# Values matter when a company is willing to pay for them

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/values-matter-when-a-company-is-willing-to-pay-for-them/ 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: 22:23 to 24:56 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/values-matter-when-a-company-is-willing-to-pay-for-them/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1343

## Quote

> “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.”
> — [Melanie Perkins](https://realalpha.app/builders/melanie-perkins/) at [23:52](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1432) · Upstarts

## Takeaways

1. Write down values so everyone knows what the company expects.
2. A real value is worth a financial trade-off.
3. Make values fit your customers, product and team.

## About this segment

Melanie Perkins explains how clear values set expectations as a team grows, and why they must shape real decisions. Otherwise, they are just words on a wall.

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.

[22:26](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1346) as you brought on more people, scale the company. Especially globally with other offices, how did you get people to really buy in and sort of embrace that vibe and not just feel like they're checking off a box or, you know, they need to just sort of go along with this sort of branding that the company does to appease the boss, you know, but not really fully buy in. there's a few parts of that I think one of the things that was really important in the very early days we could talk to everyone we'd like be there chatting to them literally over lunch every day and then you get a little bit bigger and you can't necessarily chat with everyone over lunch every day and so it was really important to consolidate our values and so even though we'd been living them every day we hadn't really articulated what they were and so getting them down on pen and

[23:13](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1393) paper so they're literally on people's laptops they're on people's t-shirts is actually it could sound trite, but actually really valuable because if everyone knows the values that you care about as a company, then there's actually expectations to uphold that. And, you know, even today in my inbox, someone's like, Hey, we know the value of Canva is this, this particular thing seemed to be against that. Is that really, you know, correct? And then we actually are like, no, actually that wasn't correct. But if you don't articulate the values that you value as a company, no one will know of what you care about. And so it's surprisingly important to articulate the values of things that you care about. And I was given really great advice when we were going through that process is if you wouldn't pay money or lose money to uphold a value, it's not really

[23:59](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1439) a value, it's just a word on the wall. And so it's really important to make sure the values are things that you really care about. And so when we were going through that process, I wanted the values to resonate internally. I wanted them to resonate with how we wanted to relate to our customers what we wanted our product to bring to life in the world as well and so trying to make sure that they kind of stacked all the way through to avoid them just being words on the wall that aren't meaningful and so I think that's one part is the articulation and then like continuous embodiment of values and then I'd say here's that learned experience so you know the more you know in the early days each hire is so critical because that sets the foundation for the for the values and the culture and then every time someone joins you're building upon that and so it's really

[24:45](https://realalpha.app/v/QjQ7si-H8Ow/?t=1485) really important to get that right because if you get that wrong in the early days it's you're kind of going to be scaling something that you might not necessarily believe in or want did you have