Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Cameron Adams says coach-mark onboarding fails because users forget every step

Cameron Adams · How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO) · Aug 20, 2025 · at 19:08

Canva CPO Cameron Adams discusses UI onboarding strategies and why Canva replaced typical tooltips and coach marks with interactive tasks.

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“I think at the time, and still you get a lot of onboarding that is coach marks. It like points over here and says, Hey, you might want to do this thing. And you click through the steps at the end of it. You've totally forgotten every single step. And you're just left with a blank page again.”

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More from Cameron Adams

Disclosure
A lead investor attempted to halve Canva's valuation on signing day
“It was all rosy until the final day when they had to sign the long docs, everyone else had signed, everyone else had put in money. And this investor came back to us and said, you know what? We think we overvalued you. We think we can get better deal. How about…”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 1:00:48 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
Insight
Adams: Grassroots growth creates chaotic enterprise networks requiring centralized control
“Building community is all about getting individual users to love it and talk about it to other people. And that kind of growth doesn't quite work in an enterprise setting because you end up with a very disorganized and chaotic network graph inside an organizat…”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 56:13 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Canva's founders committed after two hours in person and two Skype calls
“I think we officially spent two hours in person, two separate Skype chats, and that was it. A few emails. We didn't have any working sessions.”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 6:42 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
Assertion Supported
Canva has grown to 230 million monthly active users
“Going from zero to two hundred and thirty million people that now use Canva every single month.”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 10:35 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
Disclosure
Canva rejected early investor pressure to launch an unpolished initial product
“Few investors asked us to ship a bit earlier than we would have. And we always said, no, we know what the product is. We know what we want to put out there as the first version.”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 24:07 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
Opinion
Adams: Serving a broad user base drove Canva's long-term success
“I think it's been one of the secrets to canvas success is that we have such a broad user base and our vision just encompasses. So many possible things you can do and people that can use it in different ways.”
Cameron Adams Aug 20, 2025 ▶ 25:17 How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-founder & CPO)
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