YouSaid · the spoken record

Melanie Perkins

lines on the record: 75
first: 2025-11-02
most recent: 2025-11-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“All sorts of fun things. Just to take a moment with the team to celebrate that huge achievement. And so I think that that's, you know, you want to celebrate what you want to really focus on and what you want everyone to take that moment. So when you achieve that crazy goal, when we launch in Spanish, when we hit 100 languages, and then the so forth across the company, taking that moment to actually pat yourself on the back and pat the teams on the back and say, hey, we did this thing. That thing that seemed really hard we've now achieved. And the mission is often, you know, each of the different mission pillars, they're obviously a long area of investment that's going to take a long time to get to, but being able to celebrate each of the rungs on that on the way there, I think, is extraordinarily important. And then it makes everyone works extraordinarily hard to bring them to life. And then it gives everyone a little moment to feel proud of themselves.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So when we have these crazy goals, we also have coupled them with really fun celebrations. And so we attempt to make the crazy big goals happen in a moment in time. So then when we achieve them, we actually have a really fun moment. Because if you're just trying to plod towards the top of the mountain always and you never like take a little moment to pat yourself on the back, it would feel a little arduous. And so over the years, we had all sorts of fun little celebrations where we have smashed Greek plates and released doves and had a little automatina festival.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have not been very accurate with timing, but it's really interesting. I look back at a 2021 vision deck that we made, obviously, in 2021, but it was about 2026. And it was fascinating to see how much we'd actually been able to achieve from that vision deck and how many things were currently still in flight. And so by having that, I thought in 2021 some of those things may have happened a little quicker, but over the over the last five years, there's really been coming into reality. And so we might think things are going to take six months and they're going to take a year. We might think things are going to take six months and they take two years, as has been the case. We might think something's actually going to take our entire lifetime as some of those really, truly crazy big goals. And in fact, I don't even know if we can ever achieve them, frankly, but they're such an important goal that even if you make a little step in their direction, they're worthwhile nonetheless.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think with a crazy big goal, the thing we have been really great at is achieving them. The timeframe that we achieved them on has not always been very reliable. We have certainly not been able to have PinDart.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Having these very big, audacious goals that you then just like take a step after step towards helps them 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 iPhone and then Android and then we spent years investing in cross-platform so we have the same feature set across every device and so you can see how these like big amorphous things that seem very outlandish you can then just will into existence after continual investment for a decade and it compounds over time”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, so many things. So we have our mission empowers the world to design and we break it down into mission pillars. So empower everyone to design anything with every ingredient in every language on every device, obviously a mouthful. But then what we do is we take successive goals every year towards this mission. And so for designing anything, we started off with social media and presentations. And like docs and websites and whiteboards and video. And so every year we're just launching more and more things to fulfill that part of the mission of empowering everyone to design anything. And then equally in every language, we started in English and then it was Spanish and then it was 20 languages and then 100 languages and then hard languages like Arabic and Hebrew and Urdu and right to left languages. And now we're in 100 plus languages now and now we're really doubling down on the localization experience to make it feel truly local in every market around the world. And so you can see how”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important that you actually want to will into existence because it is so much work to will a crazy big goal into existence. So I'd better be one that you want to actually achieve.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think the thing that I love about a crazy B goal is that you feel completely inadequate before it. Another Crazy Bee goal, we'd love to see everyone's basic human needs met on the planet, like completely crazy big. That truly shouldn't be. It's kind of absolutely absurd that that's the case, but we can go into that later. But I think with a crazy big goal, then you want to work really hard to will it into existence. And so if you start with a reasonable goal or a realistic goal, then you kind of get to it and you're like, oh, cool, whatever. Or more importantly, if something happens, all the problems and roadblocks come along as they always do, then you're like, okay, I won't bother with that. And then you can just go and choose another course. And so a crazy big goal is both crazy big, but it's also something that you think is incredibly important.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so right from the start of Canva, it was truly a crazy big goal. We were like, we want to empower the world to design and take all these things to a super complicated and put them into one platform and make it accessible to the whole world. And we want to, rather than it be super expensive and unaffordable, we want to empower everyone everywhere in the world to design. So, I mean, that was the epitome of a crazy big goal.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great thing 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.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's the thing that very first step at the very far end of chaos, it's very embarrassing because you're like, I have this idea that is so big and so wild. And how the hell would I do that? I have no idea. And so it's quite an embarrassing step, actually, because you don't have mastery at that point. You don't have all the answers. In fact, you have likely none of the answers, but you just have the idea that you think would be cool. And ideally, you get the idea that would be so cool that you want to work really hard to will that into existence. And so I think one of the really key parts is not only just having the idea, but thinking it's so cool that you're going to work for years to will into existence. Actually, Melissa did a really amazing pitch deck recently about the vision of, I won't go into the details right here, but the vision of her space. And I was really excited about it. And so I think that that's...”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Clarity. And so the idea is that each little step from chaos to clarity is the very first step might be literally writing it down. So rather than it being in your head, you've written it down. Then the next step might be starting to create a pitch deck on it. And the next step might be starting to refine that, turning it into some designs, turning into a prototype. And then as you kind of go from chaos to clarity, it starts to 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 existence rather than it being something that's completely amorphous and just stays in your head. So I think that's why visual communication for us is so important is because otherwise if it'sn't just in your head no one else can see it and you can't will it into existence.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 problem, it can be a philosophy or a belief. I've got a joke that I find funny, I'm not sure if you will, but how do you go from chaos to clarity?”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like just literally dreaming, what is wild success in 10 years? What is terrible failure in 10 years is a really great place to start. He's just like spending some time there. And then even if that is so big and so vast and so wild, having that very first step is so important because then you take that little tiny first step and then the next step. And then that compounds, you know, for us it's been compounding over a decade as we continue to work towards that same mission and vision.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is. Easy to be discouraged by the two because they're completely two complete odds of the spectrum. One is dreaming about the future, not that you think you can will into existence, it's just the future that you want. And then the next part is taking the tiny step that might be extremely microscopic. And it feels a little embarrassing to be like, I want a future that is, you know, whatever it might be, and then to take such a microscopic step. Because I think you often have the feature in one side or don't spend much time thinking about that. You're just thinking about the bricks before you. And so I think it's also, naturally, we all get distracted by day-to-day. Your email, your Slack, the things that are kind of in your face, the reality that lives around you every day that kind of pulls you into this moment right now. And so I think actually just making time to spend thinking about that is probably one of the most critical pieces.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's sort of the first step. And I think a lot of people don't spend quite enough time imagining that. And then the next part is you don't want to have this crazy big dream and then do nothing about turning it into reality. You kind of want to have a ladder that goes all the way up to the moon, which is your crazy wild vision. And then you want to have rungs that just like work its way up step by step. And so you want to get that really clear picture of the future that you would like and then just take little step after little step after little step. And it doesn't matter how small that first step is. or how seemingly inconsequential if it is working towards that future that you want to will into existence then you'll keep on climbing up that ladder in the right direction”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you can apply that just to abstract thinking in different industries. You can do that, apply that for, we do that for the whole company, for different areas of the company. And I think just taking that very long timescale of 10 years and getting a really crisp idea of what you want or what you don't want.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I really like to start by just imagining what is the future that you actually want, what is the world that you want to live in, what is the future of transportation, what is the future of healthcare, what is the future that you want to live and exist in? And for example, right now I have a wall in my house in my office, which is my vision for what I'd like the world to look like in 2050. And so it's not necessarily that you can bring that into existence or you can will that into existence, but just to start to get clearer on what you would like that world to be like. Would you like it to be more inclusive? Would you like it to, for me, one of the things I desperately want is everyone on this planet to have their basic human needs, Matt. What are those things that you believe are so important that you would love to see exist in that future? And I think an exercise we often do is like, what is wild success for X or what is wild success for Y? And then equally, what is terrible failure for those things?”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seemed completely likely, completely improbable that it wouldn't be the case that in the future design would be online and collaborative and really simple. And so starting from that, we then took that concept and applied it to the”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, column A would have been nothing, frankly, because the reality was when I was a university student with no company and no business or product or software experience, the reality would have been not very much. And so it was all Column B. It was all thinking about the wild future that we wanted to create. I imagined what would be publishing in the future, what would communications look like in the future. And it seemed really impossible that it would stay on the desktop, it would stay really complicated. And it just seemed so apparent to me that in the future it was going to be completely different. Could I build that future? I had absolutely no idea. But the idea...”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think most planning is often done by looking at the bricks and trying to stack them. And then you kind of, you know, you can create only so much. And so I guess the column B thinking is thinking about what is that magical wonderful future that you then want to invest years and decades of your life actually building. And so that's Colombian column B in a nutshell”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really great place to start. So, I guess there's two ways of planning the way that you can plan is you can dream of like what is the perfect vision of the future? What future do you want to exist in? What would you like the world to look like? What would you like companies to look like? And then going from there, which is completely improbable, a completely crazy big dream, and then working hard to turn that into reality. And the alternative is, so just imagine you're building a castle on the hill and you're like, what would be the most magical, wonderful, mythical experience? And the other thing you can do is you can look at the bricks around you and you can say, what can I do with these bricks? How high can I stack them? What can I do?”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we have this concept of chaos to clarity. Every idea starts in the chaos side, and then you have to work all the way to the other side, which is clarity. That very first step at the far end of chaos was quite an embarrassing step, actually, because you don't have mastery at that point, you don't have all the answers.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 by just imagining what is the future that you actually want. Right now I have a wall in my house in my office which is my vision for what I'd like the world to look like in 2050”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was really clear in my mind that it was the future, and I thought the investors were wrong, frankly, 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 a new page in my pitch deck that said how big the market, I believed was. And then they'd say, you're the same as some of the company. And I would say, hey, now I've got a new slide in my pitch deck that shows all the players and the huge gap in the market that we believe we're going to fill.”
2025-11-02 · Lenny's Podcast · The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source