Mar 1, 2021 · 41m · how-i-built-this
Canva: Melanie Perkins (2019)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of NPR's How I Built This, Guy Raz interviews Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins about her journey from bootstrapping a school yearbook company in Australia to building a multi-billion-dollar graphic design platform. Through relentless perseverance, iterative pitching, and a dedication to democratizing design, Perkins overcame hundreds of investor rejections to disrupt the software industry.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 39.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.1 Guest teaching 1.6 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 34:01 Disputing the smooth launch narrative
When Raz suggests Canva experienced an unrealistically flawless launch without disasters, Perkins counters by recounting the devastating embargo leak that panned the product on day one.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 24:04 Host roleplaying investor skepticismRaz steps into the role of a skeptical Bay Area venture capitalist, directly challenging Perkins with the argument that Microsoft or Google would instantly copy and crush them.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 24:22 Historical analysis of publishing erasPerkins dismantles the threat of incumbent tech giants by walking through the historical evolution of publishing eras to demonstrate that market leaders never successfully transition between technical paradigms.
Guy holds their own ▶ 32:53 Drilling into the freemium economicsRaz rigorously tests Perkins's business model, questioning how Canva could sustain profitability without advertising when users can design and download high-resolution assets for free.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guy Raz on Ideas and Starting Small | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz sets up the narrative framework around starting small before Perkins explains her early realization that desktop design software was needlessly clunky. | |
| Identifying the Yearbook Market and Securing Initial Seed Funds | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks exploratory questions about how Fusion Books was conceived and funded with modest family loans and software wireframes. | |
| Bootstrapping Growth and Mom's Living Room Print Shop | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Perkins details bootstrapping through physical printing partnerships with Fuji Xerox in her mother's living room while Raz follows the rapid school growth. | |
| Silicon Valley Ambitions and Meeting Bill Tai | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Perkins describes the pivotal moment hearing Bill Tai speak in Perth and taking the initiative to secure an invitation to Silicon Valley. | |
| The Palo Alto Lunch Pitch and Contacting Lars Rasmussen | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Perkins recounts the awkward lunch pitch with paper slides while Bill Tai texted on his phone, which surprisingly resulted in an introduction to Lars Rasmussen. | |
| Connecting with Lars Rasmussen and the Technical Team Mandate | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Perkins discusses working out of a San Francisco department store and facing constant technical recruitment rejections under Rasmussen's strict standards. | |
| Mid-Episode Break: The Kite Surfing Connection | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Raz summarizes the Mai Tai kite surfing connection and Perkins describes preparing an impromptu late-night pitch in Maui that led to early investor interest. | |
| Refining the Pitch Deck Through Endless Rejections | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Raz notes the logical investor skepticism regarding the absence of a technical co-founder while Perkins explains how each rejection helped refine the deck. | |
| Answering Incumbent Threats and Retaining Australian Roots | 3 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Raz roleplays an aggressive VC warning that tech giants would crush them, prompting Perkins to present her historical framework showing incumbent leaders never survive paradigm shifts. | |
| Recruiting Google Engineers and the Bizarre Pitch Deck | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Perkins explains recruiting Dave Hearnden using a custom Facebook photo deck and shifting fundraising strategy to asking for advice rather than direct checks. | |
| Product Development, User Onboarding, and Managing Pressure | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Perkins discusses rejecting standard lean startup dogma to spend a full year perfecting onboarding starter challenges, while Raz highlights the psychological weight of managing investor capital. | |
| Public Launch and Establishing the Freemium Business Model | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Raz clarifies the exact monetization and export rules of the freemium model, surprised that high-resolution exporting is completely free without watermarks. | |
| Launch Night Embargo Breach and Overcoming Early Criticism | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Raz prompts Perkins for launch disasters; she recounts an embargo breach with a scathing review, and reflects on developing an empathetic management style as an introverted CEO. | |
| Community Impact and Democratic Design Stories | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Perkins reflects on meaningful user impact stories and frames her success as planting enough seeds to let probabilistic luck operate, guided by a beginner's fearlessness. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Perkins believed desktop-based graphic design software was destined to become archaic
“It seemed very apparent that this whole desktop-based thing would be completely archaic and outdated in the future.”
Perkins and Obrecht initially targeted Australian school yearbooks before broader design
“Rather than trying to take on the entire world of design, all these really big companies, we decided to take on school yearbooks in Australia.”
Perkins started Fusion Books with a $50K family loan and tax refund
“We got a 50 grand loan from friends and family, which was awesome, and then we got five grand back from GST, which is like our tax thing. So that was our marketing budget.”
Fuji Xerox provided Fusion Books with free printers in exchange for ink
“Fuji Xerox had this really cool deal where they said that they'd give us the printer for free if we paid for the ink and cartridges”
Perkins bluffed about a Silicon Valley trip to secure a VC meeting
“I kind of was like, hey, I'm gonna be in Silicon Valley just gonna be in the area, wanna catch up... I was like, if I just say that I'm going to be there, and he says that he'll meet up, well then I'll go.”
VC Bill Tai offered to back Canva if Perkins found technical cofounders
“And, but very fortunately, when I went home, I had an email from him, and he said if I could find a tech team, he'd be happy to invest.”
Perkins predicted publishing and design tools would converge into one online platform
“One of them was that over time, industries would converge. So rather than having the print industry being over here, having to use different software to create a website, and different software to create a presentation, and different software to create marketi…”
Advisor Lars Rasmussen rejected every Canva technical candidate for a full year
“Lars said he'd be happy to be an advisor but what that ended up entailing was him rejecting everyone for a full year.”
Perkins' first three-month San Francisco trip yielded zero tech hires or investors
“By the end of the three months I didn't have a tech team, and I left feeling like the biggest failure. Because I had not landed a tech team, which meant that I hadn't landed investors, which meant that all I'd done, in my view at that point in time, was like, …”
Perkins: Early-stage VCs will not commit until they see others commit first
“Further talking more about this and waiting to see who else is going to invest before we invest is, was the general feeling. So you had to get enough people who are interested to invest before anyone would invest.”
Perkins received over a hundred investor rejections during Canva's early fundraising
“That year period, it would, over a hundred people, more. I didn't count, but I was going through my rejections the other day, I was looking at some of the emails, and there was quite a damn few.”
Perkins placed answers to the hardest investor objections at the deck's front
“Every time we got a really hard question, that would go right to the front of the pitch deck. So the hardest questions were answered right at the front.”
Perkins pitched VCs that no publishing incumbent survives new technological eras
“And what you'll see, dear investor, is that no industry player has actually ever been able to go from one industry to the next and actually still maintain being the market leader. And so every single time there was a new era, a new market leader emerged.”
The Australian government matched Canva's venture capital dollar-for-dollar up to $2M
“And then the government in Australia had this matching funding thing where they would match every dollar that we got from investors up to two million.”
Perkins recruited Canva's CTO with a pitch deck of his Facebook photos
“What I did was I went To his Facebook page, and I took lots of the photos from his Facebook page, and I put together a pitch deck and said why it would be such an amazing adventure to come and join and recreate the future of publishing and change the face of t…”
Perkins: Asking VCs for advice rather than money prevents immediate rejections
“So we had a bit of a strategy where rather than asking if people wanted to invest, we'd ask people for their advice, and you can go back and you can say, hey, do you want to give me some advice? I'd love to show you my pitch deck, and then they'd give us some …”
Canva closed a $1.6M seed round paired with a $1.4M government grant
“So we want to raise 1.5. I think we left San Francisco and we'd raised seven 50. But then over the coming months, we ended up filling out that round of about 1.6. I think it got to, we're totally oversubscribed. And then the Australian government gave us 1.4.”
Canva amassed a 50,000-person waiting list before its 2013 public launch
“Well, we're fortunate that because we had some high-profile investors in that first round when we landed that first round of investment, we made, we announced it we got some TechCrunch coverage, and we were pretty stoked about that, and we ended up with a wait…”
A publication broke Canva's launch embargo with a scathing product review
“An article came out, and they, their article said that we had a not very good product, and that we had cheesy photography, and that it wasn't very easy to use, and I felt at that point in time, like, the last, I don't know, six years of my life was crushed.”
Perkins says knowing the startup hardships in advance would have been intimidating
“I think one of the wonderful things about this whole experience is that I didn't know a lot going into it, and I think that learning every single day as you go has actually been one of the most critical parts, because I think if I knew all of the lessons that …”