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Melanie Perkins

Co-founder & CEO, Canva

Co-founded Canva and leads its mission to empower everyone to design, while steering its pledge to do good.

Canva@MelanieCanva(opens X in a new tab)

Real Alpha has cut 15 moments of Melanie Perkins (Co-founder & CEO, Canva) talking, from 2 interviews on Upstarts and Lenny's Podcast, the latest published Feb 12, 2026.

What Melanie Perkins said

  1. Upstarts ·

    Canva’s Melanie Perkins on scaling startup vision and values for global impact

    7 moments · 22 min

    1. 12:21

      A big vision helps founders find the next step

      “you need to just dream of the future that you want”
      at 12:56
    2. 22:23

      Values matter when a company is willing to pay for them

      “if you wouldn't pay money or lose money to uphold a value, it's not really a value, it's just a word on the wall.”
      at 23:52
    3. 27:41

      Start giving back before your company is big

      “I originally thought we'd do step one and then step two. And I realised that step one can fuel step two and step two can fuel step one.”
      at 30:58
    4. 32:59

      Canva turns its mission into measurable product goals

      “we started off in English launched in Spanish 20 languages 100 languages and now today we're truly becoming local in all 40 of our top markets”
      at 34:05
    5. 19:56

      Canva used short-term goals and celebrations to build momentum

      “because you celebrate what you want to replicate and so the more that you make these like fun quirky memorable celebrations”
      at 21:49
    6. 3:39

      Canva began as a yearbook tool and acquired Fusion for $1

      “and then eventually we decided for Canva to buy Fusion for a dollar because all of the IP was very much embedded in Fusion”
      at 5:59
    7. 7:45

      Melanie flew to San Francisco after an investor ignored her emails

      “So the next year I jumped on a plane after he ignored a few of my emails, I jumped on a plane to San Francisco.”
      at 9:19

  2. Lenny's Podcast ·

    She turned 100+ rejections into a $42B company | Melanie Perkins

    8 moments · 31 min

    1. 8:03

      Build from the future you want, then work backward

      “You kind of want to have a ladder that goes all the way up to the moon, which is your crazy wild vision.”
      at 9:36
    2. 23:43

      Canva spent two years rewriting its editor without shipping Pro pick

      “two years of not shipping any product, two years of a product company not being able to ship product”
      at 24:02
    3. 26:20

      Investor rejections helped sharpen Canva’s pitch

      “their feedback made us stronger and made our pitch deck stronger”
      at 27:51
    4. 40:33

      Canva ties company growth to doing the most good

      “we've donated $50 million to give directly, where they give money directly to people in Malawi who are in extreme poverty.”
      at 41:46
    5. 37:59

      Canva turns more than a million yearly requests into product work

      “we get more than a million requests from our community every year.”
      at 38:16
    6. 50:16

      Canva expanded by following unmet customer needs

      “we spoke to every single customer. We gave them an over-the-phone tutorial.”
      at 50:57
    7. 16:46

      Canva turns mission goals into milestones the team can celebrate

      “So when we have these crazy big goals, we also have coupled them with really fun celebrations.”
      at 20:14
    8. 30:58

      Canva rebuilt its practices instead of copying other companies

      “trying to find things that are authentic to us and are authentic to everything that's come before it”
      at 31:36

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