Written by: Nahal Garakani

Imagine being told your idea is “too ambitious,” again and again. That was Melanie Perkins’ reality as a young founder from Perth, pitching an idea that would one day become Canva. What started as a project in her mum’s living room grew into a platform used by millions, valued in the tens of billions. Her journey proves that starting small doesn’t mean thinking small.

Melanie’s entrepreneurial streak appeared early. As a teenager, she was already selling handmade products at local markets. At university, while tutoring design students, she noticed how long it took them to master software like Photoshop. “Spending a whole semester just to learn where the buttons are?” she thought. There had to be a better way.

That insight led to her first venture, Fusion Books, launched in 2007 with her partner Cliff Obrecht. It let schools build yearbooks online using drag-and-drop design. They ran the business from her mum’s house, printed the books, and shipped them across Australia. Fusion Books proved her hunch was right: design could be made simple and accessible.

But Melanie’s vision was bigger. She wanted to create a platform that made design easy for everyone, not just schools. When she began pitching this broader idea, most investors turned her down. She was young, based in Perth, and outside Silicon Valley’s networks. Still, she pushed forward.

A turning point came when she connected with investor Bill Tai, who believed in her ambition but stressed she would need world-class technical talent to pull it off. After months of searching (and even learning to kite surf just to get in the room with his network), she finally partnered with Cameron Adams, a former Google engineer, along with Cliff and Dave Hearnden, to form Canva’s founding team.

By 2012, the group had secured early funding, including a boost from the Australian government, and a year later launched Canva to the public. The beginning was not glamorous. Press coverage was mixed, and they spent years refining the product, but user adoption told the real story. Growth skyrocketed. Within five years, millions were designing online with Canva.

By 2021, Canva reached a valuation of over 40 billion dollars, making Perkins one of the youngest female tech billionaires. Today, Canva counts more than 165 million users, generates over 1 billion dollars in annual revenue, and has a workforce of thousands known as Canvanauts. Its current valuation sits closer to 25 billion dollars, but the mission has not changed: empower anyone, anywhere, to create.

That mission extends beyond design. Through the 1% pledge and personal commitments from Melanie and Cliff, Canva directs profits and equity toward tackling global poverty. One initiative provides direct cash transfers to families in Malawi, letting people choose what they need most, whether food, education, or healthcare.

Melanie once put it simply: “If you make something people want, and make it accessible, the growth will follow.”

Her journey shows that you do not need the “right place” or perfect timing to start, you need the right purpose.

For founders building today: solve a problem that matters, strip away the barriers, and stay close to the people you serve. That is how movements, and enduring companies, are built.