Lenny’s Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Episode: The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins

Host: Lenny Rachitsky
Guest: Melanie Perkins, CEO and Co-Founder of Canva
Date: November 2, 2025

Overview

In this insightful episode, Melanie Perkins shares her unique journey building Canva into a $42B global powerhouse. The conversation dives deep into her "column B" thinking, overcoming relentless rejection, how crazy big goals and operational vision shape Canva’s culture and product, and her ambition to use Canva's success to do the most good in the world. If you want to understand real startup grit, visionary thinking, and authentic mission-driven leadership, this episode is a goldmine.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of "Column B" Thinking and Building Big Visions

• Column B philosophy: Melanie distinguishes between two types of planning—building from present limitations (column A) vs. starting from an ideal future (column B) and working backward.

  • “Most planning is often done by looking at the bricks and trying to stack them. ... The column B thinking is thinking about what is that magical, wonderful future that you then want to invest years and decades of your life actually building.” (05:35)
  • Real example: Without industry experience or resources, she always worked from what the future "should be," not what was possible at hand (07:07).

• Operationalizing big visions:

  • Start by imagining the exact future you want (10-30 years out).
  • Write it down; break it down into steps ("ladder to the moon").
  • Take small, iterative steps, even if they feel “microscopic.”
  • “It feels a little embarrassing to be like, I want a future..., and then to take such a microscopic step.” (10:23)

• Chaos to Clarity:

  • Projects begin with “chaos”—vague ideas and uncertainty.
  • The process is to continually add clarity (deck, prototype, user tests) until a vision becomes real and sharable.
  • “The very first step at the very far end of chaos, it’s very embarrassing ... you don't have mastery at that point. ... But you just have the idea that you think would be cool.” (13:48)

2. Crazy Big Goals as Values, not Just Slogans

• Canva’s mission and approach to goal-setting:

  • Setting “empower the world to design” as a crazy big goal, supporting it with annual subgoals (“mission pillars”) like “every device,” “every language,” etc.
  • “Every year we're just launching more and more things to fulfill that part of the mission... you can see how these big amorphous things that seem very outlandish, you can then just will into existence after continual investment for a decade.” (16:53–18:19)

• Balancing goal ambition and morale:

  • They consistently achieve crazy goals; the timeline is what's unpredictable.
  • “The time frame that we achieve them on has not always been reliable ... but over five years, they've really been coming into reality.” (18:51)

• Celebrating milestones:

  • Memorable, creative team celebrations for hitting big goals (e.g., smashing plates, La Tomatina festival).
  • “If you’re just trying to plod to the top of the mountain always and you never take a moment to pat yourself on the back, it can feel a little arduous.” (20:18)

3. Setbacks and Perseverance

• Early investor rejection:

  • Over 100 investors said no; feedback was iterative fuel.
  • “Their feedback made us stronger and made our pitch deck stronger. It was sort of like from that chaos to clarity ... through copious amounts of rejection, the pitch deck got stronger and more refined.” (27:06)

• Product obstacles:

  • Two-year codebase rewrite delayed any new features—a dark tunnel for a product-driven team.
  • Made this process tangible and communal with fun (bath toy progress board) and resilience.
  • “It was not a fun period ... Two years of a product company not shipping product. It's not really a recipe for fun.” (24:50–25:17)

4. Authentic Leadership and Company Culture

• Emphasis on authentic, “Canva-native” processes, not just importing from other companies.
  • “Trying to find things that are authentic to us and … a constant work in progress ... Each stage of scale ... needs to be reinvented, reimagined.” (31:10–33:39)
  • Doing things differently included the mission-pillar-goal structure, closing feedback loops, and meaningful philanthropic initiatives (see below).

5. Closing the Feedback Loop with Users

• Deep integration of user feedback into product pipeline:

  • Over 1 million user requests per year, compiled/triaged by team.
  • “So many things from gradient text, to really big things like our sheets product ... have come from community requests.” (38:16)
  • 2200+ “loops closed” (features shipped) in the current year alone.

• Extensive user testing culture:

  • Running and personally observing hundreds of user tests—online, honest, and iterative.

6. Canva’s Two-Step Plan: Value Creation + Purpose

• Explicit company master plan:
  1. Build one of the world's most valuable companies.
  2. Do the most good with that value.
• 1% Pledge (equity, profit, time, product).
• 30% of Canva allocated to philanthropic efforts (e.g., $50M to GiveDirectly).
• Mission to provide basic human needs and quality education via both cash and free products (e.g., Canva for Education/nonprofits).
• “For me, getting really rich is not a goal unto itself whatsoever. ... It gives so much more meaning behind work.” (43:53)

7. Product Expansion, AI, and Future Focus

• Product launch strategy:

  • Take “empower everyone to design anything” literally; relentless incremental expansion (spreadsheets, docs, whiteboards, video, soon email/forms/3D printing).
  • “... literally design anything, to literally publish anywhere ... just picking off what is most strategically important ... over a decade.” (48:31–49:40)

• AI deeply embedded:

  • “AI is just kind of like naturally a very critical part of that equation for us. ... we were trying to do AI before AI was actually a thing.” (52:38–53:57)
  • All AI features must be tangibly helpful in the user’s workflow.

• Personal and product use of AI:

  • Melanie uses AI for ideation (“AI walks”—voice dump → summary), brainstorming in Canva docs, tag @Canva for ideas.
    • “Another really fun thing I do is an AI walk... I say everything on my mind and I use that to figure out what I need to action...” (54:11)

8. Sustainability and Balance as a Leader

• At scale, overwork is unsustainable:
  • “In the early days, I would just work seven days a week ... But when you've been doing this for a while, if you just keep working at that pace, I don't think it's good for anyone's health.” (36:06)
  • Developed habits: no Slack/email on phone, clear boundaries, focused work/rest.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Most planning is done by stacking the bricks you have. With column B thinking, you ask: What would be the most magical, wonderful future? And then work backward.”
  • Melanie Perkins (05:35)
• “The thing that I love about a crazy big goal is that you feel completely inadequate before it. You want to work really hard to will it into existence.”
  • Melanie Perkins (15:08)
• “Celebrating your goals is a deeply under-loved way to build a company. ... The magic is when your mission and where people spend their time are actually the same thing.”
  • Melanie Perkins (34:47–35:47)
• “For me, getting really rich is not a goal unto itself whatsoever. It’s a means to an end ... It gives so much more meaning behind work.”
  • Melanie Perkins (43:53)
• “Everything good was once imagined. ... If you don’t imagine it, you can’t will it into existence.”
  • Melanie Perkins (62:27)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction of "column B" philosophy: 05:35–07:07
• How to operationalize big visionary thinking: 08:16–11:48
• Chaos to clarity and 'ugly babies': 12:04–14:50
• Crazy Big Goals as a value and practical mission pillar breakdown: 15:08–18:32
• Balancing ambition and realism: 18:51–20:18
• Company celebrations for milestones: 20:18–21:43
• The brutal two-year product stall: 24:50–25:17
• 100+ investor rejections and pitch refinement: 27:06–28:50
• Personal resilience during fundraising: 29:48–31:10
• Giving away hats and authentic scaling: 31:10–33:39
• Closing the loop/product development from user feedback: 38:16–40:03
• Two-step plan/philanthropy: 40:50–45:06
• Major new product launch (AI, email, 3D, etc.): 45:24–49:40
• Canva’s approach to competition (wedge, users): 50:38–52:04
• Integrating AI into product & Melanie’s use of AI: 52:38–55:19
• Vision board for 2050 – dreaming at scale: 55:31–59:17
• Books, tools, and lightning round: 60:25–63:56

Additional Insights

Leadership Growth

• “You have to learn to give away hats to other people and allow them to do it better than you.” (32:36)

Balancing Work and Wellbeing

• “When I shut my laptop, I actually tune out. If there’s a real issue, I’ll get a call or a page. ... When I'm working, I'm all in, and then when I'm not, I'm all out.” (37:15)

On Purpose

• “I wouldn’t do Canva if it wasn’t going to have a positive impact on the world.” (43:53)
• “One of the quotes I love: Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” (62:27)

Takeaways for Listeners

• Start with the world you want to live in, not with your constraints.
• Turn feedback—especially hard feedback—into refinement, not discouragement.
• Operationalize your vision into annual ‘crazy big goals,’ and celebrate incremental progress.
• Build authenticity and integrity into your products, leadership, and mission.
• Close the loop with user feedback, and iterate frequently.
• Let big business outcomes fuel genuine good in the world (“two-step plan”).
• Recognize the importance of rest, boundaries, and wellbeing at scale.

Where to Find Melanie & How to Help

• LinkedIn: Best place to reach Melanie Perkins.
• Canva Feedback: Share your wishes for Canva—“we literally listen to them.”
• Be Useful: Use/teach/spread Canva, attend Canva events, and consider the 1% Pledge for your own company.
  • “Every decision that you make—for investors, every company that you fund—is that contributing to the world you want to live in?” (64:12)