How She Turned Laughter into a $26B Canva Empire 🚀

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✎ To get more details on all the research and studies mentioned in this video check out the articles below:
https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/how-canvas-melanie-perkins-learned-to-pitch-persuasively-after-more-than-100-rejections.html
https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/canva-10-year-timeline/
https://ghwcc.org/news/35-year-old-canva-founder-melanie-perkins-got-rejected-by-100-vcs-now-her-26-billion-design-startup-is-ready-to-take-on-microsoft-and-google/
https://medium.com/the-million-dollar-thinker/canva-how-melanie-perkins-built-a-40-billion-design-empire-bb47004112aa
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/quf53x/canva_founder_was_rejected_over_100_times_by/
https://www.demandsage.com/canva-statistics/
https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/canva-co-founder-cameron-adams-pledges-more-than-half-his-us3bn-fortune/

✎ Melanie Perkins went from being a 19-year-old college student in Perth teaching design to classmates to becoming one of the most successful founders in tech. In this video, you’ll see how Melanie turned her frustration with complicated tools like Adobe Photoshop into the early idea that became Canva. Her first startup, Fusion Books, proved the power of simple online design and gave her the confidence to dream bigger. You’ll learn how she wrote an 80-page plan, built her first product with Cliff Obrecht, partnered with Fuji Xerox, and grew from 16 schools in year one to more than 100 without any advertising.

✎ You’ll also see the harder part of the journey. Investors rejected Melanie more than 100 times. They told her she wasn’t a real tech founder. They said her idea was too big and too unrealistic. But Melanie kept improving her pitch, kept telling relatable stories about her students struggling with Photoshop, and kept pushing. You’ll meet the people who finally helped open doors—Bill Tai, Lars Rasmussen, Cameron Adams—and learn how a simple five-minute conversation led Melanie to fly across the world to San Francisco. From kite-surf networking in Maui to three months of searching for the right technical partner, her persistence turned every no into a step closer to a yes.

✎ By the time Canva launched in 2013, the world was ready. The platform grew from 1 million users to more than 135 million monthly users, expanded to 190 countries, and became valued at tens of billions of dollars. Melanie and Cliff later joined the Giving Pledge and committed most of their wealth to helping others. This video walks you through the full journey—from Fusion Books to becoming a global design powerhouse—and pulls out the lessons you can use today. Whether you study the stories of Melanie Perkins, Sarah Blakely, or other self-made leaders, the message stays the same: you don’t need permission to start. You just need the courage to keep going.

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