In 2007, Melanie Perkins was a 19-year-old student at the University of Western Australia, earning extra money teaching classmates how to use desktop design programs. The lessons kept running into the same problem: the software was so complicated that students spent the term learning where the buttons were rather than designing anything.

Her idea was a simple, browser-based design tool anyone could use. Rather than attempt everything at once, she and her partner Cliff Obrecht started with a narrow version: Fusion Books, an online tool for schools to design their yearbooks. Run from her mother's living room, it became one of the largest yearbook companies in Australia and proved the core idea worked.

The long pitch

To build the broader product, they needed Silicon Valley money — and Perth is a long way from Sand Hill Road. A break came in 2010 when investor Bill Tai visited Perth as a judge for a startup competition. Perkins pitched him, flew to San Francisco, and spent months meeting investors.

Most said no. Perkins has said Canva was rejected by more than 100 investors. Tai was a keen kitesurfer and ran networking events built around the sport, so Perkins learned to kitesurf to get into the room with his network. Over time, she refined the pitch, recruited former Google engineer Cameron Adams as a third co-founder, and closed a first round with Australian and U.S. backers.

Every rejection, she has said, was a chance to rework the pitch — to figure out which objection she hadn't answered yet.

From launch to global brand

Canva launched in 2013. It grew through word of mouth and templates, then expanded into presentations, video, websites and team workspaces. By 2018 it was a unicorn; in 2021, a funding round valued it at $40 billion, making it one of the most valuable private software companies in the world.

Perkins and Obrecht, who married in 2021, have pledged to give the large majority of their Canva equity to charitable causes.

Lessons

  • Start narrow. Yearbooks were a small, real market that de-risked the big vision.
  • Treat no as feedback. Each rejection sharpened the pitch.
  • Go where the network is. Even if that means learning a new sport.