Kitesurfing and pitching: How yearbooks transformed into a $3.6bn business

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Melanie Perkins took up kitesurfing in 2011 when her business was little more than a good idea. With no money and no team she needed a way in to the tough world of venture capital

"We have 15 million monthly active users but it's not accessible to the whole world yet, there are 3 billion people on the internet so there's a long way to go. On the other hand, it is incredibly surreal to see the dream turn into reality."

Google maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen who backed Canva in its early days and investor Bill Tai in 2014 in Canva's offices.After learning about the concept of venture capital investment Perkins flew to the United States with a printed out pitch deck to meet with Tai and then learnt to kitesurf in San Francisco's freezing "shark infested" waters so she could attend his MaiTai kitesurfing and entrepreneurship conference.

"Mel is definitely the grand visionary, she had the vision when she was teaching design at university," Obrecht says. "We attacked the grand vision at a micro scale." "Their first product was a really great product," he says. "It was really well executed and beautiful. It's rare for a product to come out into the market and get so much love early on."With Canva's latest valuation Perkins, Obrecht and Adams join a new cohort of influential Australian tech leaders headed byPerkins says Canva's founders also hope to shape the public discourse but just how they will do this is yet to be determined.

 

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