Melanie Perkins is a passion-driven innovator, revolutionizing the world of graphic design. She In the year He is the CEO and co-founder of Canva, which was launched in 2014.
Kochi Business Builders Editor Sec Busby unravels the truth behind Canva’s ‘overnight success’ in this interview with Perkins.
Starting from scratch
Melanie Perkins’ passion for design has been lifelong. She studied psychology and business at the University of Western Australia and taught design programs.
It was her students’ experiences as they struggled to learn the basics that led Perkins to the paradoxical nature of design programs.
You don’t have to take an entire semester just to figure out where the Photoshop keys are.
“Also, you don’t have to learn a different tool for everything you want to create.
From this experience, Perkins became interested in making a difference. She envisions a collection of design programs housed on a single platform, with clearer tools that allow for ease of use and collaboration. It offers simple templates and end users no longer struggle with the basics of editing and creating.
However, with little knowledge of starting a business, Perkins had to learn by experience when it came to turning her idea into reality.
From small business to behemoth
Canva’s popularity and success may seem like it happened overnight, but the learning and development process took more than a decade.
Her first venture, Fusion Books, was a proving ground. Launching the business meant she stuck everything on her own while learning on the go, but it gave her valuable experience when she founded Canva.
“I was doing customer service, quality assurance, all the product management and marketing,” Perkins says.
Then, as the business grows, she can let go of more responsibility.
Melanie Perkins, Co-Founder of Canva.
“Every time a new person starts, it’s like giving them another hat and then another hat. And then how on earth were you doing all these things? She said.
Going from solo operator to co-founder of a digital business, Perkins still had a lot to learn.
For the first time, we had to figure out how to hire people. “We had to figure out how to work with people, how to set up an office, these kinds of challenges that I never thought about,” she said.
The experience of starting from scratch meant being agile was essential to growing a company with over 1500 employees.
“It’s a continuous process of letting go,” she explains, “because at first you’re doing everything yourself.
Canva’s big, bold purpose
The years leading up to Canva’s public release helped Perkins find what was true to her business goals and the impact she wanted to make.
“Having a big goal is essential to who I am. If I don’t have a big goal, I feel lost. I always like to have a big goal to work towards,” she says.
Canva co-founders and now husband and wife, Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins
The motivation to set goals is embedded in her business;
“I think one of the values we’ve articulated at Kava is to set big goals and make them happen. And I’m really motivated by crazy big goals,” Perkins said.
“We have a two-step plan at Canva. Step one is to build one of the world’s most valuable companies. Not big. Just small. Step two is to do the best we can.
Canva believes it is making small strides toward achieving these goals, but there is still a long way to go. Next, she’s figuring out how to use the platform and its amazing community to help achieve global goals.
Encourage businesses
Perkins’ plan to become one of the world’s most valuable companies has succeeded, as Canva is now available in 190 countries and 100 languages.
“Now you can print your design on paper in 44 countries. You can print your design as a t-shirt. You can turn your design into a website. We want to empower anyone to design, so there’s all kinds of things you can do,” she says.
Canva CEO Melanie Perkins in 2016
Perkins faces several unclear challenges in making Canva available in these countries.
She explained that in order to make the platform available in Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu languages, they had to go through the difficult process of flipping the program from right to left.
This was a huge initiative and a huge engineering effort. But now we can encourage the whole world to design,” she said.
“It’s been our philosophy from the beginning. So, it’s good to see it happening, but we still have a lot to do.
“There are a lot of people and then obviously millions of customers. So we have to think about them in everything we do.
Canva co-founders Mel Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams in 2015.
