"There's a very famous story about Canva. Early on, you pitched over a hundred investors and over a hundred investors said no to you. >> It was really clear in my mind that it was the future and I thou..."

"love that as a value. >> The thing that I love about a crazy big goal is that you feel completely inadequate before it. You want to work really hard to will it into existence. I really like to start b..."

"That very first step at the far end of chaos was quite a embarrassing step actually because you don't have mastery at that point. You don't have all the answers. A lot of people think of Canva as like..."

"tech founder in history and one of the most successful founders, period. Canva is currently valued at over $42 billion, making over $3.3 billion in revenue a year. They've been profitable for 8 years ..."

"from a yearbook publishing platform to the Canva that you know today. Melanie does not do a lot of podcasts. She shares stories that I've never heard before and lessons that I'm still thinking about. ..."

"bring you Melanie Perkins after a short word from our sponsors. My podcast guests and I love talking about craft and taste and agency and product market fit. You know what? We don't love"

"actually just making time to spend thinking about that is probably one of the most critical pieces. Like just literally dreaming like what is wild success in 10 years? What is terrible failure in 10 y..."

">> So, we have this concept of chaos to clarity. Um, and every idea starts in the chaos side and then you have to work all the way to the other side, which is clarity. And so, chaos can be an idea, it..."

"become more and more real and more and more people can see it. And so just like taking those little incremental steps that adds clarity with every single step then starts to help will it into existenc..."

"could take there to see if this could be a thing. >> Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's the thing is that the that very first step at the very like far end of chaos, it's very embarrassing b..."

"about a pitch deck is that other people can see your thinking and your thinking actually gets clarified as well as you go through that process. >> I talked to Melissa, I talked to a bunch of other peo..."

"big goal. Um, and I think the thing that I love about a crazy big goal is that you feel completely inadequate before it. Um, you know, another crazy big goal would love to see everyone's basic human n..."

"achieve. >> Is there a crazy big goal that you set that comes to mind maybe as a good example of this is what I'm talking about. Maybe a product you launched or feature back in the day. >> Yeah, I mea..."

"then just like take a step after step um towards helps then will it into existence or on every device. We started off obviously just with a web platform and then we launched our iPad app and then iPho..."

"certainly not been able to have ping dart. What's the what's it accur? >> We have not been very accurate with timing. But it's really interesting. I looked back at a 2021 2021 vision deck that we made..."

">> Whether you like him or not, Elon, this is similar to his um if you watch him, he has sets these really ambitious goals and then often is far late on achieving them, but clearly it has worked out i..."

"say, "Hey, we did this thing." Um, that thing that seemed really hard, we've now achieved. And you know, the mission is often, you know, each of the different mission pillars, they're obviously a long..."

"when maybe things didn't look like they worked would work out. So let me just ask you this. over the over the course of building Canva once it started to click and started to feel like it was going to..."

"and so I think it's just like a constant work in progress or you know back to your earlier point about timing of things we were doing a front-end rewrite and we thought it take about 6 months. It was ..."

"really a recipe for fun >> for two years. for two years. >> I feel like every builder listening to this knows exactly what you've been through and maybe not in that scale and those stakes, but you sta..."

"Just how does how does this feel? >> I don't know. It was really clear in my mind that it was the future and I thought the investors were wrong, frankly. Um, but investors also gave really helpful fee..."

">> Well, I think beyond that, I've never heard this part of the story. It's not just persisting, it's actually iterating and and uh taking feedback that you're hearing to continue to evolve the pitch ..."

"trying to do. Um, and you know, kind of finding your tribe. I think >> I think as an investor, this is really interesting to hear because it tells you there are companies like Canva out there that eve..."

">> I I love that story. I think again if anyone working at a company that has gone through a lot of growth has experienced that when people from other companies come in and here's how we did it at thi..."

"progress. It feels like, you know, as I was saying before, systems break and need to be reinvented, but also reimagined for that next layer of scale rather than going to try to get something off the s..."

"Is there anything else that is a good example of how you did something pretty different from how other companies operate? Anything else that comes to mind as a as a fun example? >> The goal driven str..."

"a deeply underloved uh way of building a company. Often people have a mission that's kind of on the wall somewhere and then what they're actually doing and the way they actually make money and the way..."

"that ended up being so valuable. So in the early days I would just work seven days a week round the clock. You know in our very first company we actually had printing presses because we were printing ..."

"really important. I've spoken to a lot of founders that haven't quite found that. And then do struggle with it, you know? So when they're not when they're working every weekend, it feels like the righ..."

"of people. So I've personally run hundreds if not thousands of user tests um myself and it's been deeply embedded in our product teams also. Wow, that must be really stressful for someone uh looking a..."

"Canva for some years now. You know, in the early days we took the 1% pledge, which I think is an incredible program. Every single person, every single company should should take that where you give 1%..."

"spending. And you know that crazy big dream I was mentioning earlier of everyone having basic human needs met. It's so completely insane that that isn't the case today. There's no specific reason why ..."

"blessed to be able to do some work and that creates wealth that can then go and have people's basic human needs met. You know, it's completely Yeah. But they they're working just as hard, but they don..."

"excited about all of this. >> Amazing. I something I'm going to just let people know. I don't know if people know all this, how many products you all have now. I think a lot of people think of Canva a..."

"but it's not just generational for those of other other generational ilk. Uh, but it's it's it's been fascinating to to see that come to life. >> The email product, is that like a email client product..."

">> I don't know how that works. Yeah. I don't know how you do that, but it worked. How cool. >> That is very cool. And so yeah, I guess literally bring these things to life. Oh, we're like launching 3..."

"productivity rather than making our customers have to make a choice between those two tools two suites. >> Something I wasn't planning on asking about, but I think it's on everyone's minds. There's al..."

"than um be a problem or a solution looking for a problem. So what I'm hearing there is you didn't overthink here's my ICP, here's like the wedge and the strategy of how we expand into this large thing..."

"equation for us. In fact it was funny looking back from really old decks. We were trying to do AI before AI was actually a thing because it really was critical to what we were trying to do. Even in ou..."

">> for the voice note tool. Is there a tool that you find useful for that? >> Yeah, I I might use um Apple Notes or directly into Canva Docs and then I actually just do the brain dump into Canva Docs ..."

"literally having it beside me as I work every day. The little tiny decisions that can kind of help to angle towards that future that we want. And can I help will any of that into existence? I honestly..."

"is one of the key answers to loneliness is actually working towards something bigger than yourself. >> Wow. I really appreciate you sharing all that. Uh I was thinking as you're talking just consideri..."

"makes no sense. >> Uh a column B world you might say. >> Absolutely. >> Melanie, this was incredible. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanted to shar..."

"product you'd love to work on someday? Whether it's like an existing other company like, "Oh, I wish I could work on that thing." or just a new product you'd love to build maybe after the Canva chapte..."

">> Maybe along those lines but maybe not. Is there a life motto that you find yourself coming back to in work your own life? >> There's a few. I love the quote happiness is when what you think, what y..."

">> Wow. There's so much power to that. One uh thought nugget there is just there's all these tools now that can make thing make building so much easier. You can just build anything you want. Just desc..."