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Melanie Perkins on persistence and simple design: interview summary

FOUNDER | Melanie Perkins - Canva

Luke Anear · Mar 12, 2025 · about 44 min

Uploaded Mar 12, 2025 · 234.2K views (as of Oct 30, 2026)

Good value given

Perkins and Cliff Obrecht first built Fusion Books, a yearbook design business.
She met investor Bill Tai at a conference in Perth.
She says her approach is to continue until it works.
Canva had to build people's confidence in their own design skills.
Canva's plan is to build a big business, then use it to do good.

How did Melanie Perkins get Canva funded?

She met investor Bill Tai at a conference in Perth after entering an inventor award with her first company, Fusion Books. She kept pitching for a long time and heard many no's. Her approach, she says, is to continue until it works, and early backers eventually came in, including one who planned a small check and was talked into a bigger one.

Worth watching?Good value given. A documentary-style episode on how Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht built Canva from Perth. It's strong on persistence, simplicity and big goals.

ActionableLessons

Actionable

Write a goal big enough that it scares you a little.
Find one place in your product where users feel confused, and fix it.
Keep a list of investor or customer no's and what you learned from each.
Write your two-step plan: build the business, then what you'll do with it.

Lessons

Persistence can outlast rejection.
Simple products build confidence.
Big goals attract big support.
Mission can guide growth.

Quick answer

Melanie Perkins sat down with Luke Anear for this interview, published Mar 12, 2025. Here's our summary in our own words: a verdict, the answer to the big question, 5 takeaways, Actionable and Lessons tabs, then the stories, frameworks and how to use them.

What 125x is: 125x is a web app at 125x.app. You connect your YouTube subscriptions, and it gives you a feed of the latest videos from the channels you follow, each with a summary: a verdict, the 5 key takeaways, and the spoiler, plus Actionable and Lessons tabs with more tips. You read that and decide what's actually worth opening.

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Watch the interview

Watch on YouTube: FOUNDER | Melanie Perkins - Canva

Channel: Luke Anear. Published Mar 12, 2025. About 44 minutes.

Who is Melanie Perkins?

Melanie Perkins co-founded Canva with Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams in Australia.

This is an episode of the FOUNDER series from Luke Anear.

Key stories from the interview

She explains how Fusion Books led to Canva.
She tells how she met Bill Tai and kept pitching.
The team shares how they made every button easy to understand.
Early users were bloggers and social media marketers who needed lots of visuals.

Frameworks and ideas

Continue until it works: her rule for hard goals.
Confidence: make users feel capable.
Niche first: start with heavy users.
Two-step plan: build, then do good.

In their words (paraphrased)

The other approach is the one that I've taken throughout my life, which is that you continue until it works.
Any single point that someone doesn't understand what a button does or it doesn't work.
Solving problems that affect real people.

How to apply this

Test your product with someone who's never used it and watch where they pause.
Name the users who need your product most and talk to five of them.
Write your company's step two.

A note on this summary

This page reports what was said in the interview, in our own words. Lines under 'In their words' are paraphrased from the transcript, so check the video for exact wording.

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FAQ: questions people ask

How did Melanie Perkins meet her first investor?

She met Bill Tai at a conference in Perth.

What was Canva's first company?

Fusion Books, a yearbook design business.

Is the Melanie Perkins FOUNDER episode worth watching?

Good value given. Inspiring and practical.