Melanie Perkins is a college dropout who is now possibly the youngest CEO of a billion-dollar startup.
Perkins, now 30, first came up with the idea for Canva in college when she was writing up long instruction manuals on how to use Adobe and knew there had to be a better way for folks to design, especially in a visually-focused world. Soon she was in San Francisco pitching to top investors like venture capitalist Bill Tai and one of the co-founders of Google Maps.
Now, seven years after its first inception, Canva has achieved ‘unicorn status’ – meaning it’s reached a value of $1 billion.
Along with co-founders Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, Perkins created Canva to make design accessible and inclusive for everyone, not just the folks who have the bones to hire a design agency.
“Our goal is to enable the whole world to design,” she says. Now folks are sharing stories about building pages to raise money for their friend with cancer, or finally designing logos for a soda pop line they’d been dreaming about.
“My best friend Elzy has recently been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and I was devastated. I didn’t know how to help her or provide comfort during these challenging times. I realized I could create a Facebook page for a good cause – to raise awareness about ovarian cancer, update friends and family about her chemotherapy sessions, and invite people to support her treatments by coming up with fundraising ideas. I discovered Canva and found it amazingly simple and easy to use. Many people have already reached out for support.’ #mydesignstory #canva #ELZYfightsthebigC #ovariancancerawareness Don’t forget to visit and like https://www.facebook.com/ELZYfightsthebigc/ If you’d like to share your story, contact us: elle.h@canva.com
Perkins is transparent about the process of building a successful startup. It took years of commitment and a willingness to be scrappy and stick her neck out.
“Years ago, I spent six months in San Francisco in two three-month blocks, as my visa expired, pitching every investor under the sun, going to every conference I possibly could and trying to get people to believe in this crazy big goal that we had, which was that we could try and storm the world of design and make everything simple and accessible for everyone,” Perkins told Mashable.
Now Canva now has over 250 employees and is used in 180 countries, with about 13 designs being created every second.
Feature image: Huffington Post
