trusted by millions of customers.On Grit, Marcin Kleczynski joins Joubin Mirzadegan to ex...

23 Feb 1h 3min

The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu

The Truth Behind Automation Claims in Customer Support | Cresta CEO Ping Wu

Can you scale customer support without burning out agents or frustrating customers?Ping Wu shares how Cresta combines AI and human intelligence into a single system that scales sustainably for compani...

9 Feb 43min

The Safest Dollar on the Internet | Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire

The Safest Dollar on the Internet | Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire

USDC closed the gap between software and law in modern finance.On Grit, Jeremy Allaire discusses how fully reserved, dollar backed digital currency became part of the financial system after more than ...

26 Jan 1h 5min

Why We’re Only Using 1% of AI | Glean CEO Arvind Jain

Why We’re Only Using 1% of AI | Glean CEO Arvind Jain

Glean has grown into a $7.2B company by giving employees AI assistants and agents that extend their capabilities.CEO Arvind Jain is back on Grit alongside Joubin Mirzadegan. Here’s what stood out:“My ...

12 Jan 58min

The Grittiest Conversations of 2025: AI, Business & Beyond

The Grittiest Conversations of 2025: AI, Business & Beyond

In this recap episode, we highlight the best moments from our 2025 interviews and reflect on the ideas that defined the year.Featuring:David Rubenstein (co-founder of Carlyle) Yamini Rangan (CEO of Hu...

29 Des 202541min

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

What happens when AI becomes your most influential referrer?As consumers turn to ChatGPT for answers, James Cadwallader and his team at Profound help brands like Eight Sleep and MongoDB gain visibilit...

22 Des 202550min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
finansredaksjonen
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
utbytte
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
rss-politisk-preik
liberal-halvtime
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-sunn-okonomi
lederpodden
rss-pa-konto