Narrator
0:00
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Guy Raz
4:30
Okay, so for today's show, we're going to run one of our favorite episodes from the archives. It's a story of Melanie Perkins, the founder of the design platform Canva. And right at the top of the show, you'll hear me say that the company is valued at a billion dollars. Well, Canva is now valued at six billion dollars. Okay, onto the show.
Weren't any of the investors saying, 'You don't have a tech team. You don't have a chief technology officer. Like, I don't know if I'm going to put my...' That's just... Yeah.
Melanie Perkins
5:03
That was literally what everyone was saying.
Guy Raz
5:04
Which makes sense, right?
Melanie Perkins
5:06
Yeah, it makes perfect sense, but how are we going to get this thing rolling?
Guy Raz
5:09
How many people do you think you pitched over that, I guess, two-month period in San Francisco?
Melanie Perkins
5:14
I don't know. Over 100 people, more. I was going through my rejections the other day. I was looking at some of the emails, and there was quite a damn few.
Guy Raz
5:29
From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how a college student named Melanie Perkins turned her passion for making better yearbooks into the design platform Canva, now valued at over a billion dollars.
So, there's a story that I think a lot of people have, and the details might be different, but it's basically a version of this. There was this one time you had a very clever business idea. Maybe it was an idea for a super useful product or a service that would make your life way easier. Mine was actually the one-cup coffee maker. I swear that was my idea, but like most people, I didn't do it. And if you're like me, you didn't have the time to work on it or the money, or maybe it just seemed too overwhelming to get started. But, the way the story always ends is that a couple of months later, maybe a couple of years later, you're shopping at a store or you're surfing the web, and there it is. I can remember the very day I saw the one-cup coffee maker at Target. Someone took my exact idea and made it happen. Now, does this story sound familiar? Because every business starts out as an idea. But, to turn an idea into a reality, you have to get started, even if it means starting out small. You have to plant the seeds for a business to grow before someone else does. And Melanie Perkins, as you will hear, she did have a big idea. She wanted to transform the entire desktop publishing industry when she was just 19 years old. But, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the scale of her idea, Melanie got to work. She started out small by focusing first on one little piece of the idea that she thought she could make work, which happened to be an online tool to design and publish school yearbooks. Melanie grew up in Perth in Western Australia. Her mom was a teacher and her dad was an engineer. And when Melanie went to university to study communications, this was in the mid-2000s, she started using graphic design and publishing software, programs like Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Publisher, and she was frustrated that the programs were so clunky and so difficult to learn.
Melanie Perkins
8:02
And it seemed completely silly that you'd take there so many instruction manuals and so many steps through the most basic of things. Students would take a whole semester just learning where the buttons were, not learn how to design something. It seemed very apparent that this whole desktop-based thing would be completely archaic and outdated in the future. And so I had this very oversized vision for taking on all of these different industries from, you know, Microsoft Office and lots and lots of other industries as well. We thought rather than people using things like clip art, they should be able to have access to beautiful templates like designers do. But at that point in time, I was 19 and I had no business experience. And so rather than trying to take on the entire world of design and all these really big companies, we decided to take on school yearbooks in Australia.
Guy Raz
8:43
You keep saying we. Who? When you say we, who are you talking about?
Melanie Perkins
8:46
My boyfriend turned co-founder, Cliff.
Guy Raz
8:49
And you're still together 12, 11, 12 years later? So, you decided to start like a web-based business that would help people design yearbooks. How did you come upon the idea of yearbooks?
Melanie Perkins
9:03
Well, we had the vision for taking on the entire world of design, but yearbooks seemed to be like a really pressing need because school teachers would get thrown in to do this thing that had no design experience. I'd seen my mom put together school yearbooks for her school. And it's a huge grind. All of a sudden these people with no design experience were expected to create something to look professional. And so we realized that it'd be a really easy thing to do because there's such a strong market need for these people to create yearbooks.
Guy Raz
9:31
So, how do you go from having that idea to actually like what was your next step? Because it was you and Cliff, and he was also 19?
Melanie Perkins
9:38
I was 20.
Guy Raz
9:39
20. By the way, what was it called?
Melanie Perkins
9:41
Fusion Books.
Guy Raz
9:42
Fusion Books. So, were either of you guys like coders or software engineers? I mean, you were...
Melanie Perkins
9:47
Not at all. We just went and interviewed every software development company in Perth. And most people told us that we were completely mad.
Guy Raz
9:53
But how did you even have the money to pay them?
Melanie Perkins
9:57
We got a 50 grand loan from friends and family, which was awesome. And then we got 5 grand back from JST, which is like our tax thing. So, that was our marketing budget.
Guy Raz
10:05
You went around to friends and family and said, 'We have this amazing idea. We want to develop a web-based software solution for people designing yearbooks.' Which is a great idea.
Melanie Perkins
10:15
That's exactly right.
Guy Raz
10:18
So, you and Cliff have a little bit of cash, and you go around to software developers in Perth. Who did you eventually find?
Melanie Perkins
10:27
There was this amazing company called In-Depth, and I went in with like an 80-page description of exactly what we wanted to build. Like, I had wireframes built up, even though I didn't know what that was.
Guy Raz
10:38
Like, you sketched out pictures of what the pages would look like?
Melanie Perkins
10:40
Yeah, to the detail what every single button was going to do, how it was going to work. Like, this project we ended up being like five times bigger than they anticipated, but they were very kind and just like we'd had a fixed price contract.
Guy Raz
10:53
And what was going to make this better than anything else available at the time?
Melanie Perkins
10:58
Well, I think that there was just nothing much available other than these desktop-based programs. So, rather than have everyone having to send emails back and forth and collect all those files, I wanted it just to be collaborative and online and really simple.
Guy Raz
11:11
Because at that time, if you wanted to make a yearbook page, you would just go on Microsoft Word or...
Melanie Perkins
11:17
Yeah, Microsoft Word or Publisher. And then also, it wasn't just that part. You then have to go and get your stock photos or stock illustrations to actually make it look really good. And so, there would be so many different things that you'd have to piece together to create something really, really hacky.
Guy Raz
11:33
And then you would like email that page to somebody and say, 'Hey, what do you think?' And they say, 'Ah, no.' And then but you wanted something more like Google Docs where everybody could kind of jump in and make changes.
Melanie Perkins
11:41
That's correct.
Guy Raz
11:45
So you go to the software company in Perth. And how long did it take for them to build out the software for you?
Melanie Perkins
11:51
I think it was about 6 months before we had our first iteration and then immediately started on our second iteration.
Guy Raz
11:56
And do you remember what year this was?
Melanie Perkins
11:58
That was 2008.
Guy Raz
11:59
2008. So you just put it up there. On the one hand, yearbooks seem like a really niche market, right? Because it's, you know, one time a year when someone's using it. But on the other hand, every school does a yearbook, right? So it actually is a surprising that there was nothing really out there to make it easy.
Melanie Perkins
12:17
Yeah, absolutely. And on the plus side as well, because a yearbook actually has to get printed, that was how we were able to monetize. So we were able to give the software away for free and then actually sell the physical yearbooks.
Guy Raz
12:28
So the idea would be that somebody would go on there, design their yearbook, hit submit, and then you guys would take that and then print it. And you would make money off of the actual printing costs.
Melanie Perkins
12:39
Yeah.
Guy Raz
12:40
So what happened?
Melanie Perkins
12:42
Well, we got 16 schools in our first year, which we're very excited about. And then we ended up getting printing presses in my mom's living room.
Guy Raz
12:51
How did you get printing presses?
Melanie Perkins
12:56
So 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 and they kind of believed that we had like a newspaper article in Perth and they obviously saw that.
Guy Raz
13:09
Oh, there was an article about you guys and they saw it and they thought, 'Oh, we'll help out.'
Melanie Perkins
13:12
And they thought that they'd help out and we'd become a big printing press company one day. And so they gave us a printer after we ended up with a couple of them actually. And so we would have a printing press going for 24 hours for 3 months a year. And it would just be printing out these yearbooks, and then we'd go to a binding place, and they'd actually do the finishing and the binding.
Guy Raz
13:32
Did any of these schools know that you guys were like 19, 20 years old?
Melanie Perkins
13:37
I don't imagine so.
Guy Raz
13:42
So, within your first year, do you remember what kind of revenue you did?
Melanie Perkins
13:48
The first year revenue would have been very modest, but it was enough to be able to afford to do more marketing the next year. So, we just reinvested our profits every year into the next year. And very fortunately, we had to become profitable quite quickly, because otherwise we'd have no company immediately. So, the first year we had 16 schools, the second year we had 50 schools, the next year we had 100 schools, and then it was like yeah, I think it was 300. So, it was growing quite rapidly.
Guy Raz
14:14
How did you start to think about building this into something bigger? Because by 2010, you know, you're 2 years in, and I can imagine you can start to see this thing has legs.
Melanie Perkins
14:28
Yeah, so actually the original idea of taking on the whole world of design and making it easy for everyone was actually planted right from the start, and then we narrowed it down to yearbooks. But, we kept looking around, and people would be like, 'Oh, can we use this to design our canteen menus and our newsletters and our school flyers?' We're like, 'Surely there must be more technology available now that does that.' And there certainly wasn't. But, then in 2010, I met Bill Tai, who was a Silicon Valley investor over from here. And he was just talking about all these companies and startups, and like when I first heard him speak, it sounded like a window to a whole new world.
Guy Raz
15:04
You met him in Perth?
Melanie Perkins
15:06
Perth. What was he doing there? He was speaking at a conference.
Guy Raz
15:09
This is in 2010.
Melanie Perkins
15:10
Yeah. So, like even though we'd sort of had a company that we'd been growing, but the only thing that we knew at that point in time was that we were a small business that really struggled to get a loan from the banks, we didn't have a credit history, and there was this whole world of startups that were taking on big industries. So, I went up to him after a speech and someone there kindly introduced me and said, 'Hey, she's got a cool company.' And he said, 'Yeah, if I went to San Francisco, he'd be happy to meet.'
Guy Raz
15:39
And you said, 'Oh, okay, great.' And you just like took his number?
Melanie Perkins
15:43
Yeah, I did. And an email and stuff. That's exactly right. And so, as soon as I met him, I realized that that was the next level and that if I could do anything we possibly could to get there. It was this...
Guy Raz
15:54
So, you just emailed him and said, 'Can we talk?'
Melanie Perkins
15:57
Well, yeah, I kind of was like, 'Hey, I'm going to be in Silicon Valley. I'm just going to be in the area. Want to catch up?'
Guy Raz
16:04
Did you really have plans at that point or you just thought, 'Let's see what he says'?
Melanie Perkins
16:07
I was like, 'If I just say that I'm going to be there and he says that he'll meet up with me, then I'll go.'
Melanie Perkins
16:14
And so, could not have been more over the moon that he actually even responded to my message.
Guy Raz
16:18
Sure, come see me.
Melanie Perkins
16:19
Yeah, I was just completely dumbfounded.
Guy Raz
16:22
Wow. So, you presumably you could go and book your ticket to San Francisco.
Melanie Perkins
16:28
Yeah.
Guy Raz
16:28
And how long were you planning on going out for?
Melanie Perkins
16:32
I planned on coming out for 2 weeks. My brother was living here and I thought I'd come and visit him and I'd go and have this meeting that I was absolutely afraid of is an understatement. And so, in between the time that he said that he'd meet with me and coming here, I put together my business plan. The future of publishing was what I titled it. And it had a picture of us beating Microsoft Office and Adobe and Google Docs and a whole bunch of other companies. So, we met on University Ave in Palo Alto at a cafe and he said we'll go for lunch. So, I brought my physically printed pitch deck, which I also didn't realize was so uncool.
Guy Raz
17:15
You're supposed to put it on like a computer, right?
Melanie Perkins
17:18
That's right.
Guy Raz
17:19
Preferably a Mac, like a sleek Mac.
Melanie Perkins
17:21
I totally didn't know this at the time. I was sitting there like I had my paper pitch deck and he was like, 'Do you have an iPad?' And I'm like, 'No.' And then I was like trying to flip the pages in my deck and explain about the future of publishing and how we're going to take on all these big companies and trying to eat my lunch.
Guy Raz
17:38
And he was there wrapped like engaged?
Melanie Perkins
17:41
No, he was on his phone the whole time. It was so awkward. I felt like the biggest flop. And but very fortunately when I went home yeah I had an email from him and he said if I could find a tech team he'd be happy to invest.
Melanie Perkins
17:54
Yeah, so he'd actually been messaging a lot of different people and introducing me to them.
Guy Raz
18:00
Wow, during the meeting? So he was actually on the phone messaging other people?
Melanie Perkins
18:04
Yeah, so the next meeting I had was with Lars Rasmussen who co-founded Google Maps. And meeting him completely blew my mind because I really didn't know it sounds so bizarre but I had no idea that people that made big world-changing companies were just regular and nice and hard-working normal people. And meeting Lars completely changed my perception of what was possible.
Guy Raz
18:27
And did he when he met you he said, 'Hey, there's something here.'
Melanie Perkins
18:31
Yeah, we ended up having an incredible conversation for hours. We both had a really similar view of what the future of communication and publishing should be like.
Guy Raz
18:39
What was he saying?
Melanie Perkins
18:40
So there was a few philosophies. 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 marketing materials and some of those things being online and some of them being desktop based that all of these industries would come together and be in one page and then be accessible to the world. It seemed crazy that you'd have to use so many different tools and go and learn a different thing for everything you wanted to create.
Guy Raz
19:10
So you meet this guy Lars and you say to him, 'Hey, Bill says he's going to back me if I find a tech team. Can you help me?' Is that what you said to Lars?
Melanie Perkins
19:20
Yeah, that's exactly right. And Lars said he'd be happy to be an advisor. But what that ended up entailing was him rejecting everyone for a full year.
Guy Raz
19:30
Wait, why did Lars have to approve of the tech team? Was that Bill's condition or...
Melanie Perkins
19:35
Yeah, that was Bill's condition. He said, 'Oh, I trust Lars. If Lars gives the thumbs up to your tech team, I'll fund you.'
Guy Raz
19:41
That's exactly right. So, you are in San Francisco for the next 3 months.
Melanie Perkins
19:46
Until my visa expired.
Guy Raz
19:48
Okay, so if your visa is correct, 3-month visa is a tourist visa. And where are you like working out of? What are you...
Melanie Perkins
19:53
So, I was sleeping on my brother's like, he had a one-bedroom apartment, and I was sleeping in his living room floor. And I was working in at Nordstrom, the shopping center.
Guy Raz
20:03
Yeah, with the Westfield shopping center, yeah.
Melanie Perkins
20:04
An amazing co-working space. I don't know why more people don't take this up. It's free.
Guy Raz
20:09
There's Wi-Fi?
Melanie Perkins
20:11
That's exactly right. Nordstrom's in the Westfield shopping center in San Francisco, okay. And so, I would go in there, and I'd work. And between that, I'd be going to every single conference that I could. Like anything, any meeting anyone would take.
Guy Raz
20:25
With people, whoever would listen?
Melanie Perkins
20:26
Yeah. Like literally, even on the bus, I'd be pitching people trying to get them to join my tech team.
Guy Raz
20:31
And are you just naturally kind of gregarious and outgoing? Was it easy for you to just show up like you would just go up to people and say, 'Hi, I'm Melanie. Can I tell you about my company?' Is that what you would do?
Melanie Perkins
20:41
So, I'm actually naturally really introverted. But when I have a goal, I do everything I can to get there. And so, yeah, I'd be getting up and like if people would let me do a 1-minute pitch at a conference, I would get up, and I'd be doing that 1-minute pitch, and probably...
Guy Raz
20:54
Heartbeat in racing?
Melanie Perkins
20:55
Absolutely. Completely terrified, but I just keep on pushing myself because I wanted this to happen.
Guy Raz
21:02
Your partner and boyfriend, Cliff, he was still at work, right? Because presumably for those 3 months, he was working on Fusion, the yearbook company.
Melanie Perkins
21:09
Yeah.
Guy Raz
21:10
And how was it doing?
Melanie Perkins
21:12
It was doing well. It was growing. It had like he moved out from my mom's house to Intrafest office. Yeah, it was interesting time because we knew that there was this big amazing opportunity over here, but it was really hard to make progress with. And then on the other side was Fusion, and that was a sure thing growing every month, every year. It felt like I had been over in Silicon Valley achieving nothing while I'd left him with all the hard work. Pretty much summed it up.
Guy Raz
21:38
So, 3 months through your year for 3 months, was it exciting? Were you encouraged? Did you feel like this is moving forward?
Melanie Perkins
21:47
I think every day I felt like I'd make a little progress. But by the end of the 3 months, I didn't have a tech team, and I left feeling like the biggest failure.
Melanie Perkins
21:57
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 nothing. I'd learned a lot, but I hadn't actually achieved anything. So, I went when I was going back to Perth on the flight, I wrote a list of the things that I'd achieved, and one of them was like staying alive, which is a little grim. But it was a thing.
Melanie Perkins
22:22
But then yeah, then moved the company from Perth to Sydney and came back for round two.
Guy Raz
22:31
Coming up in just a moment, why Melanie's next step in her search for investors was learning how to kitesurf. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.
