Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins leads the most valuable woman-led startup in the world, a design and publishing tool used by more than 260 million users and valued at $42 billion. But before all that, Melanie was an Upstart: an unappreciated founder from western Australia who had to fly to San Francisco uninvited just to secure startup funding.

Melanie goes into that Upstart Moment in this debut episode of The Upstarts Podcast, covering the mindset and strategies that helped her go from university pitch competition to global phenomenon. Melanie breaks down Canva’s framework for setting goals and values – and makes her case for why all startups should lean into a big vision and focus on impact from day one.

Plus, Melanie turns the tables and gives Alex some founder homework of his own.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro to Melanie

2:15 Canva’s scale and impact mindset

3:42 Melanie’s first startup and Canva origins

7:15 Melanie’s early motivation and facing doubts

10:19 Learning from customers and a long-term vision

16:35 Risking her life and her Upstart Moment

19:58 How to set effective team goals

22:51 Setting values, culture and priorities as you scale

28:01 Canva’s 1% pledge and giving away billions

33:02 Melanie’s homework for founders (like Alex)

Season 1 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by Mercury.

Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm