# Canva used short-term goals and celebrations to build momentum

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/canva-used-short-term-goals-and-celebrations-to-build/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Melanie Perkins](https://realalpha.app/builders/melanie-perkins/) · Melanie Perkins is co-founder and CEO of Canva. · Co-founded Canva and leads its mission to empower everyone to design, while steering its pledge to do good.
- Host: [Alex Konrad](https://realalpha.app/people/alex-konrad/) · Founder & editor, Upstarts Media · Ran Forbes' Midas List for ten years and co-created its Cloud 100 list; founded Upstarts in 2025.
- Show: Upstarts
- Episode: [Canva’s Melanie Perkins on scaling startup vision and values for global impact](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/), Feb 12, 2026
- Moment: 19:56 to 22:16 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/canva-used-short-term-goals-and-celebrations-to-build/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1196

## Quote

> “because you **celebrate what you want to replicate** and so the more that you make these like fun quirky memorable celebrations”
> — [Melanie Perkins](https://realalpha.app/builders/melanie-perkins/) at [21:49](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1309) · Upstarts

## Takeaways

1. Set a concrete goal for the next few months.
2. Keep near-term goals tied to a larger vision.
3. Celebrate completed goals to build confidence for the next one.

## About this segment

Melanie Perkins describes putting concrete near-term goals where teams can see them, then celebrating when they are met. She says visible wins help the next target feel achievable.

From “Canva’s Melanie Perkins on scaling startup vision and values for global impact”, Feb 12, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[20:00](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1200) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you literally put goals on the walls of the early Canva office. Was that just to inspire yourself, to inspire the team? To me, as maybe a cynical New Yorker, I would say that's a little on the nose, but I could see it maybe working for Canva. So what was going through your mind with that? Alex, it's so fun you being in your new seat as the founder of Upstart, because I feel like I can give you all of these weird little wonderful things, and you're welcome to take any of them. So I'll share.

[20:28](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1228) Yeah. I'm going to learn. I'm literally just getting a playbook for, for building out my own company for me right now. It's very, very selfish. So I do find it really, really valuable to write a goal on the wall, but a goal isn't like an aspirational goal that like something that you'd love to be doing one day. It's like, what are you going to be doing? Say in the next six months that you would really, really love to achieve. And it helps to separate this signal from the noise. And so that might be a number of guests that you'd like to have on. That might be It's something that you really tangibly can be working towards to achieve.

[21:00](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1260) And I find that it's really helpful. So if you were to take the full rubric, so you do the wild success, you break that down into a vision, and then you break that down into, we used to call them season openers until we became a global team. And then that was a little bit of a challenge to have the just openers. I went to a season opener. They had very elaborate themes. I remember there was a Game of Thrones one, one year.

[21:18](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1278) Yeah, very impressive. Exactly. And so like for maybe for you, so if you're like, okay, what's the thing that you'd love to achieve in the next three months that will work towards that ultimate vision and then you stick that on the wall we have to do it in in canva and in spreadsheets nowadays because there's quite a few goals around the 5 000 people at the company but when you're smaller and if you're co-located just sticking it on the wall is a bit of fun but then when you actually achieve that goal then we used to have and we still do have fun celebrations and those celebrations are like hey we achieved that thing that we set because you celebrate what you want to replicate and so the more that you make these like fun quirky memorable celebrations then the next time you stick the poster on the wall of the goal that you'd like to achieve the more confidence everyone will feel

[22:04](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1324) that that actually might be possible and so i'm kind of actually want to interview you alex and ask you what your goals are but i'm not sure if i'm allowed to do that right here well i mean one