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FOUNDER | Melanie Perkins - Canva — Transcript

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0:00[intriguing music]
0:05[Melanie] "If I don't feel small and inadequate before it,
0:08it's not big enough.
0:10If it doesn't simultaneously move me, scare me,
0:14excite me, and humble me,
0:17the goal probably isn't big enough.
0:19If I don't feel small standing before its feet,
0:23feeling like a drop in the ocean,
0:25it's not big enough.
0:27If I could achieve it on my own, it's definitely not big enough.
0:32If some people don't think it's impossible, it's not big enough.
0:37However, if it scares, excites and humbles me,
0:41if it makes me go on an emotional roller coaster,
0:43if it will take a lifetime to achieve,
0:45and the talents of many, well, there is a goal worth tackling."
0:51[dramatic music]
0:55[narrator] Founding a company is one of the most daunting
0:57and lonely paths a person can choose.
1:03If you get it wrong, you can lose everything you have.
1:08But if you get it right, you could change the world.
1:14It's a relentless roller coaster of emotion
1:17that changes every day.
1:20And to take that leap
1:22requires a very rare mix of naivety and courage.
1:32[intriguing music]
1:39[Melanie] The essence of design is being able to take an idea
1:41and turn it into something that other people can see and experience,
1:45sort of a pretty important form of communication.
1:48And if you think about things today,
1:50everything we want to see has got to look beautiful.
1:53Graphic design now is a fundamental part of our lives.
1:57This huge wave looks like tsunami of graphic design,
2:00that came through our lives over the last decade or so.
2:03[Melanie] I think we've always had really wild dreams.
2:05We wanted to transform the entire world of design.
2:09[Cliff] She had this grand idea for democratizing design
2:11and how you can take it from this complicated desktop software
2:14and make it collaborative in the cloud
2:16as simple to use as, say, Facebook.
2:18[newscaster 1] Melody Perkins has rapidly climbed the ranks
2:20with her graphic design company, Canva.
2:23Just 32 years old
2:25and worth billions,
2:26Melanie Perkins is proof that dreams can come true.
2:30And for her, that dream was Canva.
2:33[Melanie] Canva makes it really easy
2:35for you to take your idea and turn that into a design,
2:37even if you've had absolutely no design experience.
2:40Because we think that everyone has ideas, because they do. [chuckles]
2:43And we want them to be able to take those ideas and to express them visually.
2:46[Cameron] Design is an incredibly important tool,
2:48and for a long time it was something
2:50that only professionals could access.
2:52Giving people a tool which lets them access that design,
2:55actually unlocks a huge amount of opportunities for them.
2:59[Melanie] Because we were born on the Internet,
3:02we were able to completely reimagine what it could be like.
3:06[Scott] Melanie is possibly the most visionary person I've met.
3:10She has a belief that she can see the future,
3:13and she can totally will it into existence
3:15by sheer force of individual determination.
3:19Really inspiring, like, she has a massive vision.
3:21She will stop at nothing to fulfill that vision.
3:24But while Melanie has the title
3:26of Australia's youngest billionaire,
3:28Melanie and Cliff said they want to donate
3:31their billions to the greater good.
3:33I think, you are the youngest female founder,
3:36-to ever become a unicorn. -[newscaster 2] This new millennial billionaire
3:40-with the social conscience? Fantastic. -[newscaster 3] Oh, yeah.
3:42Worth billions of dollars.
3:44People can get very distracted by, you know,
3:46these sort of big numbers that are shown in the press,
3:49but what's really important is to focus on the things that matter,
3:52solving problems that affect real people.
3:55Step one, we'll build one of the world's most valuable companies.
3:58Step two, do great things with the world.
4:01Is this a young person's game?
4:03I think that it's an any person's game. Anyone that--
4:05-Have I missed the boat? -Absolutely not.
4:07Is there a problem that you feel passionate about
4:09that you want to see solved?
4:10-Is that how it works? -I think so.
4:12[solemn music]
4:20[Melanie] Growing up, I've always loved creating things and loved being crafty.
4:24So, you know, it's been a bit of passion of mine since I was a little kid.
4:28My brothers are both really talented at drawing,
4:31and they were certainly well when we were growing up,
4:33so they'd be able to, you know, draw amazing things.
4:35And they, they're both really talented at music,
4:37and I never had absolutely none of these talents whatsoever.
4:41But the thing that I could do was work really hard
4:44or put lots of effort into things.
4:48In year six, I was told by the teacher
4:51that I had done too much homework
4:52and I think she spoke to my mom about it.
4:55I'd get home from school and just spend
4:57the entire evening doing as much as I could.
5:01So, that was the talent that I leaned into, just working hard. [laughs]
5:07I was studying my degree
5:09which I haven't quite graduated from... [chuckles]
5:11...but it was communication psychology in commerce.
5:14And then started teaching things like Dreamweaver and Photoshop,
5:17and InDesign and iMovie and all these different programs.
5:22And I just watched my entire class struggling, learning to use them.
5:26It would take so many clicks for people to be able to do anything, literally,
5:29like, adding a triangle was so many clicks.
5:32Turning into a PDF to print was a ridiculous--
5:34I think it was 22 clicks.
5:36But I think what was really interesting is that it made
5:38the students feel stupid that they had to navigate
5:40all of these things that they couldn't remember, all these weird buttons.
5:43And I had this belief that it shouldn't be the software that makes people feel stupid.
5:48It's actually the software that's got the problem. [chuckles]
5:50[soft tense music]
5:52[Rick] One of the key insights that,
5:54that Mel had and--
5:55back when she was just thinking about Canva
5:58was the graphic design would become so important.
6:01[Melanie] It seemed ridiculous that it would still be archaic
6:04and desktop based and offline
6:06and only reserved for a few people.
6:08It seems like, in the future, everything was going to be
6:11online and collaborative,
6:12and you'd have all the ingredients
6:14that you possibly need at your fingertips.
6:16I kind of got to the point that that was incredibly clear in my own mind.
6:20But then, translating that to have other people understood that
6:23was a multi-year process in itself.
6:25[intriguing music]
6:33Cliff is my adventure buddy... [laughs]
6:37...my business partner.
6:39He's been my lifelong partner for, for many a year now.
6:42So officially, my title at Canva is COO.
6:45Um, I'm not actually too sure what a COO is supposed to do.
6:48It was when we were first raising money for Canva,
6:52we, uh, got asked who the CEO is and we kind of looked at each other
6:56because we kind of both colead our previous company and we said like,
6:59"Oh, we kind of both are." And the investor was like,
7:02"Uh, that's not gonna work. You need to pick one."
7:04And I was kind of like...
7:06It was a pretty easy decision because she is
7:08the more capable one. [laughs]
7:10And, uh, before we started a business,
7:13I didn't even really like using computers at all.
7:15So, he is a kind of person
7:18that won't let anything get in the way
7:21of achieving incredible goals.
7:23He, um, has an incredible knack for business.
7:26He has an incredible knack for negotiations and people.
7:29I think, like, the COO is like the "do everything job."
7:32Um, it's kind of like, "What's the biggest problem? What's the biggest opportunity?"
7:35Run to the biggest fire, help put that out
7:37or, or just do whatever, really, to help the business grow.
7:40They're very, very different people.
7:42And if you had to, you know, do a-- found a dating,
7:46saying, "So let's put two people together
7:48and had to predict which ones will work out," I'd--
7:50they'll be at the bottom of the list of people
7:51you would think would be successful together.
7:53But yet, when you see the way it works
7:55and the respect they have for each other
7:57and what they've accomplished together,
7:59it, it totally works.
8:00[emotional music]
8:06-Hello. -Hi.
8:09This is our-- the Monday Minute, which is Mel's idea.
8:13You know, let's just practice and then we can do everything--
8:15Uh, let's not, let's just do it.
8:18This is how is the Monday Minute.
8:20-Okay. -Introducing the series--
8:21Hello. This is the Monday Minute.
8:23This is our first Monday Minute ever.
8:26We are in Sydney, currently in our hotel room.
8:29The idea of the Monday Minute is just to, uh, keep a diary
8:32of what we've been up to
8:34because we're not very good at keeping a written diary.
8:38-Thank you. -Thank you.
8:40-Welcome to the Monday Minute. -He might get more excited.
8:48[Cliff] At the time, we had no money and we had really no experience.
8:52And so we took that big idea
8:54and kind of honed it into the education market...
8:57...that led to us creating our first company, Fusion Books.
9:01[Melanie] With Fusion, we would enable people
9:03to use the templates to create their designs.
9:05But then we also had a design service
9:07where we could create designs for schools.
9:10We were thinking one day like, "What's the difference
9:12between the product that we serve with our templates
9:15and the product that our graphic designers were doing?"
9:17We realized that one of the key ingredients was literally
9:20the ingredients that people would put on the page.
9:21So the cut-out objects and the stock photography,
9:24and the stock illustrations.
9:26They are like, "Oh, imagine if we could have the entirety
9:29of a stock photography library and illustration library
9:31that's usually only reserved for professional graphic designers,
9:34but enable that to be available for everyone."
9:38An investor came over from Silicon Valley,
9:40Bill Tai, and I met him at a conference in Perth.
9:43We had entered WA Inventor of the Year
9:45and became runner-up.
9:47[Cliff] Managed to kind of wrangle a chat
9:49with him for a couple of minutes,
9:52then gave him the 30-second pitch on the bigger picture
9:54of what Fusion Books could be,
9:57which was essentially the idea for Canva.
9:59And he kind of flippantly said,
10:01"Oh, yeah, if you come to the Silicon Valley,
10:03I'll meet with you and introduce you to a few people,"
10:05and we just latched on to that.
10:07To me, Melanie was sort of, you know, representative
10:10of, of kind of Adobe on the cloud,
10:14but their architecture was kind of old.
10:17Everything that she is telling me about what she sees
10:20is, is spot on.
10:22I said to her, I said, "Melanie, so can you code this up?"
10:25And she said, "No, I'm not technical." And I said, "Oh."
10:29I said, "Well, if you can find somebody to code it up,
10:31I might consider backing you."
10:34I literally knew nothing about venture capital and angel investors
10:37and the whole world, um, of start-ups.
10:40And so he was kind of sort of my one tiny little window into it.
10:43If the door opens a little bit, you gotta wedge your foot in.
10:47[Bill] The number of times we interacted
10:48from that first time we met in Perth wasn't small.
10:53And I could just tell she was not going to give up, no matter what.
10:57[soft gentle music]
11:00[Rick] I was part of this group called the MaiTai Kiteboarding group.
11:04Bill Tai set it up along with Susi Mai.
11:08And there's a great kiteboarding spot just south of Perth.
11:10-[soft guitar music] -[birds chirping]
11:14[Bill] Mel and Cliff hadn't yet gotten critical mass
11:16with their funding.
11:18So they were trying to maintain good impression
11:21with, you know, all the, the crew.
11:25We always were trying to line up
11:26very fun outings for the people
11:28that had travelled all that way to come to Australia,
11:31and sure enough,
11:32one of the rentals didn't work out,
11:34so, Cliff... [chuckles]
11:35...Cliff took over and tried to make it happen.
11:38And he did to some ex-- you know, to some extent,
11:41Yeah, here we were thinking we'd, we'd, we'd all be out
11:44on, on some big private yacht and, and Cliff arrives
11:47with this little kind of, uh, wakeboarding ski boat
11:49and in, in classic kind of Cliff and Mel style.
11:52Cliff's in a full fluster because he's just backed
11:55the boat into a, into a pylon
11:57and broken the, the shaft of his, uh, propellers.
12:00So, there's much chaos going on about, about this boat.
12:02But Cliff's just pushing ahead.
12:04He is just like, "Come on guys. We're in the boat, off we go."
12:07And I think that's, that's actually typical Cliff, right?
12:09He's just, just, like, go with the punches, like,
12:12"We'll get this done. We'll do it anyway."
12:14He's always a problem solver,
12:16and he does it with a smile, you know?
12:18He kind of goes with the flow and he gets things done.
12:20So, it was, it was just, yeah, one of the magic moments.
12:23You know, that's, that's been sort of part of the Canva story,
12:28it's been just be able to get the stuff done.
12:30Mel and I decide that we're, we're just going
12:32to sit and watch everyone, uh, go wakeboarding.
12:35And so, we sit, we sit quietly, uh, on this picnic bench
12:38on the side of the river and, literally,
12:40that's where Mel told me fir-- you know,
12:43first in, in any detail of her dream for Canva.
12:46But the amazing thing is that the vision's very much the same today
12:50as it was when I was sitting on the, the banks of the Swan River
12:54and, and Mel was first telling me
12:56about her dream for this business.
12:58[people cheering]
13:01[Bill] All the things that, that I'd throw in front of her, including
13:05learning how to kiteboard...
13:07...she just powered through that.
13:09You know, she's not a water person really at all.
13:13But, I think because it was a gateway to a community,
13:16that could matter for her company,
13:19she was willing to do it.
13:21Pretty terrifying,
13:23but you do what you do.
13:24[laughing] You do what you need to do.
13:27[whimsical music]
13:32In the preparation for the meeting with Bill Tai,
13:35I was like, "Okay, well, I apparently need to demonstrate
13:38how this idea we've got applied for school yearbooks
13:42is going to become a multibillion-dollar company."
13:46And so, I put every single idea I could possibly imagine...
13:49[chuckles] into my pitch deck
13:51of what I believe the future of publishing would be.
13:54I went to Silicon Valley and I, like, I met with him.
13:56It was the most nerve-racking meeting of my entire life.
13:59And then I sat there, trying to flick through my paper pitch deck
14:02of the future of publishing that I printed on my printing press at home.
14:06[Bill] And I'm looking at that like,
14:07"Wow, so this young 20-something gal from Perth,
14:12not technical, wants to take on Adobe... [laughs]
14:15...and she's got a flip-card presentation."
14:20[Melanie] He's like, "Where's your iPad?" And I was like, "I...
14:21[stutters] The pit-- the pitch deck is here."
14:25[Rick] I have to say her pitch was not particularly well formed.
14:29It didn't even look beautifully graphically designed, which was crazy.
14:32And I think one of my first comments to her was "Hey, step one,
14:35make sure your deck is beautifully graphically designed."
14:40[Cliff] We created a spreadsheet of all the possible investors we had met
14:43and had introductions to.
14:45There must have been 20, 30 of them on that list.
14:48And then, one after one, we got rejected.
14:51We're down to, like, three potentials
14:54that had shown some interest.
14:56Crossed off one and then we crossed off the second one.
14:59And then we're down to our very final one
15:00that we thought we had a good chance with.
15:02And then, we got that final rejection as well.
15:05We had no options.
15:06We had no new leads
15:08and we went this long walk, and we were like...
15:11..."What are we going to do? We're literally out of options here."
15:16[Melanie] All of the possible indicators
15:18are saying, "Maybe you shouldn't continue to persist here."
15:22I felt like a failure, like, a complete, utter failure.
15:25[whimsical music continues]
15:28If you're rejected, there's two different ways to approach it.
15:31One is probably the more normal approach.
15:33Maybe you stop at some point in time.
15:35The other approach is the one
15:36that I've taken throughout my life,
15:38which is that you continue until it works. [laughs]
15:46Mel has a youthful naivety that is amazing.
15:50But the great thing about people that have that youthful naivety
15:53is they will just keep walking through walls until they find a door
15:57and they'll open a door that you never knew existed.
16:00And I think Mel has that passion
16:02to do things that most people just believe are impossible.
16:06And I think that's her special skill, I think,
16:09is that passion and vision for, for changing the world.
16:12Mel had this vision for Canva, which was huge, obviously,
16:16uh, but she didn't have the team or the technology understanding
16:20to be able to get it off the ground.
16:21So, they are on this hunt for, you know,
16:23people, team, cofounders
16:26that could help them actually fulfill this vision of Canva.
16:31One of my ex-bosses from Google, Lars Rasmussen,
16:34who is one of the founders of Google Maps.
16:37He asked me to go visit this couple,
16:40and he wanted me to give them some tec-- some technology advice.
16:44[Melanie] Cam has been an absolutely incredible cofounder
16:47to be working with for nearly ten years now.
16:50He is just such a good human at his heart.
16:53And he's an amazing communicator.
16:56He is an amazing designer.
16:57He's amazing at animations that have been able to bring
16:59these incredible experiences and flourishes
17:02to our community.
17:04[Cameron] To me, it really lit me up because I knew what putting
17:08an easy-to-use really intriguing tool
17:11in the hands of people who hadn't been able to access it before
17:14did to them and unlocked in them,
17:16and the creativity it afforded them
17:19and the opportunities it gave to them.
17:21So to me, it was a really exciting way
17:23to bring design to the masses.
17:28[soft guitar music]
17:32[Melanie] So, after years of talking to Bill,
17:35and him saying he'd invest
17:36if we found the right tech team...
17:39After years of, you know, it's been six months
17:41in San Francisco by this point in time,
17:43I'd done kite surfing.
17:47You know, eventually, we got the tech team together.
17:50And then Bill said
17:51he was going to invest...
17:53...$25,000.
17:55[laughs] And I was like...
17:58..."All of this for $25,000?"
18:04[Cliff] $250,000 would be, "He's a big believer."
18:07$100,000 would be, "He kind of believes."
18:11Twenty five K is a participation award like,
18:14"I like you, you're a nice person
18:17and this could maybe do something."
18:20It was a signal to all other investors
18:21and all the other investors were looking to Bill,
18:24on what he would do.
18:26You know, I, I didn't want to set too high an expectation.
18:29I knew I, I had to be good for my word to do something.
18:33And I knew I had more capacity.
18:35But I just wanted to kind of crystallize it
18:38and then see if they could get enough critical mass.
18:42[Cliff] That was a really interesting conversation.
18:45Mel talked him around for about an hour,
18:48just talking through the ins and outs of the business,
18:50why the market opportunity was so big,
18:53why it could eventually become a billion-dollar business.
18:56Cam is going to be successful.
18:58And, you know, if you put in 25K,
19:00it's not going to make you that much money.
19:01And then, they started
19:03to, to kind of harass me a little bit.
19:04I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine.
19:05Okay, I'll put in a 100."
19:08[Cliff] That 100K unlocked at least enough confidence
19:11to go out to other investors and say,
19:13"Look, Bill Tai is investing."
19:14When they asked, "How much?" "A 100K."
19:16That was, a, uh, a bit better than 25.
19:20[Bill] I think they were laughing in the car because,
19:22you know, it started low and before you knew it,
19:25like, a few sentences later, it's like four times as much
19:27and, uh, like, "Okay, okay, fine, fine, fine, whatever you need."
19:31-Boom. [stutters] -Boom.
19:33[both laugh]
19:36Today has been a good day.
19:38And what's happened today, Melanie, my precious princess?
19:40-[chuckles] -[kisses]
19:42We have had, what, we, we had the first meeting.
19:45Before we even finished our pitch, boom.
19:48George wanted to invest in 500 start-ups.
19:51-We had another meeting-- -We didn't even finish our pitch.
19:53-[laughs] -You want to do this?
19:55And then, we just spoke-- we just narrowed our lead investor.
19:59-Boom! -So it's been a good day.
20:02[intriguing music]
20:12[Cameron] We knew that we wanted Canva to operate in a browser
20:14because that's the most accessible platform in the world.
20:17Figuring out what we could do in a browser that involved
20:20text editing, image manipulation,
20:23design, choosing fonts, colors,
20:27bringing in photography,
20:29doing eventually videos,
20:31like, there's so many parts in there
20:32that can break a browser.
20:36It's probably a mix of not knowing how the hell we're doing-- going to do it,
20:40but also knowing the technologies
20:42that we could poke and prod to make it happen.
20:46[Melanie] We've been building this product for a year.
20:48We got all the core functions. That's very technically complex,
20:52even though it's very simple from the user's perspective.
20:55Beneath that is so much complexity.
20:59[Cameron] We wanted to launch a polished experience
21:01that people could actually use
21:03and get value from without having bugs,
21:05without having features that were missing.
21:07So we spent that extra six months building it out
21:10and testing with users,
21:12making sure that it met their expectations
21:14and really wowed them. Really.
21:16[suspenseful violin music]
21:24[Melanie] So, I've had connotations of sometimes
21:27when you're a perfectionist, you don't take the first step.
21:29So, I would like to think that I am a proactive perfectionist. [laughs]
21:35I guess thinking about it like a stepping stone.
21:38I would do the absolute best I can
21:40to get to the next stepping stone...
21:42...but you're never gonna have perfect information.
21:44The only way to get to the next stepping stone
21:47is to use the learnings that you had to get to that stepping stone
21:49to think about the next one.
21:52But if you're a true perfectionist,
21:54perhaps you'd never leave that stepping stone.
21:58[whimsical music]
22:00The first user testing results weren't great.
22:03They were afraid to click the buttons...
22:07[man 1] "Change this circle to your favorite color."
22:09Well, all right. If somebody had told me how.
22:13'Cause I really don't know.
22:15How am I gonna change that?
22:18[Melanie] ...and realized really quickly
22:20that it wasn't just the tool that had to be really simple to use.
22:22We actually had to build people's own confidence
22:24in their own abilities themselves.
22:27Any single point that someone doesn't understand
22:30what a button does or it doesn't work the way they expect
22:33makes people feel stupid.
22:35And so it was really important that we got
22:36this foundation right.
22:40[Cameron] We had investors along the way being like,
22:43"When are you going to launch? When are you going to launch? When are you going to launch?"
22:46And I think the first time we heard that
22:48was about six months into starting Canva
22:50and we didn't launch for actually twelve months.
22:53These investors, they're putting money to Canva. A year later,
22:56there's still no product out in the market. What the hell are we doing?
22:59And then, we're over here on the other track,
23:01refining every tiny little button
23:02and making sure it works
23:03the way customers would expect.
23:06So, there's a lot of pressure.
23:07[muffled conversation]
23:09At a point in time, we had to decide,
23:11"This is the launch date. 26th August.
23:13It's launching, it's happening."
23:15We'd spoken to all the journalists. We'd done interviews,
23:17sort of got to a point of no return. [chuckles]
23:19We'd been working on it. [sighs] I think we had dinner
23:23and I decided to head home at about eight o'clock.
23:25[intense suspenseful music]
23:29I rode home from the office that night.
23:32Probably one of the steepest streets in Sydney.
23:36The street was completely empty. I was going down the hill,
23:40going probably about 40 kilometers an hour.
23:45Out of one of the side streets came this taxi...
23:48...decided not to stop...
23:50[crash]
23:51...and completely cleared me up.
23:55I remember hitting the bonnet of the taxi,
23:58blacked out, and I kind of came to,
24:02face down on the asphalt,
24:03blood dripping onto the, uh, onto the asphalt.
24:06I ended up getting a call to my wife, but I couldn't speak
24:11because some of my teeth were broken
24:13and, uh, I kind of mumbled something to her.
24:16She knew something was wrong.
24:17She ended up calling Cliff, who was still at the office.
24:20So, I was in San Francisco,
24:22and, uh, Cliff texted-- messaged me
24:25that Cam had been hit by a taxi
24:28and he's in the ambulance
24:29on the way to the hospital with Cam.
24:33And it was really worrying how bad he'd been hit.
24:38But there was still a launch deadline on Monday,
24:40so, on Sunday, I came in with a few stitches, continued coding,
24:45and we managed to launch on Monday.
24:48It was a very heroic effort.
24:50I think that the team's dedication
24:52at that point in time was really incredible.
24:55Yeah, people were working just like around the clock.
24:58And seeing Cam come in after such a very significant accident,
25:02um, and still pushing through,
25:03I was, you know, very impressed,
25:06but also very concerned for his own safety
25:07and, and well-being, uh, at that point in time.
25:11-Are we rolling? -[woman 1] We're rolling.
25:14I think success is not getting hit in the eye with a champagne cork
25:19and having millions of happy users
25:21-and not having to work. -[woman 1 laughs]
25:24Success is a million users in 2013,
25:29exponential growth.
25:30Success is when people-- the first thing
25:33that people think about when designing is using Canva.
25:35[inspirational music]
25:37You were once funny, you know?
25:38-[glasses clink] -[man 2] Cheers.
25:41We discovered this niche of users
25:43that was bloggers and social media marketers.
25:46And they absolutely loved the concept of Canva and the product of Canva.
25:50It's because they needed to produce lots of visual content.
25:54They need to get it out on social media.
25:56So they were our first organic growth channel.
25:59Them talking about Canva, recommending it to their friends
26:03and their colleagues, was what really sparked
26:06the first wave of growth for Canva.
26:08This is our Monday-Wednesday Minute.
26:11Uh, here, I look tired.
26:14Um, I just listened to our last Monday Minute,
26:17-which prompted this Monday Minute. -[both chuckle]
26:19Um, we had about 260 thousand users then.
26:22Mel, where, where are we at now?
26:24Uh, about 450 thousand now,
26:27who've created over two point--
26:29probably two million designs now.
26:31-Yeah, well, over two million. -Yeah.
26:34I'm trying to hire, like, crazy, which is pretty much my full-time role at the moment.
26:37Um, build out the team,
26:39more awesome people to build more awesome stuff.
26:42[whimsical music]
26:45We'll take you to our first office in Sydney. This one had Fusion.
26:49-And I think we had a maximum of eight people. -[Cliff] Six--
26:51Six or eight people. Oh.
26:54It's like we've grown a little outcome since then.
26:57Today is a beautiful day in Sydney.
27:00I'm going to give you a quick tour of the office in progress.
27:04We've got some graffiti that's going to have some touch-up.
27:08Had new lighting put in.
27:13So, that is the office today.
27:16[Cliff] Yeah, this, this is where it all began.
27:18That's where the action needs to happen, down there.
27:22-And then, uh... -We had half the office for lunch space,
27:26which was over here, which also doubled as a workspace,
27:28and the other half was his workspace.
27:30-[Cliff] Then it all became workspace. -Yeah.
27:33And then if you had to have a tough conversation with someone,
27:36-we'd have to-- or even any meetings, we'd-- -Any conversations.
27:38Any conversations, we'd have in our, like, boardroom, we'd call it,
27:42which is essentially the park. If you had to take calls,
27:45-you'd also take 'em in the park. -We had a sprawling
27:47-campus, you see? [laughs] -Yeah.
27:49Every phase had its-- had things that we've enjoyed about it.
27:52When we were really small, it was lovely,
27:54because you get to know everyone really well.
27:56Um, now it's 1700 people.
27:58You can't know everything that's happening all the time.
28:00And can't get to know every single person.
28:02It's the same amount of drama I found
28:05throughout the whole scale, like you're just as stressed
28:07at ten people as you are at two thousand people.
28:11[Scott] There is nothing natural
28:13about being a founder of a company
28:15and trying to scale it up.
28:17You go from one, two, three, four founders
28:20to forty, to four hundred, to four thousand,
28:24and, if you think about the job that you were doing
28:27when you were one, when you were four people,
28:30is vastly different.
28:32You know, I was writing code and emptying bins,
28:34and, uh, answering support requests.
28:36And now, at Atlassian, we have, you know,
28:39close to ten thousand people.
28:41My job is now very different,
28:43and most of the time it's evaluating people
28:45and setting the vision for where we wanna head as a company.
28:49That learning curve, whether it's at Atlassian size
28:51or any founder going through that journey,
28:53is just unnaturally steep.
28:55If you can just hold on with your white knuckles
28:58and, and get through it, I think everyone should be pretty proud about that.
29:02[inspirational music]
29:05-[Cliff] Uh, you can't cross here. You've gotta cross here. -[Melanie] Wait, over here.
29:07-[Cliff] No, no, no, no, you can't. Trust me. -Cliff.
29:10Mel.
29:13I'm always getting mad because I take the opportunity
29:16and then, the lights change
29:18and then I have to wait for ten minutes on the other side of the road.
29:22She's not in-- not risk averse when it comes to business,
29:25but when it comes to, like,
29:27crossing roads and driving, she is.
29:30See, they're still waiting on the other side.
29:35[Scott] I think, with most successful co-founders,
29:38they bring different things to the table,
29:40but it may not be immediately obvious,
29:42like, at the start what, what those are.
29:44With Mel and Cliff, Mel, is the, the, the dreamer.
29:47Cliff is the practical person.
29:49Mel lives...
29:51...five years, ten years in the future.
29:54If you spent time with Cliff, Cliff lives in the moment, right now,
29:58and, uh, I think he is very practical,
30:01that complements Mel's, uh, tendency to dream big.
30:06When I first met Mel and Cliff, I definitely recognized
30:09that jigsaw piece that just fit really well
30:12with my own jigsaw piece
30:14and I think the why the three of us work really well together
30:18is we have complementary skill sets
30:21that overlap somewhat,
30:23but we all have distinct strengths as well,
30:26and we approach it from different perspectives
30:28and that gives us insight into problems
30:32that is very holistic.
30:35[Melanie] Pretty incredible how we've all grown together as well.
30:38We've all had to grow and step into new roles continuously.
30:41And put on new hats and wear them to the best of our ability.
30:44[dramatic music]
30:49There's a concept that I really like, just-in-time learning,
30:52which means precisely that you learn everything just in time
30:55or just after, often, than, than you would like to know it.
30:57[ice skate blades scratching]
30:59I think that is a really important part of a start-up.
31:02Like, you can't possibly know everything in advance.
31:05And so, you're just constantly learning on the fly,
31:08having to figure out how to solve a problem,
31:10how to get to the next stepping stone.
31:13You're never an expert.
31:15You're constantly having to learn more about yourself
31:17about the world, about your company.
31:20And all you can do is ever take the knowledge that you have,
31:23and try to figure out what you can do to get to that next stepping stone.
31:30[Scott] As a founder,
31:31every day something is changing,
31:33breaking, evolving.
31:35It's totally different, you know, from one week to the next.
31:39If you're doing the same thing twice, you've, you've made a mistake.
31:42You've got to get comfortable, but that is a cycle you're gonna go through,
31:46whether that is hiring people, or building product,
31:49or manufacturing, or whatever hard thing you are trying to do is,
31:53you will start doing nothing about it,
31:55and hopefully you'll end up being really good at it,
31:57and by the time you get really good, you're finding the next thing.
31:59But if you're not even finding those things out, like, every single day,
32:02you're not pushing yourself hard enough.
32:04[dramatic music continues]
32:08[Cameron] It's when we started hitting those areas
32:10of building a team and thinking beyond ourselves,
32:14which is really where I started learning what a start-up is all about.
32:18And I, myself, had to grow immensely.
32:21-[woman 2] I haven't been across the scripting that you guys-- -[woman 3] Yes--
32:23[Cameron] So, we started off Canva very much as a Web platform.
32:27And we built the desktop website first.
32:30[muffled chatter]
32:31And we didn't have a mobile app
32:33for probably three years.
32:36It took us about a year to build that.
32:38We launched the app, went really well,
32:40but we started having these two different platforms now.
32:43We had the Web platform
32:45and we had an Apple iPhone platform
32:48and it was encoded entirely differently.
32:50And Android came along. And the number of devices in each category multiplied.
32:55And you just writing these masses of code
32:58that have to speak to different experiences.
33:02[Cliff] We got to the point where we realized
33:04the technology we built would not scale,
33:07it was about to fall over. It was breaking all the time.
33:09And so we needed to rewrite our whole platform,
33:12the whole of Canva from the ground up pretty much.
33:15So, we looked for a way in which we could do it one time
33:18and ship to all platforms.
33:21[Rick] This is quite common in start-ups,
33:23but everyone thinks it's going to take,
33:24I don't know, three, six months,
33:26and it ends up taking a lot longer.
33:28We paused development and said, "This product right--
33:32that we have right now is locked in.
33:33And we want to make sure that that product can transfer
33:36across to the mobile phone."
33:37[Cliff] Essentially what you need to do,
33:39you need to stop all progress.
33:41The whole business had halted, and the user numbers
33:44were sort of beginning to really drop off.
33:47You're not bringing your existing customers on a journey with you,
33:51you've kind of frozen their experience
33:54and you're kind of betting that they will stick around for,
33:57for what Canva already is
33:59without any improvement by itself.
34:01It was a really challenging time, I guess,
34:03because we are a product company
34:06and we weren't shipping products.
34:07We were trying to inspire the entire team to rebuild
34:10the thing that already existed.
34:12And... yeah, that wasn't fun.
34:15Uh, it wasn't a good period.
34:17It was, it was, it was...
34:21Yeah, like, knowing you're gonna run out of money
34:23and knowing that your competitors are trying
34:26to take your business away.
34:28Like, trying to aggressively copy you,
34:30and you can't make any progress on your product.
34:33Yeah, as founders we want to be
34:35building a company that's winning. Um, we want to be growing.
34:38We want to be pushing things forward,
34:40and for two years we couldn't do that.
34:43And then at the same time with those pressures,
34:46Mel and I weren't getting along as much.
34:47And I just want to launch stuff and ship stuff,
34:50and she had the greater vision of, "No, we need to launch this new platform.
34:53We can't take any of our engineers working on the new platform
34:57to build the features we know we need in the old platform,
35:01even though we know it's going to deliver money and value."
35:04Um, and so we had some internal sort of conflict
35:06around what was the right thing to do for the business.
35:09And we found if we fight about stuff, it just slows stuff down
35:12because we're two pretty forceful people,
35:16and if we're not aligned and working together,
35:20then that's like two big bulls butting heads.
35:22It did cause a lot of stress, and there were arguments
35:26between us as founders, particularly with Cliff,
35:28who is like, "Why the hell are we doing this?"
35:31The company essentially stalled for two years.
35:34But Mel was very forthright
35:37in her belief that it should happen.
35:39I wrote a pitch deck of that back then.
35:41It was called Building the Foundations of a City. That's how it felt.
35:44That was really critical, we got the foundations
35:46of the city right, so we can build the skyscrapers.
35:49But building the foundations of a city isn't particularly glamorous work. [laughs]
35:52The end wasn't in sight for this project.
35:55We're essentially holding our breaths that whole time,
35:57and, and it's not nice knowing you're gonna run out of money
36:01having maybe two, three hundred staff.
36:04Essentially, you're rolling the dice
36:06and if this thing doesn't launch
36:08and doesn't start delivering the value,
36:10and we can't show that value to raise more money to pay wages,
36:15that then, like, is quite stressful.
36:18And, um, yeah, and you do take that stress home with you.
36:21That's the thing with a crazy new goal,
36:23is you have to be so sure
36:25that getting to that point is critical.
36:27You're kind of walking through a dark, dark tunnel,
36:30and you can't really see the light at the end of it,
36:31but you do know you need to get there.
36:33And to be honest, it's kind of terrifying
36:35when you're going through a dark, dark tunnel
36:36and you've got a team and investors,
36:38and everyone kind of relying on you
36:40and you've got this tiny little candle,
36:41and the candle, you can only see
36:43a couple of footsteps ahead
36:45as to, like, actually how it's working out
36:47but you know you need to get to the other side of the tunnel one way or another.
36:50And we were learning, but, but we were flying by the seat of our pants.
36:53I think the learnings that came out of that period
36:55for me were that
36:57doing a complete rewrite of your fundamental platform
37:01is not something we want to tackle ever again.
37:03[distant chatter]
37:06[muffled chatter]
37:08[Cliff] We have a quarterly event called the Season Opener.
37:11-[man 3] Ten seconds. -[Cliff] It's a great little bookend
37:14for every quarter, where we set goals
37:16and also celebrate the goals of the previous season.
37:19[Melanie] It's truly a global broadcast
37:21for us today as we are joined by our incredible team.
37:24[Cliff] So, Mel really likes the Season Opener.
37:26I think that's a really efficient way for her to communicate.
37:29She's an introvert by nature, and I think having
37:31this really scalable communication channel
37:33really works well in aligning the company
37:35because the alternative is to have 1400 separate conversations
37:39or talk to teams in separate different groups.
37:41-[cheering] -We really align on what we're doing,
37:43so we are all paddling in the same direction.
37:54[Melanie] Something that we talk a lot about at Canva is
37:57from chaos to clarity.
37:58In the chaos end of the spectrum,
38:00it's all about philosophies and, like, utopia and the dream.
38:04It's a dream completely unbounded by what you have.
38:07What would the future look like?
38:09What would be the utopian experience?
38:11What would be the dream state?
38:13And then, actually it leads to travel all the way from chaos
38:16down to clarity and into people's hands.
38:19I guess that is why we do Season Openers.
38:21It was something that people could see and feel and believe.
38:24And, and it helped to create that clarity.
38:31...but I'm so proud of what we've all created together.
38:38Our two-step plan is the epitome of truly crazy big goals.
38:47[gentle music]
38:52[Melanie] Cliff and I were backpacking.
38:53Our first big trip was to India.
38:55Going to India completely reinvented
38:58the way I thought about the world and what was possible.
39:02I think it also really opened my eyes
39:04to the inequality that this world has.
39:07I remember meeting this guy. He was, you know,
39:10he, he was about my age.
39:12And he was working in a computer shop,
39:14away from his home and his family.
39:17And he was living in the computer shop, making 30 rupees a day,
39:19so one dollar.
39:21He was really trying hard to make a living
39:24and despite all of that, that was the maximum of his earning capacity.
39:29I think that has really stuck with me
39:31because it's like if I've got all these opportunities
39:34to be able to get a job and to be able to earn so much more money,
39:38then, you know, it's my responsibility to use that to help other people.
39:42I've always had this sort of driving ambition
39:44that I was going to use the opportunity afforded to me
39:46to be able to do good things in the world.
39:48And if that guy that I met in India
39:51could make a dollar with all of his effort and time,
39:54then I could potentially make a really big company.
39:57I thought that was, you know, a pretty good trade off.
39:59I think Mel has a real deep sense of justice in the world
40:03about what is fair and what is not.
40:05That drives a lot of what she does, like, on, on the work side.
40:09She wants to make money to be able to give back
40:11and solve some of the world's big problems.
40:13The wealth that is created from these tech companies can come so quickly.
40:18Like, what would have taken multi-generations to build
40:21the kind of wealth that we're seeing, you know,
40:22in the top tech founders of today,
40:25would have taken decades and decades.
40:27And I think, for people like Mel and Cliff,
40:30it's, it, it happened so quickly that, that they, they think
40:33that the, the right thing to do is to, to go and try and make the world better.
40:37The future for Canva definitely focuses on that two-step plan.
40:42And it's amazing, as the company has grown,
40:45how our ambitions have grown as well.
40:47Right from the start, we want to build a big business,
40:50and we wanted to use that business to do good things in the world.
40:53It's incredibly exciting to actually get to do step two.
40:56Like, we had always planned it.
40:58And it was always the, the thing that drove Cliff and I.
41:01We don't see the money as our own money.
41:03We see it as money that we're going to give away
41:06and deploy towards making the world a better place
41:08and that's something worth working for.
41:10If I'm just working towards putting more dollars
41:12in my bank account, I wouldn't come to work at all.
41:15And then, last year, um,
41:17it has always been what Cliff and I had planned,
41:19but we publicly announced that we were going to be giving
41:21the vast majority of our shares
41:23to be doing good things in the world.
41:24So, it's 30% of Canva,
41:26which is quite a sizable amount now.
41:28We started the foundation at Canva as part of the 1% pledge initiative,
41:32and we're also spending that money and investing it
41:34in, in great initiatives as, as fast as we can
41:37to sort of propel sort of education to people
41:40that don't have access to good education, health to certain areas.
41:43The things that we do through the product, the things that we do
41:46through our force for good programs
41:49we can have a greater impact now.
41:50It's just really exciting to see the impact.
41:54You know, a dollar in someone's pocket that's making less than a dollar a day
41:57is so much more valuable than a dollar in my pocket for example.
42:00I think the funny thing is it feels, like, more aligned,
42:03having that out in the world and known by the world now.
42:06If people know, the team knows
42:08that that's the intention behind creating such a big company,
42:11it feels just a lot more...
42:14...right.
42:15[monumental violin music]
42:21I've have always felt a huge responsibility
42:23to be useful on this planet.
42:25I felt that all those years ago when we were backpacking
42:28and you see how privileged a life we had.
42:32I believe there is enough money in the world.
42:35I believe there is enough goodwill in the world.
42:37I just don't think that we are currently organized in a manner
42:40that means that the money is being channeled
42:42into the most effective ways to achieve those goals.
42:46But I have a belief that we have a lot more capacity
42:49to be able to achieve the crazy goals that we all dream about.
42:52And when you achieve that vision,
42:54it's really important to dream the next dream.
42:57It's a constant process of,
42:58once you get that picture of what you're trying
43:00to work towards sorted...
43:02...you need to just, like... do it.
43:05[laughs] Take every single challenge in every single step
43:08to figure out how to possibly bring this to life.
43:12You know, I want to spend the next decades of my life doing so.
43:15And the circle continues.
43:22[music fades]
43:23[slow pensive music]

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