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Upstarts · 2 min · Feb 12, 2026
Melanie flew to San Francisco after an investor ignored her emails
Melanie Perkins
After meeting Bill Tai at a Perth conference, Melanie Perkins flew to San Francisco despite unanswered emails; that meeting began a multi-year fundraise.
In this episode
Full analysis- 12:21A big vision helps founders find the next step3 min
- 22:23Values matter when a company is willing to pay for them3 min
- 27:41Start giving back before your company is big5 min
- 32:59Canva turns its mission into measurable product goals3 min
- 19:56Canva used short-term goals and celebrations to build momentum2 min
- 3:39Canva began as a yearbook tool and acquired Fusion for $13 min
- 7:45Melanie flew to San Francisco after an investor ignored her emails2 min
“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.”
Melanie Perkinsat 9:19 · Upstarts
Takeaways
- She entered competitions to gain visibility and prize money.
- Tai offered to meet if she came to San Francisco.
- It took multiple years to raise the first round.
About this segment
After meeting Bill Tai at a Perth conference, Melanie Perkins flew to San Francisco despite unanswered emails; that meeting began a multi-year fundraise. Her story shows the lengths she went to secure an initial investor meeting.
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.
Alex Konrad, Host · Founder & editor, Upstarts Media
Ran Forbes' Midas List for ten years and co-created its Cloud 100 list; founded Upstarts in 2025.
From “Canva’s Melanie Perkins on scaling startup vision and values for global impact”, Feb 12, 2026. Watch the full episode
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 7:49
When you got to sort of the next step, thinking about Canva and sort of the origins there, you did start to meet with investors and, you know, other people in the startup ecosystem. You know, the way I remember it, it was an uphill battle at first for you coming from Perth, Australia, you know, these young founders. Did you feel like that was the hardest moment to be taken seriously or as an upstart?
- 8:15
Or what was it like to sort of then transition to the origins of Canva? yeah so we were in a competition i was going in every single competition i possibly could to try to get some visibility for fusion books and then also you know get some win some prize money we were like literally doing anything we could to get the business off the ground and i went in something called wa inventor of the year and we came second and then the following year we're invited to the conference and then at this is for all of western australia i assume yeah wow exactly that's the big time right there exactly and the mining company unsurprisingly won the number one spot and we came second and we had we're trying to sound really inventory because it was inventor of the year and the um our application was the world's uh leading multi-user online
- 9:04
publishing system in 2008 and it's ironically pretty much what we're doing today still um and then I was invited to a conference. Bill Tai was over in Perth and I went and spoke to him after the conference. And then he said, if I was in San Francisco, he'd meet me with me. 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. And then he fortunately did meet with me. And then that kickstarted a multi-year journey of trying to raise our first round. Yeah, it was a long, arduous journey to get to 2012, where we eventually put together the tech team and then a year of development and then 2013 we launched the product when you look back do you um think of those years romantically like it was so fun or like now knowing that it worked you know it was all gonna pay off or was it was it difficult like
- 9:56
how do you think about the the early days especially now that All right. You know, Canva is just at such remarkable scale. I think I'm shocked that it worked. I wouldn't go in and try and play that game again, because I probably wouldn't come out.