001 Building a Unicorn Company with CEO of Canva MELANIE PERKINS

On today’s show, we have Melanie Perkins. She is the CEO and co-founder of Canva, an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone. Since launching in 2013, Canva has grown to over 15 million users across 190 countries, with more than 1 billion designs created, at 36 designs per second. Today, Canva is growing with over 600 team members across 3 offices in Sydney, Manila and Beijing, working together on a mission to empower everyone to create beautiful design.

After hundreds of revisions to the Canva pitch deck, Melanie has now raised more than $140 million from investors including Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen, Yahoo! CFO Ken Goldman, and funds such as Felicis Ventures and Blackbird Ventures. Today, Canva is valued at US$2.5 billion, making Canva the second Australian startup to achieve Unicorn status.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What was the strategy to enter China and have there been any pivots along the way?
• Who could disrupt Canva and its massive growth?
• What is the implication of the acquisition of Pexel and Pixabay and Canva’s expansion through partnering or acquiring other companies?
• What is the future of graphic design and what can people anticipate in the next 2-3 years?

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BOOKS AND RESOURCES

• Website for Canva

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Summary

On today’s show we chat with Melanie Perkins, the CEO and co-founder of Canva, an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone.