We talk to the Filipina behind the disruptive design app, Canva. Born 2012, Canva simplified graphic design by democratising the process -- through the app, both amateurs and veterans will find something to tickle their fancy and activate their creativity. We talk to Melanie Perkins about the ups and downs of starting the brand and other lessons she encountered along the way:
Back in 2007, Melanie Perkins was a typical hard-working student at the University of Western Australia -- eager to learn, striving to excel. Together with Canva co-founder (and partner), Cliff Obrecht, Perkins came up with the idea of simplifying difficult design programs like InDesign and Photoshop. They believed that there was a strong demand for design as the current tech-savvy world kept growing, creating a bigger demand for good visual content every day. Although she often cites it was not an easy road to get to where they are now (Canva is now noted as the newest Australian Unicorn, in that it has already exceeded the US$1 billion mark), they sure make it look easy!
We got to sit down and talk to Melanie Perkins to ask her just how the company grew, what would be her advice to those who have a start-up in mind, and how she unwinds during a long day. Scroll through to read more:
In your own words, how do you think Canva changed the design landscape?
Canva grew rapidly because we are solving a genuine problem that affects a lot of people. At Canva, we are making design accessible for everyone, without years of training or expensive, complex software. For too long, graphic design was an exclusive skill that was hard to learn, so giving people the tools to design themselves sparked conversations worldwide and waves of recommendations. Because we want everyone to be able to create beautiful and professional designs, our focus is on creating an entirely new kind of design software, one that is simple and intuitive, rather than focusing on how to replace the existing options. Today we have over 10 million users across 190 countries, our rapid growth is a testament to the problem we’re solving.
Read More: How These 5 Startups Raised Serious Money Through Crowdfunding
Any tips for people with a startup pitch/idea?
My best piece of advice for any entrepreneur is to solve a real problem. If you find a problem that people care about, then it will make every other aspect of running a business much easier. You want to make sure that the solution you create, solves a problem that people care about.
What is the most challenging part of creating/ maintaining Canva?
Canva has been full of challenges, and there are new ones every week. At the beginning, it was about facing rejections from potential investors and team members. We were presenting them with a crazy ambitious plan, so I received hundreds of “no” or “not yet” answers for every few that said yes. Today, the challenges are more around how to keep a rapidly growing team of 350 people as happy and productive as possible, working out what should get done first of our hundreds of ideas on how to keep making Canva better and better.
