The Exchanges

Q We saw Monday got hit because a lot of that growth relies on SEO. You're seeing SEO really reduces the customer acquisition channel for a lot of companies. I know you've only got 10%, which is paid Cliff, but given 10% being paid, are you moving forward with the assumption that SEO is going to be a much smaller part of your customer acquisition funnel moving forwards?

A I think SEO is about 50, 15% of the 90% organic to date, so it used to be our number one channel, but now our, uh, our sort of like user flywheel, word of mouth, and people sharing designs are our biggest. No, I mean, we, we're seeing a lot of, uh, some of it, SEO is growing for us, uh, but also we're the number one productivity app on ChatGPT, and we're the fifth Highest domain that ChatGPT refers to. So out of all the websites, it's like Google, Meta, we're number five in regards to, essentially it's SEO for LLM. So we're, because we've invested a lot over the years, they're obviously taking a lot of the same signals that Google's taking, and anything we're losing on the SEO front is translating to LLM SEO, which is a huge tailwind for us. So to give you an example, a year and a half ago, .2%, I think it was, of the images uploaded to Canva were from ChatGPT. That's now over five percent. So the fuel and content being generated in these LLMs are being propagated into Canva for that editing, for how they're using it in designs, and for that collaboration, storage, deployment, that whole visual communication workflow that we're, we excel at.

AI assessment note: “anything we're losing on the SEO front is translating to LLM SEO”

Q We saw Monday got hit because a lot of that growth relies on SEO. You're seeing SEO really reduces the customer acquisition channel for a lot of companies. I know you've only got 10%, which is paid Cliff, but given 10% being paid, are you moving forward with the assumption that SEO is going to be a much smaller part of your customer acquisition funnel moving forwards?

A I think SEO is about 50, 15% of the 90% organic to date, so it used to be our number one channel, but now our, uh, our sort of like user flywheel, word of mouth, and people sharing designs are our biggest. No, I mean, we, we're seeing a lot of, uh, some of it, SEO is growing for us, uh, but also we're the number one productivity app on ChatGPT, and we're the fifth Highest domain that ChatGPT refers to. So out of all the websites, it's like Google, Meta, we're number five in regards to, essentially it's SEO for LLM. So we're, because we've invested a lot over the years, they're obviously taking a lot of the same signals that Google's taking, and anything we're losing on the SEO front is translating to LLM SEO, which is a huge tailwind for us. So to give you an example, a year and a half ago, .2%, I think it was, of the images uploaded to Canva were from ChatGPT. That's now over five percent. So the fuel and content being generated in these LLMs are being propagated into Canva for that editing, for how they're using it in designs, and for that collaboration, storage, deployment, that whole visual communication workflow that we're, we excel at.

AI assessment note: “anything we're losing on the SEO front is translating to LLM SEO”

Q You said there about expectations and kind of other people's performance. I'm intrigued, you know, trust is an interesting thing. A lot of people start kind of binary. They either have lots or they have none. Um, how do you think about your starting point for trust? Do you have lots or none?

A Yeah. Yeah. Mel and I are completely, so Mel is my wife and the CEO of Canva. So my boss, um, which is, um, and, and definitely the worthy boss. Uh, but we have totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to trust. So I trust by default and you can lose that trust. Mel, it takes a lot of time to build her trust, but once you build it, it's well, it's, it's there and it's there for a long time. So that, that's how I kind of think about it. I, I fly by the seat of my pants a little bit, wear my, my heart on my sleeve, and, and quick to, quick to, to love, but yeah, I guess that's my style.

AI assessment note: “I trust by default and you can lose that trust.”

Q want to ask, kind of, speaking about, kind of, quick to love and the trust that we imbue within people, when I spoke to many of your investors, they said that I had to talk about talent with you, um, and you said to me before about distance traveled when it comes to talent. What did you mean, Cliff, when you said distance traveled? Can you unpack that for me?

A Yeah, I actually think I heard this from someone on your show yesterday, A long time ago, and it really resonated with me. So, distance traveled is if you went, if you grew up in a privileged family, went to an Ivy League school, and you end up as an investment banker, that's great. I'm sure you worked really, really, really hard. I was a school teacher, um, before, I, I mean, I couldn't use computers before we started our first, I hated computers to be, to be honest, before we started our first business. Um, but I used to be a school teacher, and I, I taught at one of the most underprivileged schools in Western Australia. Um, a lot of the students there were refugees from Africa, um, the Middle East, um, and parts of Asia, and these people, uh, ex-child soldiers, um, they'd been through the most horrific things. They started life with a really big disadvantage. They had everything stacked against them. They had often spent years in a refugee camp, Then they traveled to a new country, they couldn't speak our language, and to see these kids evolve and, and educate themselves, learn a new language, sometimes just getting a job is like the distance traveled from being a child soldier to getting a job. One guy I met on the street years after, he said, oh, I'm a roof tiler, and he was so proud of that, and I was so proud of him, because coming from being a child A child soldier to a…

AI assessment note: “distance traveled from being a child soldier to getting a job”

Q Not at all, my friend. We have quite a schedule in place. I want to start with a little bit on you, though. We see this incredible brand today that is Canva that you and Mel have built. Take me back to the beginning, though. What was that founding aha moment for you with the very first day of Canva?

A Oh, it probably goes back earlier than Canva. So Mel was teaching design at university and realized that it kind of sucked. It was really complex. It took about six months to learn the Professional graphic design tools at the time, whilst at the same time people were using, I think it was MySpace at the time, Facebook, they were collaborating, they were sharing content, and, and she gets all the credit. She was like, in the future, creation is going to be totally different. It's going to be online, it's going to be collaborative, and it's going to be easy. Um, but we're based in Perth, Western Australia, um, which is, I think, the most isolated city in the world, and there's no such thing as venture capital there, and we had no idea. We didn't know what a startup was. We were like, We should create a small business around this. Um, and I was studying school teaching at the time. Uh, and so I was like, well, why don't we do school yearbooks? And, and so we sort of took the idea. I was like, the idea, the idea from Canva, Mel had this like, 15 years ago, but we said, we can't create this big global thing. Like, why don't we solve a real problem people had? And I'm like, I've seen school yearbook coordinators really struggled to create a yearbook. And so we did that and we created a company called Fusion Books, which became Australia's largest school yearbook company. So for a whi…

AI assessment note: “in the future, creation is going to be totally different. It's going to be online”

Q think like over those reasons, the two technical founders, honestly, Cliff, It's one where I might slip up on. Um, I do like to see a technical founder. I like to see someone, like, deeply rooted in, like, engineering and products, and I know Mel's obviously a product visionary, but it's not, like, technical, um, in the set, in that way. Why am I wrong, and why does it work?

A You're right. It's a huge risk, actually. You're right. Um, it is, it is an absolute huge risk, um, because if you don't have the right technical foundation of your business, um, then it's, it's like a house of cards. Um, we were incredibly lucky to bring on a third co-founder, Cam, um, Cam Adams, absolute legend, great human, um, great friend. Um, and he was at Google. Uh, and he wasn't quite technical, but we kind of, like, palmed him off as the technical co-founder, because he could write JavaScript, and he did write JavaScript. He built a lot of the first front ends in Canva, but, um, having him on board, like, we had a couple of, like, early commitments, but getting him on board really tipped the needle in regards to investors, and also allowed us to get on our CTO, who is also another amazing human, um, Dave Herndon, who's still with the company, and, and absolutely phenomenal, um, Uh, and, and, and really built the technical foundations that are still there today and we can build off.

AI assessment note: “You're right. It's a huge risk, actually.”

Q spend on a personal trainer, because it makes me fitter and healthier, and I could never afford to. Before, now I can. But it's right to, I actually have someone who cooks my meals, and they're prepped, and so I can eat healthily without worrying about it, and it makes me better as a business person. Are there any things where you invest there that do actually make you better?

A We invest in experiences, um, and, and so, yeah, I've, I've recently got a personal trainer as well, because, yeah, we work a lot, and, and, ah, yeah, you often put off exercise, so having someone, ah, you're accountable to actually helps with that, but, um, no, we really invest in experiences. Some of the, the coolest things we've done in recent years is, like, we, we rode motorbikes across, um, Bhutan, um, Went, uh, what do you call it? Um, zip lining in Laos, uh, rode motorbikes again, dirt bikes, um, on the, the, the, the China-Vietnam border. So we, we just like, like to have experiential holidays, and, and, and that, that, that means a lot to us, and that's where we get the most of our joy.

AI assessment note: “I've recently got a personal trainer as well... we really invest in experiences.”

Q You said there about expectations and kind of other people's performance. I'm intrigued, you know, trust is an interesting thing. A lot of people start kind of binary. They either have lots or they have none. Um, how do you think about your starting point for trust? Do you have lots or none?

A Yeah. Yeah. Mel and I are completely, so Mel is my wife and the CEO of Canva. So my boss, um, which is, um, and, and definitely the worthy boss. Uh, but we have totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to trust. So I trust by default and you can lose that trust. Mel, it takes a lot of time to build her trust, but once you build it, it's well, it's, it's there and it's there for a long time. So that, that's how I kind of think about it. I, I fly by the seat of my pants a little bit, wear my, my heart on my sleeve, and, and quick to, quick to, to love, but yeah, I guess that's my style.

AI assessment note: “I trust by default and you can lose that trust.”

Q Cliff, I look at Canva's journey and it doesn't look like there have been tough times. And I know there's always tough times in a business, but it kind of looks up and to the right. What was the toughest time that comes to mind?

A Oh, I've had a few. I'll tell you, the toughest time I've had recently was putting up this Christmas tree that I bought. Um, it was, it got the better of me. I'm, I'm, I'm terrible for not reading instructions, and, and I, I did it all wrong, just like Ikea furniture, and it took me about four hours to put up this Christmas tree. It was like, 11 p.m., and I, I nearly gave up, but I didn't. Um, the next biggest challenge in our business journey was we had our first version of Fusion Books, the school yearbook company, um, built in Australia, um, Um, by contractors, and that was becoming very expensive. We couldn't afford it anymore, so we outsourced it through Odesk, which is now Upwork at the time, to a team in India, and there's a lot of amazing development teams in India, but this wasn't one of them, um, and so we had about 400 schools on the platform at the time, and the whole concept of like, I guess, Canva for yearbooks is the teachers and students create their yearbook together using this WYSIWYG software. It's all amazing, And then they hit publish and that exports a PDF document that gets printed. So the WYSIWYG part worked, but it couldn't export a PDF. So we had to, I think, recreate over a 100,000 pages, um, with like Photoshop and InDesign where we had to hire a team of designers, uh, on Upwork yet again. Um, to essentially like eyeball these pages and redesign them…

AI assessment note: “So that was probably one of the hardest things we've ever done.”

Q think like over those reasons, the two technical founders, honestly, Cliff, It's one where I might slip up on. Um, I do like to see a technical founder. I like to see someone, like, deeply rooted in, like, engineering and products, and I know Mel's obviously a product visionary, but it's not, like, technical, um, in the set, in that way. Why am I wrong, and why does it work?

A You're right. It's a huge risk, actually. You're right. Um, it is, it is an absolute huge risk, um, because if you don't have the right technical foundation of your business, um, then it's, it's like a house of cards. Um, we were incredibly lucky to bring on a third co-founder, Cam, um, Cam Adams, absolute legend, great human, um, great friend. Um, and he was at Google. Uh, and he wasn't quite technical, but we kind of, like, palmed him off as the technical co-founder, because he could write JavaScript, and he did write JavaScript. He built a lot of the first front ends in Canva, but, um, having him on board, like, we had a couple of, like, early commitments, but getting him on board really tipped the needle in regards to investors, and also allowed us to get on our CTO, who is also another amazing human, um, Dave Herndon, who's still with the company, and, and absolutely phenomenal, um, Uh, and, and, and really built the technical foundations that are still there today and we can build off.

AI assessment note: “You're right. It's a huge risk, actually... we were incredibly lucky to bring on”

Q How would you describe your leadership style today? You mentioned it changing over time there. How would you describe it today?

A Um, I think it was very much used to be lead by example and, and, and work hard and accomplish things and hopefully people would follow. I think now it's just like honesty and, and how it's changed is I used to just have high expectations of people and used to like bewilder me when, when people weren't good. Uh, and I used to think a lot of things like, this is just common sense. Well, why don't you get this? Um, but As I guess I've grown, um, you realize, like, really frank and transparent feedback and coaching, um, is really, really important. Sometimes people just don't know, and just being really transparent around, hey, you did this this way, have you thought about doing it this way, um, really helps people, um, and also understanding personality types. I'm, I'm pretty just straight up with things, um, and, and some people are more sensitive, so you need to adapt to The way you communicate to the people receiving that communication.

AI assessment note: “really frank and transparent feedback and coaching, um, is really, really important.”

Q How do you think about hiring internally versus bringing someone in?

A I love that. Yeah. I love hiring internally. I love, we love building talent. Um, our, my EA is now our head of people. Um, Zach, our CMO joined Canva, uh, as like Content writer, a contract content writer. He was like, 19 at the time. He's been with the company about 10 years now. He's now a CMO. Wouldn't change him for any of the best CMOs in the world. He's absolutely phenomenal. Same with Jenny, our head of people. World class. Absolutely world class. And these people didn't come from fancy tech companies. Um, but that being said, there are, like, great companies that have built great people, and so we definitely complement homegrown talent with really amazing people we bring into the business. So it's like, it's the yin and the yang. It's the art and the science. It's all about the vibe.

AI assessment note: “we definitely complement homegrown talent with really amazing people we bring into the business.”

Q take a little bit of a different turn, actually, away from the business, but, you know, with the incredible success of the business, one's financial profile changes. When you think about your relationship to money today, you've had many people answer this question on the show before, but it's one that I grapple with. Um, how would you describe your relationship to money, and how has it changed over time?

A I don't know. I've always felt rich, right? Like my favorite wine is what we call in Australia a goon bag. It's like boxed wine. It's, it costs like 10 dollars a box, and, and I know it's my favorite wine because the last blind wine testing thing we did, it had everything from like a 500 dollar bottle to, to this boxed wine, and like the blind wine test, tasting test was my favorite, the cheap one. Um, and so I've always felt like I've had abundance. We've, we've always, um, had enough money to travel. We've always had, like, Mel and I used to be carnies. We used to do airbrush tattoos at carnivals. Um, and, and, and we used to work our ass off and make enough money to go to India or Thailand for three months at a time or Africa. Um, and, and when, especially when you travel those companies, countries, not companies, you realize how lucky you are and, like, And so we've always felt like lucky and rich. Um, and I guess as the company's grown, I mean, we're all in on Canva. So it's not like we've cashed out tons and tons of money and all that kind of stuff. Like we're very long on Canva.

AI assessment note: “I don't know. I've always felt rich, right?”

Q It's a big jump to make. Were you nervous making the jump from yearbooks, even though very successful yearbooks, yearbooks to actually like a full kind of collaboration software suite eventually?

A Yeah. I mean, I think the thing with me is I just don't think too much. Uh, and I don't think pretty how hard things are going to be. And that naivety probably plays well because I'm just like, oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Um, let's go for it. Like, what do we need to do? Let's unpack this problem we need to solve. Okay. We need some money. Where do we get money from? Silicon Valley's got heaps of money. Let's go to Silicon Valley. And then we went to Silicon Valley. Uh, we spent over a year there, like back and forth, back and forth, still trying to run our other business. Um, and we got rejected over a hundred times by VCs before we finally convinced some people, uh, to invest in us, and that, that was a journey.

AI assessment note: “I think the thing with me is I just don't think too much.”

Q I, I told you before this, The recording that I just got rejected by someone, and you said something to me, what would you say to me again if I asked you, and what do you say to founders out there who see the rads on the sheet and look pretty demoralized?

A Well, Well, firstly, persistence pays off, right? Um, you need to have some semblance of a good idea, um, but persistence really, really pays off, and then what I was saying to you before the show was, well, we've learned after over, sort of, 15 years in business, and it feels like a lifetime Um, it's really a marathon, not a sprint, and the amount of times we've been rejected from candidates, and it's broken my heart, because you know, you know what it's like. You spend so much time investing, taking these people out, and you know how good they're going to be, and what impact they're going to be, have on the business, um, and getting rejected by those people really hurts. Um, but I've been in the game long enough now, where if you leave a nice taste in those people's mouths, like, and you always be the good human, and be the honest Honorable person and, and, and speak truths. People come back, and they remember you, and, and when they are ready for that, uh, career change, or, or when an opportunity does arise, they, they, they, they often come back, and, and so I really think about business as a really long game, and one of my biggest philosophies is just be honest, and, and if you say something, stick to your word. There's nothing I can't stand in business more than people that, Go against their word. If I, if I say something and make a commitment to something, then my word …

AI assessment note: “firstly, persistence pays off, right? Um, you need to have some semblance”

Q fuck it, we can do. Um, You know, I, I was not trained for this in any way, um, and respectfully, you didn't go to Stanford and the usual Silicon Valley, you know, graduation mechanism. You're a teacher. Were you insecure moving into this world, and did you, did you have imposter syndrome, and do you have imposter syndrome about kind of, like, not being trained in the classic mold?

A So short answer, yes, absolutely, um, and still have a very much to this day when we, when we meet sort of fancy people, um, One thing you realize, though, is saying, so I used to have it, like, tremendously, and it, and it was like, it was, sometimes it's crushing. Have you ever been in a room where And that's why, like, I would often go to some of these social events, like, have a couple of drinks, because, like, you'd need that social lubrication just to be able to function, because these people, you're dealing with people that have created billion-dollar businesses or venture capitalists, and they all seem so intelligent, and, um, I guess you don't think you're that smart, and, and, and it's, it's super, super intimidating, but what I've found is, as you get to know these people over time, They're, and this probably sounds conceited, but like, they're not that much smarter than you. And like, sure, they've got experience in a thing, and they sound really smart because they're talking about the thing they've spent 10 years doing. If you've spent 10 years doing something, you should sound smart talking about that thing. Um, and so, yeah, it's hugely intimidating going into a new world, a new industry, but um, yeah, I think you've got to start backing yourself. And this really, really hurt us in hiring, actually. Actually throughout the early years of Canva, because we used to…

AI assessment note: “So short answer, yes, absolutely, um, and still have a very much to this day”

Q probably kill me for this, when you unbundle, you get increased product quality in a lot of cases, the hyper-specialized. Yeah, where it's very detailed functionality, and you often can't have that in more bundled products. How do you think about that trade-off, and are you trying to take people away from the vertically specialized tools, or is it not that it's for the general populace who needs good enough?

A So we are, we hate good enough, like hate it. Good enough is not good enough. We aspire and, and are in many cases World-class across our key product areas. And we've built the entirety of Canva on the one unified platform. And so every doctype for us, and that comes with a bunch of benefits. When you use a video creation tool, a whiteboarding tool, a presentation tool, a social media graphic tool, whatever, you don't want to learn a whole new interface. You don't want to upload all your stuff to a whole new content library. You want the interoperability of designs. Um, and so we've built all of Canva off this one ecosystem and one graphics engine, so every doctype is built off the same interface, and it's very interoperable and easily understood. That also allows you to actually convert a presentation with one click into a video. It allows you to convert a doc into a presentation. It allows us to do all these crazy things that you can't do with these point and shoot, um, tools. Also, as sort of like, As, as, like, particularly going into this economic downturn, people are looking to aggregate their visual communication tools just from a pure simplicity and, like, jobs to be done perspective, but also a cost-cutting perspective. You shouldn't have to pay 20 dollars for this tool, and 20 dollars for this tool, and 30 dollars for this tool, when you can get Canva for essentially …

AI assessment note: “we hate good enough, like hate it. Good enough is not good enough.”

Q How do you think about hiring internally versus bringing someone in?

A I love that. Yeah. I love hiring internally. I love, we love building talent. Um, our, my EA is now our head of people. Um, Zach, our CMO joined Canva, uh, as like Content writer, a contract content writer. He was like, 19 at the time. He's been with the company about 10 years now. He's now a CMO. Wouldn't change him for any of the best CMOs in the world. He's absolutely phenomenal. Same with Jenny, our head of people. World class. Absolutely world class. And these people didn't come from fancy tech companies. Um, but that being said, there are, like, great companies that have built great people, and so we definitely complement homegrown talent with really amazing people we bring into the business. So it's like, it's the yin and the yang. It's the art and the science. It's all about the vibe.

AI assessment note: “we definitely complement homegrown talent with really amazing people we bring into the business”

Q Cliff, I look at Canva's journey and it doesn't look like there have been tough times. And I know there's always tough times in a business, but it kind of looks up and to the right. What was the toughest time that comes to mind?

A Oh, I've had a few. I'll tell you, the toughest time I've had recently was putting up this Christmas tree that I bought. Um, it was, it got the better of me. I'm, I'm, I'm terrible for not reading instructions, and, and I, I did it all wrong, just like Ikea furniture, and it took me about four hours to put up this Christmas tree. It was like, 11 p.m., and I, I nearly gave up, but I didn't. Um, the next biggest challenge in our business journey was we had our first version of Fusion Books, the school yearbook company, um, built in Australia, um, Um, by contractors, and that was becoming very expensive. We couldn't afford it anymore, so we outsourced it through Odesk, which is now Upwork at the time, to a team in India, and there's a lot of amazing development teams in India, but this wasn't one of them, um, and so we had about 400 schools on the platform at the time, and the whole concept of like, I guess, Canva for yearbooks is the teachers and students create their yearbook together using this WYSIWYG software. It's all amazing, And then they hit publish and that exports a PDF document that gets printed. So the WYSIWYG part worked, but it couldn't export a PDF. So we had to, I think, recreate over a 100,000 pages, um, with like Photoshop and InDesign where we had to hire a team of designers, uh, on Upwork yet again. Um, to essentially like eyeball these pages and redesign them…

AI assessment note: “So that was probably one of the hardest things we've ever done.”

Q spend on a personal trainer, because it makes me fitter and healthier, and I could never afford to. Before, now I can. But it's right to, I actually have someone who cooks my meals, and they're prepped, and so I can eat healthily without worrying about it, and it makes me better as a business person. Are there any things where you invest there that do actually make you better?

A We invest in experiences, um, and, and so, yeah, I've, I've recently got a personal trainer as well, because, yeah, we work a lot, and, and, ah, yeah, you often put off exercise, so having someone, ah, you're accountable to actually helps with that, but, um, no, we really invest in experiences. Some of the, the coolest things we've done in recent years is, like, we, we rode motorbikes across, um, Bhutan, um, Went, uh, what do you call it? Um, zip lining in Laos, uh, rode motorbikes again, dirt bikes, um, on the, the, the, the China-Vietnam border. So we, we just like, like to have experiential holidays, and, and, and that, that, that means a lot to us, and that's where we get the most of our joy.

AI assessment note: “I've recently got a personal trainer as well, because, yeah, we work a lot”

Q fuck it, we can do. Um, You know, I, I was not trained for this in any way, um, and respectfully, you didn't go to Stanford and the usual Silicon Valley, you know, graduation mechanism. You're a teacher. Were you insecure moving into this world, and did you, did you have imposter syndrome, and do you have imposter syndrome about kind of, like, not being trained in the classic mold?

A So short answer, yes, absolutely, um, and still have a very much to this day when we, when we meet sort of fancy people, um, One thing you realize, though, is saying, so I used to have it, like, tremendously, and it, and it was like, it was, sometimes it's crushing. Have you ever been in a room where And that's why, like, I would often go to some of these social events, like, have a couple of drinks, because, like, you'd need that social lubrication just to be able to function, because these people, you're dealing with people that have created billion-dollar businesses or venture capitalists, and they all seem so intelligent, and, um, I guess you don't think you're that smart, and, and, and it's, it's super, super intimidating, but what I've found is, as you get to know these people over time, They're, and this probably sounds conceited, but like, they're not that much smarter than you. And like, sure, they've got experience in a thing, and they sound really smart because they're talking about the thing they've spent 10 years doing. If you've spent 10 years doing something, you should sound smart talking about that thing. Um, and so, yeah, it's hugely intimidating going into a new world, a new industry, but um, yeah, I think you've got to start backing yourself. And this really, really hurt us in hiring, actually. Actually throughout the early years of Canva, because we used to…

AI assessment note: “So short answer, yes, absolutely, um, and still have a very much to this day”

Q take a little bit of a different turn, actually, away from the business, but, you know, with the incredible success of the business, one's financial profile changes. When you think about your relationship to money today, you've had many people answer this question on the show before, but it's one that I grapple with. Um, how would you describe your relationship to money, and how has it changed over time?

A I don't know. I've always felt rich, right? Like my favorite wine is what we call in Australia a goon bag. It's like boxed wine. It's, it costs like 10 dollars a box, and, and I know it's my favorite wine because the last blind wine testing thing we did, it had everything from like a 500 dollar bottle to, to this boxed wine, and like the blind wine test, tasting test was my favorite, the cheap one. Um, and so I've always felt like I've had abundance. We've, we've always, um, had enough money to travel. We've always had, like, Mel and I used to be carnies. We used to do airbrush tattoos at carnivals. Um, and, and, and we used to work our ass off and make enough money to go to India or Thailand for three months at a time or Africa. Um, and, and when, especially when you travel those companies, countries, not companies, you realize how lucky you are and, like, And so we've always felt like lucky and rich. Um, and I guess as the company's grown, I mean, we're all in on Canva. So it's not like we've cashed out tons and tons of money and all that kind of stuff. Like we're very long on Canva.

AI assessment note: “I've always felt like I've had abundance.”

Q I literally just got a message before this show, like, 10 minutes ago, from Doug Pepper, saying, ask him about kite surfing in Maui, and Bill Tai and the rest of us putting in money in the very early days. He didn't really explain. Kite surfing, Maui, fundraising? No.

A So that was our ticket into Silicon Valley, so, and it was really fortuitous. Bill Tai is a venture capitalist, uh, in the Bay Area. You should have him on the show. He's awesome guy. Um, but Mad King kite surfer and Perth being the most isolated city in the world is amazing for kite surfing. So I think he just like made an excuse to have a junket in Perth where he could kite surf and he called in a tech event and we had our fusion books company at the time. So we sort of rocked up and went in this pitch competition for fusion books. We lost We lost. Um, he rejected us as the winners in that competition, but, um, we got to know him over time, and then we got invited over to a conference in Maui, and that was, at the time, it was quite funny. So we were super, super green. I was listening to Tony Robbins at the time, and one of his sort of philosophies is, you are who you hang out with, and we didn't, couldn't afford to go to Maui, but I'm like, fuck it, this is, this is a huge opportunity. We're going all in with all our money from our Fusion Books bank account. We're going over there, And we stated, we got to stay in this house with some really cool people. I think they must've had someone pull out. That's why we got invited. Um, cause it was the very last minute. Um, and that's how we made a bunch of connections. And, and we were talking before the show started about just gri…

AI assessment note: “So that was our ticket into Silicon Valley, so, and it was really fortuitous.”

Q of the technical debt versus, um, you know, performance and new features. Uh, when you think about what you have ahead of you today, there are many different angles that you could go down that it's, it's kind of exciting, it's extremely exciting, but also quite a challenge. How do you think about product prioritization today when you look at the different avenues that you have in front of you?

A Two ways. Greatest good for the greatest number. Like, I always think through the product, I don't want to give away all that secret sauce here, but like, as a funnel, this is like super obvious. People sometimes love to pitch ideas and features, and like, my first question is like, how many people is going to, how many people are going to see this feature? Like, you can't build a feature nestled so deep in your UX that it's only going to be seen by sub-ten percent of your user base, so it's like, you need to think through I think there are a lot of things as funnels and like around product development. It's like, what is going to have the greatest good for the greatest number? And then the other product philosophy is like, sometimes a lot of the time, and this is like Mel's strengths, and I've learned this from her. People don't know what they don't know, right? It's the whole sort of Henry Ford. If you ask them people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Like you need to be looking at the future and understanding trends. And we're thinking 20 years into the future, not just two years into the future. And if you think how industries coalesce Um, over time and what that's going to mean to your business, it allows you to sort of be really strategic and, and, and make long-term bets as well as short-term bets. Um, and just like sort of how that applies now is, i…

AI assessment note: “Two ways. Greatest good for the greatest number.”

Q Oh, I hear, you know, we hear a lot about, hey, we're really investing in AI. What does that mean? I know it sounds stupid, but like, is it just hiring machine learning talent? Like, what does investing in AI mean for Canva?

A So for Canva, it's really, people come to Canva to create visual content, right? It might be a social media graphic. It's often a presentation. It could be a video. It could be whiteboarding and brainstorming, which we recently launched. Um, but that process, we made that process easy by allowing our customers to start with a template, right? So I want a template for podcast promotional social media posts. And we probably have that because we have over three million templates on the library. Um, And, and we would show them a template, and they could edit it. Now, you can write, well, this will be launching soon. Me, Harry Stabbings, I want us to create Harry Stabbings social media thing in a bright color with a happy vibe with me wearing a hat with a moon in the background. I'm, I'm giving you a really terrible example, but you can just tell the system whatever it wants, and it aggregates our Content libraries, it can auto-generate things, it can write copy for you, and it's the aggregation of all these AIs that are the real power embedded into people's workflows.

AI assessment note: “it's the aggregation of all these AIs that are the real power embedded”

Q Can I ask you, you said that before we started recording, what do you mean when you say it's a game?

A Um, Most things are just a game, really. Like, we're, we're fortunate. We live in Australia. We have a social safety net, so if you have no job, you can go on the dole and get enough money to live and eat and have a roof over your head, um, which is a great system, by the way, um, that many other countries should follow that can. And so, with business, we've just always treated it like a game, and it's a serious game. Like, I'm very, very competitive, so when I play a game, I play to win. I absolutely play to win. But at the end of the day, the business doesn't define me. I know I would be just as happy if I was a fisherman. Um, I actually think I'd love how it'd be my dream job is going out fishing every day. Um, or like I was in the construction industry before I started teaching and, and like, uh, I think I'd be happy out on site digging holes every day. Often I long to dig a hole and not have to think about things and manage people.

AI assessment note: “with business, we've just always treated it like a game, and it's a serious game.”

Q of the technical debt versus, um, you know, performance and new features. Uh, when you think about what you have ahead of you today, there are many different angles that you could go down that it's, it's kind of exciting, it's extremely exciting, but also quite a challenge. How do you think about product prioritization today when you look at the different avenues that you have in front of you?

A Two ways. Greatest good for the greatest number. Like, I always think through the product, I don't want to give away all that secret sauce here, but like, as a funnel, this is like super obvious. People sometimes love to pitch ideas and features, and like, my first question is like, how many people is going to, how many people are going to see this feature? Like, you can't build a feature nestled so deep in your UX that it's only going to be seen by sub-ten percent of your user base, so it's like, you need to think through I think there are a lot of things as funnels and like around product development. It's like, what is going to have the greatest good for the greatest number? And then the other product philosophy is like, sometimes a lot of the time, and this is like Mel's strengths, and I've learned this from her. People don't know what they don't know, right? It's the whole sort of Henry Ford. If you ask them people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Like you need to be looking at the future and understanding trends. And we're thinking 20 years into the future, not just two years into the future. And if you think how industries coalesce Um, over time and what that's going to mean to your business, it allows you to sort of be really strategic and, and, and make long-term bets as well as short-term bets. Um, and just like sort of how that applies now is, i…

AI assessment note: “Two ways. Greatest good for the greatest number.”

Q If you could add anyone to your board, who would you add? Dream add. Doesn't have to be, like, real.

A Oh, I think, probably Bob Iger. I love Bob Iger. Bob has a very values-first approach to business, and, and I think it really resonates. Like, what's best for the customer? What's best for the employees? What are we actually trying to do here? So he often relates Things to Disney and, and, and they're in the business of telling beautiful stories that engage people. And you can, and I think this is one thing that people get really distracted by. They focus on the art of running a company rather than the art of creating value. And, and like, and that's why people and a lot of founders lose sight of why their business exists. And often in tech, it's like you create a Product that solves a problem. Um, and people, especially as their business grow, they get caught up with internal politics, hiring the next big hire, blah, blah, blah. But like, what are your customers see? All your customer sees at the end of the day is your digital product. And if that product is not delightful and amazing, your business is going to go to shit. So I think that's a common misconception that people have and focus too much on their company and not enough on their actual product. And the value that they're creating for their customers.

AI assessment note: “Oh, I think, probably Bob Iger. I love Bob Iger.”

Q If you could add anyone to your board, who would you add? Dream add. Doesn't have to be, like, real.

A Oh, I think, probably Bob Iger. I love Bob Iger. Bob has a very values-first approach to business, and, and I think it really resonates. Like, what's best for the customer? What's best for the employees? What are we actually trying to do here? So he often relates Things to Disney and, and, and they're in the business of telling beautiful stories that engage people. And you can, and I think this is one thing that people get really distracted by. They focus on the art of running a company rather than the art of creating value. And, and like, and that's why people and a lot of founders lose sight of why their business exists. And often in tech, it's like you create a Product that solves a problem. Um, and people, especially as their business grow, they get caught up with internal politics, hiring the next big hire, blah, blah, blah. But like, what are your customers see? All your customer sees at the end of the day is your digital product. And if that product is not delightful and amazing, your business is going to go to shit. So I think that's a common misconception that people have and focus too much on their company and not enough on their actual product. And the value that they're creating for their customers.

AI assessment note: “Oh, I think, probably Bob Iger. I love Bob Iger.”

Q I, I told you before this, The recording that I just got rejected by someone, and you said something to me, what would you say to me again if I asked you, and what do you say to founders out there who see the rads on the sheet and look pretty demoralized?

A Well, Well, firstly, persistence pays off, right? Um, you need to have some semblance of a good idea, um, but persistence really, really pays off, and then what I was saying to you before the show was, well, we've learned after over, sort of, 15 years in business, and it feels like a lifetime Um, it's really a marathon, not a sprint, and the amount of times we've been rejected from candidates, and it's broken my heart, because you know, you know what it's like. You spend so much time investing, taking these people out, and you know how good they're going to be, and what impact they're going to be, have on the business, um, and getting rejected by those people really hurts. Um, but I've been in the game long enough now, where if you leave a nice taste in those people's mouths, like, and you always be the good human, and be the honest Honorable person and, and, and speak truths. People come back, and they remember you, and, and when they are ready for that, uh, career change, or, or when an opportunity does arise, they, they, they, they often come back, and, and so I really think about business as a really long game, and one of my biggest philosophies is just be honest, and, and if you say something, stick to your word. There's nothing I can't stand in business more than people that, Go against their word. If I, if I say something and make a commitment to something, then my word …

AI assessment note: “persistence pays off, right? Um, you need to have some semblance of a good idea”