Canva CEO and co-founder, Melanie Perkins, now owns one of the most valuable startups in the world, not to mention that it is a notably female-led and female-founded tech firm.
Canvas Co-founder & CEO Melanie Perkins speaks during the annual Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal on November 5, 2019.
Canva Co-Founder Melanie Perkins
As per an online article by Inc, the co-founder of Canva thought of the idea of creating a design online tool way back in 2007, when Perkins was still teaching young minds how to use design software and programs on computers.
The CEO of Canva today used to have a part-time stint in teaching students how to use design software that needed some advanced knowledge to operate due to its complexity.
On top of that, Perkins also found these design software to be expensive to have as owning a license to use them comes with a hefty price tag for personal use.
That said, the then part-time teacher of design software sparked an idea to create a tool that would be available online, which makes designing more accessible to more folks even if they are still amateurs or beginners.
Aside from that, according to a report by Fortune, Perkins also got the idea of creating a design website, which we now know as Canva, primarily due to an issue that she had to face during her college days.
Back then, the younger Perkins had to spend countless hours, leading up to a couple of months, just to learn the nooks and crannies of mainstream design software out there.
Melanie Perkins and the Birth of Canva
Initially, Perkins worked with the co-founder of Canva, Cliff Obrecht, who is now her husband, to debut a yearbook publishing firm, which provides its users an easy-to-navigate design platform.
LISBON , PORTUGAL - 5 November 2019; Melanie Perkins, Co-founder & CEO, Canva, on creatiff Stage during the opening day of Web Summit 2019 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.
Perkins paused her college degree studies at the age of 19. The tech exec then had to raise massive funding for the idea that she wanted to make into a reality. However, she had to face hundreds of rejections, but she persisted in pitching her billion-dollar idea.
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Canvas CEO's Persistence
That said, Perkins is only 34 years old, but she now owns a tech company that is worth more than a whopping $40 billion. What's more, the co-founder of Canva is also the second richest woman in Australia, as per an article by Entrepreneur.
Fortune noted in the same report that Canva is now widely used for all sorts of things, such as social media posts and presentations. In fact, the online design tool now boasts up to 60 million active users monthly.
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Written by Teejay Boris
