She Was Told “No” More Than 100 Times. She Built Canva Anyway

Being an entrepreneur requires all sorts of skills and attributes - vision, initiative, work ethic, and yes, persistence.

Melanie Perkins never set out to build a beloved software platform that some day would fuel the gig economy, but she did.

In actuality, she really just wanted her students to stop suffering.

When she was in college in Australia, Melanie taught basic design classes on the side. And every semester, she watched the same thing happen. Students would sit down, open the software, stare at the screen, and look completely overwhelmed.

Back then, a decade or so ago, design software was way, way too complicated, too slow. It was downright unfriendly.

Melanie knew there had to be a better way.

Origin Story

She didn’t start by creating Canva (we wouldn’t have a fun story then, would we?) She started with something much more modest. Melanie and her boyfriend built a simple tool for schools to create yearbooks. Working out of her mother’s living room, that first program was nothing glamorous.

But it worked. It was simple and easy to use.

It solved a problem (good lesson, eh?)

And pretty quickly, the idea caught on. Schools loved it. The success wasn’t huge, but the signal was clear: People wanted design software that made sense.

That tiny win opened the door to a much bigger idea.

No, No, No!

Melanie started pitching investors on creating a bigger, better, platform version of her Canva software. She heard “no” more times than she could count.

More than 100 nos. 3 years of nos.

But she kept going anyway. Refining her pitch, she met every investor she could. No. Another no. But Melanie listened, adjusted, learned.

Then she met an investor who said no, but introduced her to someone else. That person introduced her to someone else. And eventually, one of those introductions became the first real yes.

Finally!

It wasn’t luck. It was persistence stacked on top of persistence.

The Breakthrough

With early support in place, Melanie and her small team built the first real version of Canva. It was clean, simple, super user-friendly. Finally, someone offered design software that regular people could actually use.

When it launched, the reaction was immediate.

It was so easy! It’s intuitive! It was fast. People used it to create logos, flyers, presentations, social posts, resumes. Then they invited in their teammates and the product spread fast, and organically.

And before she knew it, Melanie’s Canva grew from a living room project into one of the most widely used design tools on the planet.

The Ripple Effect

Today, Canva has hundreds of millions of users. Melanie Perkins is one of the youngest self-made female billionaires in the world. The company is valued in the billions. And she still runs it with the same two cofounders who were there in the beginning.

Not bad for a business that started because she was tired of watching students get frustrated.

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Canva’s free Brand Kit starter template!

The Takeaway

A great business often begins with a simple personal irritation. Pay attention to the moments when people struggle with something that should be easy. Those frustrations are signals. Solve one well, and the world just might show up.

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Steal This Strategy!

🌐 YouTube - Melanie’s talk about how Canva was built

🌐 Online: Canva Design School

🎥 Podcast - How I Built This with Guy Raz

About Steve

Steve Strauss is the best-selling author of The Small Business Bible (and 17 other books), Inc.’s small business columnist, a lawyer (non-practicing), and an entrepreneur. He sold his last venture, TheSelfEmployed.com to Mark Cuban & Zen Business. Need a ghostwriter or a newsletter for your business? Contact Steve!