She was rejected by 100+ investors. An outcast among founders. Today, her business is worth $26 billion and has 200 Million monthly users

 Here’s her story:

@MelanieCanva’s journey started with a simple idea in her college dorm. She noticed fellow students struggle with complex design software. So she envisioned a platform that made design easy and accessible for all. But turning that vision into reality would be an uphill battle.

Melanie pitched Canva to over 100 investors. Every single one rejected her. For 3 long years, she heard nothing but “no” as she felt like a misfit in the tech world. She faced soul-crushing rejection after soul-crushing rejection. She talks about handling the rejection:

But Melanie refused to fold. She got creative to get Canva off the ground. In a meeting with investor Bill Tai, she handed him a physical pitch deck printed on paper. It boldly proclaimed “The Future of Publishing” even though Canva was barely more than an idea.

Melanie even learned to kitesurf just to rub shoulders with power brokers at an exclusive tech conference. Here’s how kitesurfing helped her win over her first major investor and build a solid tech team:

Melanie’s focus was to remove barriers between ideas and execution. Canva launched with a simple: • Drag-and-drop interface • Pre-made templates • A free tier to drive adoption Canva is user-friendly:

Within Canva’s first year, they attracted a million users. This is despite an early press article dismissing Canva as “not the best” with “cheesy” clipart. But while critics scoffed, Melanie and her team rapidly iterated and improved.

As Canva gained traction, Melanie dared to dream bigger. She expanded beyond core design tools into presentations, video, print, and more. Strategic acquisitions like stock photo sites Pexels and Pixabay further enhanced Canva’s value to users.

Melanie believes that to solve the world’s problems, governments, companies, NGOs, entrepreneurs, and VCs must collaborate. She hopes that Canva will play a role in empowering that collaboration. With 55M active users in 190 countries, she certainly has influence.

When a teenage Melanie first envisioned Canva, she could have never predicted its trajectory. But she clung to two beliefs: • A tool for simplifying design could change lives • And that she was the one to build it She put her head down and kept building. The rest is history.