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Uncensored CMO
Canva CMO on the marketing strategies that built Australia’s largest private company - Zach Kitschke
00:40:33
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- [00:00]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored cmo. And one of the biggest success stories on the planet right now is Canva, who have absolutely taken the design world by storm by making everyone able to turn into a designer themselves. Now, their cmo, Zach, was employee number five and he's been on this wild journey with Canva over the last 12 years to turn them into a huge international brand with over 260 million users worldwide. It's an incredible success story and I was really excited to catch up with Zach and find out what the secret to their success has been, how they've scaled and how they've used marketing to do it. This is a fascinating episode. There's a lot in here. You'll love it. Zach from Canva, welcome to the show.
- [00:45]
B
Thank you. Good to be here.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah, great to have you, mate. And Canva's been on this wild journey, hasn't it, over the last, what, 12, 13 years? And am I right in saying you were actually employee number five back in the day? How did it all come about for you?
- [00:59]
B
That's right, yeah. I started a few months before we launched the product back in 2013, so it's been a fun ride and an adventure. But yeah, I got introduced to Mel and Cliff, two of the co founders, a few months before they were ready to launch the product. And at that point I was working as a journalist, actually covering tech and the sort of emerging startup scene in Sydney, and they were starting to think about their funding announcement and then launch strategy. So I had a sort of meeting with them and they weren't really kind of looking at that point. They said I had a product team, a few engineers, but came away super inspired from that sort of first meeting. So I sent them some thoughts on how I could help from a comms point of view. And so they said, why don't you come in and do some contracting and haven't left. Sort of almost 13 years later now.
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A
I mean, what a while, journey. I think I read your interview with the Drum where you sort of said, I came to write a press release and then didn't leave.
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B
That's right.
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A
Now you're sitting CMO of a multi billion kind of valuation company. I mean, so much has changed in that time. What was it? So what was it like in the early days? I'm fascinated. When you were a challenger, you know, you're starting out small team. How did you get the brand noticed in the. In the early stages?
- [02:10]
B
Yeah, I think we early on had obviously the incredible vision that we're still building towards today. And I think that was definitely the thing that inspired me to want to join. Talking to Mel, Cliff and Cam in those early days, they were dead set that they wanted to completely transform the world of design and empower anyone that had an idea to bring it to life. And I guess at that point the kind of status quo was you either had the choice of powerful professional tools that took years to learn, were very, very complex to use, or kind of simple desktop publishing, but you couldn't really create anything that was kind of compelling or impactful. And so, I mean that vis has always been there the whole time. But I think what really helped us in the early days was actually just the power of a good story. And I think that was what really excited me. Coming in. Canva didn't exist. There was no brand, there was no products. But that pitch really carried us through. And so Mel and Cliff and Cam were able to assemble really a world class pool of investors which at that point in time was sort of unheard of for an Australian tech company. They closed at that point the largest seed funding round that had ever been done in Australia. So it's $3 million seed round. Incredible investors like Lars Rasmussen who co founded Google Maps, and Ken Goldman who was the CFO at Yahoo@ the time. And so that was kind of the first introduction and kind of raised the question like, wow, what is this company doing that all of these people wanted to invest? And then of course we came out and launched sort of a year after they'd started building this design platform and sort of put our stake in the ground about what Canva's going to become.
- [03:51]
A
That's incredible. Where do you rank in terms of like Australian businesses now? You know, you talk about the most well funded, but like, where are you now in terms of the ranks?
- [03:59]
B
I think depending on how you look at it, the most valuable private company in Australia and probably the most valuable tech company out of Sydney. But you know, we really focus on kind of the upside and all that's ahead. I think today, as of Today, we've got 260 million people using the platform around the world. You know, we're profitable from a revenue point of view, but really see the opportunity is literally every Internet user around the world has that need to sort of communicate and express themselves visually. And we're making good strides there, but have a long way to go.
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A
That's incredible. That's like the entire population of the U.S. yeah, isn't it?
- [04:35]
B
Yeah, that's wild. Australia's I think about 25 million people or something. So it was a pretty big milestone when we surpassed that. Yeah, yeah. It's a little hard to kind of fathom the numbers today.
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A
I mean, looking back, what were the biggest challenges to get to where you are today? Because, I mean, that doesn't happen by accident. I mean, that's an incredible story as a unicorn is kind of rare by definition. What have been the big challenges along the way that you've had to get over?
- [04:58]
B
There's been so many, and I think that's always the interesting thing. Looking back on a journey like Canva, from the outside, the chart looks up and to the right, but actually every step along the way, you're really fighting to find that next growth lever. And so in the early days, we had a kind of big, splashy moment with launch. I think we had about 50,000 people that had sort of registered on our waiting list before the product came out. We launched, and there was definitely a lot of love for the product, but then kind of the press quietness down and same thing on social. And I think in those early days, it was really about trying to find what's that next growth lever. And so I think we were really, really fortunate to identify organic growth and SEO as a real sort of unlock and lever in those early days. And so that sort of came in and complemented obviously the product user experience, but really finding that when people were actually creating, if we could truly understand that the goals that they had through search, we could actually create content. And so if someone's creating a presentation, they're probably trying to get a business plan over the line or close a client, or if on the personal side they're trying to organize a party, they're going to be on Google searching for the theme or whatever it might be. So we created this incredible library of content that we were then able to rank for on SEO. And I think that really connected. You know, this is sort of even deeper sense of how do we build a product that people needed. So it was like one really big inflection point, I'd say one of the other inflection points early on was really unlocking International as an opportunity. And I think, you know, it was a couple years into the journey. We were only in English at that point in time. And, you know, I identified at the start of that year that International was going to be the big unlock. So we invested, I think, set out to localized into 100 languages in 12 months, which seemed wild at the time, but really set the trajectory for today. And so that sort of compounded. We've got 190 different countries using Canva in 100 languages. Some of our biggest markets are Brazil, India, Mexico here in the UK and so on. And so I think that localization and sort of focus on international is compounded. And so, you know, I think it's always been about trying to find what's the next growth lever that can come
- [07:27]
A
down for us and going back to the original kind of idea of like, I guess, you know, if I put my experience in, you know, you either doing it yourself on PowerPoint or you got a huge Apple and some very expensive software and so on, and there's this gap in the middle. You identified what do you. What is what makes a good design? Because you must have spent a lot of time thinking about what makes design good. So what makes, you know, what would make a good design?
- [07:49]
B
Well, I think the reason people come to Canva is to achieve a goal that they have. And that's really the fundamental starting point. Often the thing that drives a goal forward is the effectiveness of your communication. And so I think that's really the crux of what's fueled Canva's growth to date. That we've helped more people be more effective at visual communication. And so that can mean a piece of advertising that is more effective. It can mean a presentation that lands the message more clearly. It can mean a piece of video content. And so I think that's really the power of great design when it is really, really effective at communicating. And I think over the years, we have focused more on how do we extend to capture more of that process of achieving a goal. And so more recently, we've sort of extended beyond just the content creation piece to workflows and how do we close the loop. A few months back, we launched what we've called the Canva Creative Operating System. And so I think that really articulates what we're trying to do today. Really good example of that is product Canva Grow that we've launched, where we for the first time are connecting your performance data on your ad platforms to the creative insight, to content generation, and actually being able to close that loop of what you create in Canva. How does that perform out there in the real world? And how do you take those insights back and learn from that? And so I think that's essentially what Canva's doing.
- [09:24]
A
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I love about it as well is you make things easy. You make it easy to be a good designer. I mean, most people would love to be A good designer, wouldn't they? But they don't know how. But you make that step easy. And the other thing you do as well, which I think for anyone who doesn't work in tech, this seems completely insane. But you give a lot of it away for free. And I know whenever you talk to somebody, you go, you're going to spend millions of pounds building this incredible software that allows you to do amazing things and you give it away for free. What's the kind of business model that goes behind that idea? I mean, people call it freemium, don't they? The idea of giving something away. What's the thinking behind that?
- [09:56]
B
I think it goes fundamentally to the core of our DNA and our mission. I think there's been such an intention with Canva that we wanted to empower the world to design and to express themselves. And so that meant democratizing creativity in a way that no matter where you lived in the world, your income, your background, you too should have access to the tools. And so that was a big shift away from expensive box software that was sort of limited to very few. And so it was kind of core to our DNA, I think, to open it up. And yes, we have an incredibly generous free product, you know, hundreds of millions of people using that and that helps us to achieve our mission in the world. But it's also become our best marketing, like word of mouth, fuels so much of our growth. And you know, over time, if people love Canva, they get more and more value out of it. We can unlock other ways for them, you know, to access more and sort of monetize in different ways. And we've done that through premium parts of the product like Canva Pro or our enterprise version now for organizations. And so it's been really, really effective in that way, I guess in terms of that mission. We also give away our product for free to nonprofits, to education, so have donated billions of dollars of product in that sense. And I guess at the core is this sort of purpose that the grounds canvass. So we have what we talk about as our simple two step plan. And step one is to really build hopefully one of the world's most valuable companies in the years to come. But step two is to do the most good that we can. And so that really underpins, I guess, how we think about everything that we do. We're incredibly fortunate that we have founders that live and breathe, that Mel and Cliff have committed to give away the vast majority of their wealth, 30% of Canva's value to doing good as well. And so that shows up in so many ways beyond the good that we're able to do through the product as well.
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A
That's incredible. I didn't know. That's incredible. What is it being given away to
- [12:08]
B
do a range of things. One of the big areas that we've been focusing on is a goal that I think is incredibly near and dear to so many of the team's hearts and that's trying to end extreme poverty. And so we have partnered with an organization called GiveDirectly to invest in direct cash transfers in Malawi as sort of a pilot project. We've committed over $100 million to that. And that's really been super interesting. And I think we've found that when you actually give cash, it can totally uplift and transform a society. And putting that kind of empowerment and autonomy in the hands of people that really need it. You see them make decisions that are right for themselves, for their family, for their community. And so we're sort of, I think it's probably year three or four of that now and we're seeing people pay for a roof over their head, textbooks for their kids, investment for small business, buying things that can really sustain them. So we're doing a lot of research and that's a big focus, which is incredibly exciting.
- [13:17]
A
Yeah, that's very cool. Very cool. Well done you. And long may it continue. In terms of your success, that's brilliant. In terms of marketing as well, how do you, I mean there's some debates everyone has in marketing like product versus brand. Where do you invest your money in terms of like product marketing or brand marketing? And how do you get that balance right?
- [13:34]
B
I think for us, we are a product driven company at the core. We can only grow when we invest in an amazing product experience that really delights our community. And so I think marketing has a really important role in helping to connect that with the needs of our community. But it's really, really important that it starts with products. For us, I guess we have a very long term orientation, as I'm sure you can get a sense for, from these lofty goals of empowering the whole world to design and step one and step two. But I think that has been great as a marketer at Canva because we always optimize for the long term over the short term and so have really invested in things that will compound over time. We talked about SEO and organic or product or international, but that goes for our marketing as well. We're really trying to build a brand that will endure. I think the best Marketing is where you get the mix working really, really well together. And so I don't think it's an either or thing. But yeah, having that long term orientation really guides the decisions that we make.
- [14:43]
A
You did a campaign of the summer that really made me smile. I think everyone listening to this is exactly going to be there, but based on making the logo bigger, which must be the bane of every designer's life. You know, everyone wants to make the logo bigger. But yeah, describe that campaign and how that did.
- [14:58]
B
Yeah, we had some real fun. We did a sort of out of home execution here in the UK and it was really about those, you know, little things that frustrate every kind of creative. And so we did, we did a takeover at Waterloo Station. They were kind of custom billboards. But yeah, the one you're referencing, you know, is that line that every agency or designer hates of like, can you make the logo bigger? And so we did a billboard where the logo spills over the top of the billboard. There was another one where we did a kind of canva whiteboard brainstorm of what the billboard should be. Another favorite was when 16 by 9 should have been 9 by 16. And the format completely off the.
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A
Oh, completely the other way around.
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B
So I think a really fun and just sort of cheeky way to bring that to life. But yeah, people really loved that.
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A
Yeah, that is very funny. Actually did some research earlier in the year with TikTok looking at kind of what makes campaigns memorable and it was really interesting. Interesting actually because the logo actually is one of the least important parts. Right, but we all obsess about it because that's the ip, isn't it? It's our thing. But, but in the research we found, you know, things like having a strap line or a jingle music actually was really important. So a jingle or a sonic device or characters associated with your brand, all these things signal who you are or maybe your product is being used kind of in, in the ad rather than having to sort of put the logo on it. But we ended up, you know, you don't, don't just put a logo on it. Was the, you know, the kind of report we wrote. There are so many other ways to be creative and interesting without.
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B
You should be shrink the logo. I don't know.
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A
Exactly. Exactly. Indeed. So and then how do you approach kind of B2B marketing as well? Because obviously, you know, you've scaled up massively and presumably got a lot of B2B customers now as well as B2C. How does that differ?
- [16:44]
B
So I guess we really want to empower everyone to use Canva and so start there. We now have obviously incredible kind of consumer business and over the last few years, really invested in the B2B space. But I think the way that we've seen our opportunity in B2B is if we can solve for the individual pain points and challenges, people will adopt the product and then we can build kind of enterprise solutions around that. And that's sort of exactly what's happened for us. We now used within, I think it's 95% of the Fortune 500. And you'll often have a conversation with a CMO or a CEO and they might not even be aware that their team's using Canva. But, you know, you look at the
- [17:32]
A
data, I found this out as well, by the way.
- [17:35]
B
Yeah, it's kind of.
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A
Oh, that presentation you sent me is Canva.
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B
That's why it looks so good. Yeah, there's often, you know, thousands, if not tens of thousands of people that are using Canva. And so that's been a real driver for us to then go in and sort of solve for some of the enterprise pain points. Because you've already got this user base that knows and loves Canva. And so we sort of thought about it from the product point of view, you know, with enterprise, we launched our enterprise version a couple years ago. When you've got all of these people using Canva, then from an enterprise point of view, you can actually really easily unlock things like brand consistency. So being able to set up your brand guidelines in a truly connected way to where people are creating. So that brand system, being able to create templates, being able to kind of lock things down, manage security and sort of content IP and things like that. And so that kind of interplay between the two and where we've got the harmonies really fueled both of those things. And at the end of the day, I think we're telling it's the same story, but with slightly different kind of windows into that for the different audiences.
- [18:43]
A
Your marketing must be working, actually, because When I watched YouTube this morning, I got a Canva Pro Ado and I was thinking, damn, that's pretty good. I reckon it's because yesterday I was googling lots of stuff to prep the conversation.
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B
Right.
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A
So I reckon it was probably due to that, but it's very, very impressive. Now we must talk about AI, of course. Right? Everyone has to talk about AI. But what kind of magical things is AI enabling, enabling you to do now? I mean, one of the small ones I notice is like changing the Background to something, you know, something that is a real irritation. When you used to get a logo and think, oh, it's annoying because I can't separate from the background and I'm going to put it in presentation and it's going to look all awkward, you know. But what are the kind of magical things that AI now enables us to,
- [19:23]
B
that couldn't do before so much. It's like such an exciting time, I think, to be in this space, I think as a marketing team, have a real front row seat. And one of the things I love most about being a marketing at Canva is that we're often customer zero for a lot of the products that we build for our community. When it comes to AI, we have really had a philosophy that people are coming to Canva to achieve a goal and do a job. And so it's not about AI for AI's sake. It's about finding those moments in the workflow where it can be a real accelerant. And so that's really fueled, I guess, our philosophy with Canva AI and we've really focused on that. And the way that that can look is when you're starting a design, being able to start with the prompt and we'll generate beautiful templates that are there ready to edit. Right. In Canva, the ability to generate video or imagery or kind of text workflow things. One of my favorites that was born out of one of our own internal use cases is the ability to, we call it Magic Translate, but go from your campaign in English to 100 languages in a click. And so obviously a huge unlock for teams like ours that are operating in many markets. But there are all sort of examples of that that focus on how do we just accelerate the workflow and sort of help people get from A to B quicker than before.
- [20:42]
A
Yeah, because a massive workflow productivity advantage. And then I think the trap everyone falls into with AI is just focusing on that and not focus on how it enables you to be more creative. And I think that's the opportunity with AI, isn't it? To do things you couldn't do before and to imagine video or print in a way that you just couldn't do on a small budget previously.
- [21:00]
B
Totally. Yeah. And I think it's also about how do you sort of extend that workflow? And that was a big element of Canva grow. How do you actually take this data and insight that you've got on platform with the kind of creation tool to help people make better ads, but at the core is actually really freeing up people to be more creative and really focus on that and taking out the stuff that chews up a lot of time around that.
- [21:29]
A
All right? All right. Sorry to interrupt this conversation. I promise you it's for a good cause. So I've just put a rather large deposit down on a very big venue in central London called the Outernet that can hold 400 people. It's an amazing venue. Now we're going to be doing the very first uncensored cmo, the Calling. Now, what is the Calling? The Calling is your opportunity to join us live and be inspired by the world's best founders, the most inspirational CMOs, and the best thought leaders. This is one day that will completely transform your career. I promise it will be well worth it. I'm so excited to be doing this. And if you want to find out more details, please go to the Show Notes and check it out. And I really look forward to seeing you there. It's on the 21st of April. Do not miss it. Now, back to the show. Now, I noticed you got awarded Business Insider Most Innovative cmo, which I think was fantastic. What are the most innovative things that you've done in your time at Canva?
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B
I mean, I think the things that I'm most proud of for Canva is really that we've managed to scale a brand that feels truly local around the world and really has kind of community at its core. I spoke earlier about word of mouth being such a critical unlock for us, and really that's a reflection of this amazing, incredibly passionate community that we've built all around the world. And so we really do think a lot about how we create experiences. One thing I'm super proud of, recently we did a very, very ambitious thing in October called the Canva World Tour. And so with all of these communities around the world, we often sort of communicating with them from afar, but thought, what if we take Canva actually to where all of our community are around the world? So in the space of a month, we set out to put on 250 events all around the world in one month. Yeah, 40 different cities, from office takeovers in our campuses to design school workshops, community meetups. And it was really the goal to train a million people in design and sort of share skills. And that all culminated with a major keynote moment in Sydney where we launched some of our latest products. And that was such an incredible experience of connecting our internal teams, the community around the world, and really launching some of those big new products in a way that made a real splash, but felt truly Canva and Sort of connected. Connected us around.
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A
A million people were involved in.
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B
A million people were trained in the end. Yeah, yeah.
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A
It touched on a really important. I think the thing that you've got, right, is being really useful, right, because obviously you're helping people to design better, aren't you, in that case? And then they're obviously going to use, you know, use Canva and talk about it with more people. So it's kind of win win, isn't it?
- [24:22]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, people, one of the events in Brazil, an event called Sabrai, we had this, you know, big kind of workshop area for a few hundred people, but it was, like, packed. There was lines for like two or three hours. People try and get in. I think some of our team were wearing, you know, Canva T shirts and people were trying to, like, get swag from them. And we even had. I think there was, you know, four or five people that literally had a Canva tattoo, like a real Canva tattoo that they showed us, a little rubber ducky, which is sort of a bit of a mascot for us. And so, yeah, there's such a fandom that I think is really, really special.
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A
Yeah. You mentioned culminating the keynote. I'm surprised you and I haven't ended up on the same stage to now. But we're regularly at the same events, aren't we? And you deliver some amazing keynotes. What would be your top tips for landing a brilliant keynote, both in terms of delivery, but also some of the amazing graphics that you bring with it?
- [25:18]
B
For us, we've tried to throw out the playbook over the years. We've done all sorts of crazy things. A few years ago, we sort of went viral for. We did a rap battle when we launched CANV Enterprise between a kind of CIO and sort of a designer on stage. You know, we've done. Recently, we sort of treated it more as like a television broadcast, was almost like a variety show sort of meets late night. And so that was really, really fun. But I think the power of the unexpected and really thinking about how do we create experience that people actually want to watch and tune into has really been the underpinning, you know, and it's colorful, it's musical, it's surprising. And I think that creates content that people want to watch.
- [26:05]
A
Yeah, that's spotless. Be surprising, be entertaining and be remembered kind of thing is the key, isn't it? Because you're right, there's a template to a keynote speech, isn't there, that I think everyone wants to be Steve Jobs. Basically, don't they? So, you know, and then everyone looks the same. Whereas I think you guys stand out a lot by doing things like that.
- [26:19]
B
I think the other thing too, and I'm sure you find it with the podcast, is you have the main event, which, you know, the podcast or the keynote, but actually the afterlife is all about social and how things kind of get clipped and atomized today. And so, you know, creating content that has those moments throughout is super important now too.
- [26:39]
A
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, what's wonderful about a podcast is you get like 45 minutes to an hour of long form conversation, which is beautiful. And then within that you're looking for the kind of the little sound bite or the three points, you know, the three ways in which I can deliver a keynote speech. Exactly. And thinking. And this is a classic with a keynote, isn't it? Because you might have a thousand people in the audience, but you've got to be thinking, the 100,000 people that might see it afterwards, like, what's the message for them as well.
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B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [27:02]
A
Makes a ton of sense. Congratulations, by the way, on the Forbes Most Influential CMO Award as well this year, which is great. Nice to get these little moments, isn't it?
- [27:11]
B
Yeah, it's always nice. Recognition for what we're doing as a team.
- [27:15]
A
I'm always curious about that one. Like, what makes an influential cmo? What's.
- [27:19]
B
I don't know. Good question.
- [27:21]
A
I keep asking Seth this. So what? Define influence, you know, But. But what, what, what's your advice to kind of other CMOs in terms of. Particularly in. I mean, the unique position you're in is like on a. Literally on a rocket ship, you know, in 13 years, going from, as I say, a few people, you know, to, you know, thousands around the world. And like, you got a big team now. There's over 5,000 people, I think, now, isn't there?
- [27:43]
B
Yeah, five. 5,000 people at Canva, which is huge.
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A
So what's the secret to being an effective CMO when you're growing that quickly and managing that number of people?
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B
I'm not sure I'm necessarily in a position to give advice to anyone else other than. I think there's definitely some reflections on what's been important at Canva. I think first and foremost is actually really deeply understanding the company and the mission. Every company is different and probably requires something different of their marketing team and cmo. But I think for me, having that real depth of understanding of the vision and mission, having worked so closely with the founders over the years, know where we're going, you know, as men have been able to kind of flex into different areas. I think curiosity is really important too. Being able to look at what's coming down the line or a new area that you need to learn and sort of build the skills quickly for the next horizon, you know, storytelling. I think at the core a lot of what we do is connect a story for an external audience and also the internal team. And the story that people hold in their minds about a company or a product or a brand really drives so much. So there are a few things that I would sort of call out. I heard someone sort of gave me a good little anecdote the other day of being a journalist and a therapist. And I feel like maybe that's sometimes a good notion too.
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A
I like that.
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B
The power of. At the end of the day, it's a people game. We're constantly trying to learn and connect those two things.
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A
I always think people forget how much marketers have to market marketing. You know, it sounds like a bit of a mouthful, but like, we spend so much time going, how are we going to convince, you know, our audience to do something? And then we've also got to do that internally, haven't we, in terms of how do you bring an organization along on the journey? And so I know in my career I've been guilty of doing great marketing externally and I've forgotten that I need to tell everyone what we're doing and. And that sort of thing. I'm so obsessed with the customer. So I think that matters as well, doesn't it?
- [29:43]
B
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And it's really about boiling it down in a simple enough way that everyone can kind of anchor what you're doing to the value that it drives.
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A
One of the things I think is fascinating in your role, you're CMO now, but you've run customer service, you've run the people team. That's quite an unusual thing for a marketer to be so involved in the very sort of people operational side of the business. What did that teach you that helps you become a better marketer?
- [30:10]
B
I think for me, people and marketing are really two sides of the same coin. It's really the inside and outside of our brand. I think it's sort of interesting. You'd be surprised how many commonalities there are with HR and marketing. I think when I was running the people function, I really came in and had a look at the opportunities at that point were having. Hundreds of people were joining Canva at that point. In time. And so one of the things that was most important was actually the onboarding experience. How do we bring people in, get them equipped and sort of impactful? And really took a very similar sort of example to how you'd think about lifecycle marketing. What's the email that you want to send when someone downloads the product? And then how do you help them through the trigger points? And so we mapped that emotional journey and sort of looked at how we could create an onboarding experience, training little moments of surprise and delight. You know, people got a balloon put on their chair for their first weeks. Everyone around the office would know that they were new and go say hello. And so at the end of the day, you're crafting experiences and a story for people. But I feel like the thing that sort of helped adapt from role to role is, I guess, that kind of beginner's mindset. It's like you might go into an area and not be the most experienced, but if you can quickly learn, connect the dots, you know, approach things with. With that humility, people are really happy to help and share. And, you know, I think that can help also uncover blind spots that maybe you'd miss, you know, if you hadn't had some of those other experiences. Yeah.
- [31:52]
A
Now, your founders sound like pretty incredible people. I mean, I'm very inspired to hear the commitment to charity. What have you learned from the founders in the over your journey as well?
- [32:00]
B
Firstly, the power of a clear vision. I think they constantly are raising the bar of where we need to go, and that's one of the most important things that they do for the team. For me, for all of our leads internally, it's like, great, we got to where we are. That's really good. But what's next? And I think that is something that we need to keep doing every single year if we're to realize the goal that we want to achieve. I think they've always really built a product with a view to how do we empower the world? And have been incredibly intentional about the product experience. But I think they've been equally as attentive to how do we create a kind of company that we want to. How do we create a company that can be an example for a different kind of business? Which I think is incredibly inspiring as well. And then the last thing I'd say, particularly Mel, is just an incredibly effective communicator, visual communicator. And so seeing the power of visual communication internally and how it drives our culture, I think everyone at Canva becomes very, very Proficient at communicating in decks and designs, and that's such a powerful skill.
- [33:15]
A
I'm really short here, actually, because I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.
- [33:19]
B
Yeah, I know. You'd be concerned if it was the opposite, wouldn't you?
- [33:23]
A
The standard must be so hard.
- [33:24]
B
We actually do a design kind of boot camp when people start, so we do some hands.
- [33:29]
A
Oh, do you? Oh, that's good. That's good. So everyone gets a bit of training in how to do great magic. Brilliant. And how would you describe the culture, out of interest? Because culture's a tough thing, isn't it? Because when there's only a few of you, like you talk about being employee number five, it's easy to define the culture. Right. Because it's what exists between you. 5000 is a completely different challenge. So how would you describe the culture today? And is it the same as it was when you started?
- [33:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the core elements are the same. The challenging thing is how do you express that and ensure that the core tenants are held onto when you're not in every room? And so I think along the way, we've really had to codify elements of that. One has been, obviously, our values are really important and woven through everything that we do. And I think early on we sort of sat there and really articulated them, but they're incredibly important. Also codifying what great looks like at Canva. Early on, we did sort of an identification process of the skills and traits that really embodied the most successful people at Canva and turned that into a set. There's 12 skills that we have. They kind of fall under a couple areas. Strategy, being able to identify where to go and sort of push things along. And we've got your craft. So that core kind of capability, whether it's engineering or marketing, we've got leadership and sort of coaching, and then we've got communication. And so we've seen those four elements are super important for everyone and we've really codified those skills. Our onboarding experience, our growth and impact, sort of performance reviews, everything is tied to those. And so I think it's about finding those pieces that are really important and sort of building the system around those. And we're constantly needing to kind of codify those different elements and figure out how to scale them. But if you asked anyone at Canva, they'd know those things.
- [35:25]
A
Because you always have to work really hard at stuff, I find. Because coming up with them is the easy bit, isn't it? And everyone violently agrees, but actually, like you say to get to a point where everybody can recite it and everyone knows it. That's the really hard bit, isn't it?
- [35:37]
B
It's effectively internal marketing, isn't it? It is, yeah.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah, it's exactly that, yeah. Now, one thing that strikes me from this conversation is the level of ambition and the vision of where you're going. So given you've got the effective population of America using already around the world, what happens next? What's next on the journey?
- [35:54]
B
We are really setting our sights on empowering the whole world to design. I think the North Star that we're working towards at the moment is a billion people using Canva every month in the years to come. And I think what's really exciting is that that equates to. To 1 in 5 Internet users around the world using Canva. And we've actually hit that now. So the Philippines, our first market, you know, one in five Internet users using Canva every single month. I think, you know, it's sort of 1 in 7 in parts of Europe. And so we're really getting up there across the board. But as we focus, you know, into next year, it's really about how do we make sure investing in all of our key markets in a way that's truly local. But yeah, that's the North Star for the moment.
- [36:38]
A
Amazing. Amazing. Now, probably a bit of an unfair question to end on, but I was thinking, like, honestly, the story is incredible, Amazing journey. What you've achieved together is just phenomenal and you must be in the top tiny, tiny little percent of companies that have done what you've done. If you could pick one thing that contributes to why Canva has been so successful, what would you put it down to?
- [36:58]
B
I think it is empathy at the end of the day, and I think think that it's an empathy for our community and that guides the products that we built and that's been there from the early days. We've been able to operationalize that at scale. One of the things that I really love is we have this program that we call Close the Loop Internally, and we get over a million wishes from our community every year. Feature requests, things they'd love to see in the products. And we've really operationalized how we take those wishes, prioritize them and then build products and let our community know. And so a lot of what we just launched on stage recently, from affinity to the new video experience to Canva grow, was actually all born from real wishes from our community. And being able to go back to our community and Say, hey, you wish for that thing might have been a year ago, 18 months ago. We literally send them an email or reach out to them and people just, their jaw hits the floor that we've actually listened and sort of shipped that. But that deep empathy for our community I think is really what fuels the product. And when we're really successful internally, you know, that's what continues to shape our culture too. That's empathy for the team's experience.
- [38:13]
A
That's so fascinating, Joe. I have so many conversations with successful founders and high growth businesses and that's probably the common thing actually, right? I mean Brewdog founder James, who I worked for for a short period of time, talked to him. He used to have like 3,000 of their, he called them equity for punks. These were basically kind of drinkers that also invested in the company and he had like 3,000 of them in a private chat and he would just go, do you like this beer or that?
- [38:37]
B
What do you think about this?
- [38:38]
A
You know? Yeah, exactly. And literally the business was run based on those 3000 elf cosmetics. Similar one Corey there, she talks about, you know, reducing the distance between you and your customer to zero. You know what I mean? And that she does. TikTok lives all the time. Thousands of people check in and then that's, you know, so basically maintain. Because as most companies grow and become more corporate, they create this big distance between them and the customer and they no longer able to make good decisions. But I love how you've done a million wishes as well. Yeah, that's a million like desires for what Canva could be.
- [39:09]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then we take them, we categorize and we really unpack what's behind them and then we, we build what people want.
- [39:16]
A
That's amazing. And in a way, like what better market research than listening to what your customer wants and giving it back to. Amazing. I love that. I'm going to, I'm going to check that out actually because I think there's a, there's something in that from the, as I say, grouping together all the different founder conversations I've had and going. How do you maintain that closeness to customer as you scale? Yeah, it's almost the number one kind of key challenge, isn't it? Awesome, mate. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom experience and yeah, good luck and keep it going.
- [39:42]
B
Thank you. Good thing.
- [39:43]
A
Nice one. Cheers man. Thank you. So I hope you enjoyed that episode of Uncensored CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter. So if you'd like to get my thoughts on the One Thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the One Thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast just launched, Uncensored Renegades with the fabulous Corey Marchisoto. She is one of the world's best CMOS. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fit exit. So check out that it's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades. And finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast, it would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.