The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, Lenny interviews Melanie Perkins, the CEO and co-founder of Canva, about her journey building the company. Melanie shares insights into Canva's "column B thinking," which involves envisioning a desired future and working backward to create it, and the importance of setting "crazy big goals" to drive innovation. She discusses operationalizing this vision through vision decks for every project, the challenges of a major codebase rewrite, and the experience of facing over 100 investor rejections. Melanie also emphasizes the significance of community feedback in product development, Canva's two-step plan to build a valuable company and do good, and the company's latest AI-driven product launches. She also touches upon the importance of work-life balance and shares personal strategies for maintaining perspective and creativity.