Melanie Perkins
Melanie Perkins is CEO and co-founder of Canva, currently valued at over $42 billion, generating over $3 billion in annual revenue, with more than 240 million monthly active users and, incredibly, eight consecutive years of profitability. But the journey was far from smooth. Melanie was rejected by over 100 investors during her first fundraising round, her team spent two years without being able to ship a new feature during a technical rewrite, and the company pivoted early from a yearbook publishing platform to become the design powerhouse it is today. Through it all, she maintained what she calls “column B” thinking: building toward a dream future rather than just using the bricks around you.
Building & Shipping Skills
Transform amorphous concepts into actionable projects by systematically moving them from the 'chaos' of an idea to the 'clarity' of a documented plan.
"So we have this concept of chaos to clarity 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 can be a..."
Overlay: Zero-to-One / Founder Skills
Iteratively refine your fundraising strategy by treating every investor rejection as a specific prompt to update your pitch deck and preempt future objections.
"But investors also gave really helpful feedback and feedback. Often in the form of rejection, they would say, "Oh, your market's not big enough," and I would say, "It's going to be huge." And I'd add..."
Planning & Prioritization Skills
Set goals so ambitious they create a productive sense of inadequacy, then break them down into microscopic, sequential steps.
"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."