The Twenty Minute VCCanva's Cliff Obrecht: How We Turned Our Yearbook Company to $40B Business | 20VC #971
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120 min read · 23,567 words- 0:00 – 5:16
Founding Story of Canva
- COCliff Obrecht
Where do we get money from? Silicon Valley's got heaps of money. Let's go to Silicon Valley.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(instrumental music) Cliff, I am so excited for this episode. I know you've listened to this show before, so this is gonna be one of the most special shows. Thank you so much for joining me, first.
- COCliff Obrecht
No, thank you. Long time listener, first time caller. I feel privileged.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Not at all, my friend. We have quite a schedule in place. So I want to start with a little bit on you, that we see this incredible brand today that is Canva that you and Mel have built. Take me back to the beginning though. What was that founding aha moment for you with the very first day of Canva?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, it probably goes back earlier than Canva. So Mel was teaching design at university and realized that it kind of sucked. It was really complex, it took about six months to learn the professional graphic design tools at the time. Whilst at the same time, people were using, I think it was MySpace at the time, Facebook. They were collaborating, they were sharing content. And, and she gets all the credit. She was like, "In the future, creation is gonna be totally different. It's gonna be online, it's gonna be collaborative, and it's gonna be easy." Um, but we're based in Perth, Western Australia, um, which is, I think the most isolated city in the world. And there's no such thing as venture capital there, and we had no idea. We didn't know what a startup was. We were like, "We should create a small business around this." Um, and I was studying school teaching at the time, uh, and so I was like, "Well, why don't we do school yearbooks?" And, and so we sort of took the idea. It was like, the i- the idea from Canva, Mel had this like 15 years ago. But we said, "W- we can't create this big global thing. Like, why don't we solve a real problem people had?" And I'm like, "I've seen school yearbook coordinators really struggle to create a yearbook." And so we did that and we created a, a company called Fusion Books, which, uh, became Australia's largest school yearbook company. So for a while there, we were sort of kings and queens of the Australian yearbook market, which is a, a small kingdom to be (laughs) , um, overseeing. Um, and then it was about four or five years into that business, we realized, hey, people are using our yearbook software for all kinds of different things. They're creating newsletters, they're creating posters. The world needs this. Maybe we can scale this idea and, uh, take it to the masses and really solve visual communication. And as the web and the world were becoming increasingly visual places, the world needed this tool to be able to allow people to express their creativity and turn it into a design.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's a big jump to make. Were you nervous making the jump from yearbooks, even though very successful yearbooks, yearbooks to actually like a full kind of collaboration software suite eventually?
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing with me is I just don't think too much. Uh, and I don't-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
... think through how hard (laughs) things are gonna be. And that naivety probably plays well, because I'm just like, "Oh, yeah. That sounds like a good idea." Um, let's go for it. Like, what do we need to do? Let's unpack this problem we need to solve. Okay, we need some money. Where do we get money from? Silicon Valley's got heaps of money. Let's go to Silicon Valley and then we went to Silicon Valley, uh, we spent over a year there, like back and forth, back and forth, still trying to run our other business. Um, and we got rejected over 100 times by VCs before we finally convinced some people, uh, to invest in us. And that, that was a journey.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I literally just got a message before this show, like 10 minutes ago, from Doug Packer saying, "Ask him about kite surfing in Maui and Bill Tai and the rest of us putting in money in the very early days." He didn't really explain. Kite surfing, Maui, fundraising?
- COCliff Obrecht
So that was our ticket into Silicon Valley, so, uh, and it was really fortuitous. Bill Tai is a venture capitalist, uh, in the Bay Area. You should have him on the show. He's an awesome guy. Um, but mad keen kite surfer, and Perth, being the most isolated city in the world, is amazing for kite surfing. So I think he just like made an excuse to have a junket in Perth where he could kite surf. And he called it a tech event, and we had our Fusion Books company at the time, so we sort of rocked up and went in this pitch competition for Fusion Books. We lost, we lost. (laughs) Um, he rej- he rejected us as the winners in that competition. But, um, we got to know him over time, and then we got invited over to a conference in Maui. And that was, at the time, it was quite funny. So we were super, super green. I was listening to Tony Robbins at the time, and one of his sort of philosophies is, "You are who you hang out with." And, and we d- couldn't afford to go to Maui, but I'm like, "Fuck it. This is, this is a huge opportunity. We're going all in with all our money from our Fusion Books bank account. We're going over there." And we stayed in, we got to stay in his house with some really cool people. I think they must have had someone pull out. That's why we got invited, um, 'cause it was very last minute. Um, and that's how we made a bunch of connections. And, and we were talking before the show started about just grinding it out. We just grounded out, and, and there was one point in the journey where we'd been rejected by it felt like everyone in Silicon Valley. And when you're pitching, everyone that's pitching, um, especially for early stage rounds, they have this spreadsheet, right? And it's like all the leads they have and where they're at, and this spreadsheet slowly turned and started turning red, just rejection, rejection, rejection. And Mel and I got to the bottom of that list, and we'd been rejected by everyone, and we're like, "Wow. (laughs) We've spent six months and nearly all our money sleeping on people's couches, uh, not succeeding. What do we do?" So we sort of had a,
- 5:16 – 16:39
Advice to Founders
- COCliff Obrecht
a day of misery where we're kind of a bit upset and then pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and went back at it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I told you before this, the recording, that I just got rejected by someone, and, and you said something to me. What would you say to me again if I asked you, and what do you say to founders out there who see the reds on the sheet and look pretty demoralized?
- COCliff Obrecht
Well, well firstly, persistence pays off, right? Um, you need to have some semblance of a good idea. (laughs) Um, but persistence really, really pays off. And then what I was saying to you before the show was, what we've learned after over sort of 15 years in business, and it feels like a lifetime, um, it's really a marathon, not a sprint. And the amount of times we've been rejected from candidates, and it's broken my heart, 'cause you know, you know what it's like. You spend so much time investing, taking these people out, and you know how good they're gonna be and what impact they're gonna b- have on the business. Um-... and getting rejected by those people really hurts. Um, but I've been in the game long enough now where if you leave a nice taste in those people's mouths, like, and you always be the good human and be the honest, honorable person and, and, and speak truths, people come back and they remember you. And, um, when they are ready for that, uh, career change or, or when an opportunity does arise, they, they, they, they often come back. And, and, so I really think about business as a really long game. And one of my biggest philosophies is just be honest and, and, if, if you say something, stick to your word. There's nothing I can't stand in business more than people that go against their word. If I, if I s- say something and, and make a commitment to something, then my word is my bond. I don't need a term sheet, I don't need a, a legal document. All that stuff, it matters, but, um... And I think that integrity over time, uh, hope- hopefully pays off as people start to recognize that you're a straight shooter.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Cliff, you said the word marathon there. Uh, I have obviously known you before this show, and, um, there's one thing that we have in common. We are both peak performance athletes. Um-
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs) Oh God.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
I s- if anyone's watching this, they'll see that I have (laughs) not ... (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's one of the joys of a podcast is that no one actually gets diseased. Actually, now we have TikTok, we're fucked.
- COCliff Obrecht
Actually pretty Ripped then.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But my question to you is, when we think about like high performance, when I apply that to business, and you're 15 years running businesses, uh, what does high performance in business mean to you?
- COCliff Obrecht
Doesn't sound like a deep question, but it is a deep question. So, I mean, it's changed a lot over time. So I used to, for the longest of times, have this philosophy of like work hard, play hard, grind it out, everyone else is just being weak. Like, why wouldn't you go out for 20 beers after work and then rock back into work at 7:00 AM and just grind it out again and just get through it? Uh, as you get older, (laughs) you realize that's not quite sustainable, so you need to start looking after all the things that really matter, like actually getting sleep. And having just had a kid, um, I've never appreciated sleep so much in my life. And then exercise and all, all the good things, they really do matter. And, and as... (laughs) Through your 20s you can get away with pretty much anything, I feel, but as you get into your like mid-30s, I'm turning 37 in a couple of weeks, uh, yeah, you need to start looking after yourself a bit better. And then constantly learning when it actually comes to the career side, uh, just the best performers I know are just constantly learning and they, they feel they don't know everything and they're, they're constantly on a journey and, and, and striving to increase their knowledge and, and, and they enjoy doing it as well.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How would you describe your leadership style today? You mentioned it changing over time there.
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
How would you describe it today?
- COCliff Obrecht
Um, I think it was very much used to be lead by example and, and, and work hard and accomplish things and hopefully people would follow. I think now it's just like honesty, and, and, and how it's changed is I used to just have high expectations of people and used to like bewilder me when, when people weren't good. Uh, and I used to think a lot of things like, "This is just common sense. W- why, why don't you get this?" Um, but as, uh, I guess I've grown, um, you realize like really frank and transparent feed- feedback and coaching, um, is really, really important. Sometimes people just don't know and just being really transparent around, "Hey, you did this this way. Have you thought about doing it this way?" Um, really helps people. Um, and also understanding personality types. I'm p- I'm pretty just straight up with things, um, and, and some people are more sensitive, so you need to adapt the way you communicate to the people receiving that communication.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You said there about expectations and kind of other people's performance. I'm intrigued, you know, trust is an interesting thing. A lot of people start kind of binary. They either have lots or they have none. Um, how do you think about your starting point for trust? Do you have lots or none?
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah, yeah. Mel and I completely... So Mel is my wife and the CEO of Canva, so my boss, uh (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
... at which No. Um, and, and definitely the worthy boss. Uh, but we have totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to trust. See, I trust by default and you can lose that trust. Mel, it takes a lot of time to, to build her trust, but once you build it, it's wow, it's, it's there and it's there for a long time. So that, that's how I kind of think about it. I, I fly by the seat of my pants a little bit, wear my, my heart on my sleeve and, and quick to, quick to, to love. But yeah, uh, I guess that's my style.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, I, I, I love that as a style. I'm, I'm much more aligned to you, I have to say. I, I, I do want to ask, kind of speaking about kind of quick to love and the trust that we imbue within people, when I spoke to many of your investors, they said that I had to talk about talent with you. Um, and you said to me before about distance traveled when it comes to talent. What did you mean, Cliff, when you said distance traveled? Can you unpack that for me?
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah. I actually think I heard this from someone on your show a long time ago, and it really resonated with me. So distance traveled is if you went... if you grew up in a privileged family, went to an Ivy League school, and you end up as an investment banker, that's great. I'm sure you worked really, really, really hard. I was a school teacher, um, before... Uh, I, I mean, I couldn't use computers before we started our fir- I hated computers to be, to be honest, before we started our first business. Um, but I used to be a school teacher and I, I taught at one of the most underprivileged schools in Western Australia. Um, a lot of the students there were refugees from Africa, um, the Middle East, um, and parts of Asia. And these people are ex-child soldiers, um, they'd been through the most horrific things. They started life with a really big disadvantage. They had everything stacked against them. They had often spent years in a refugee camp. Then they'd travel to a new country, they couldn't speak our language. And to see these kids evolve and, and educate themselves, learn a new language. Sometimes just getting a job is like the distance traveled from being a child soldier to getting a job. One guy I met on the street years after, he said, "Oh, I'm a, I'm a roof tiler." And he was so proud of that and I was so proud of him, because coming from being a ch- a child soldier to, to actually having a full time job being a roof tiler, probably being paid really well, um, that's distance traveled. Um, and, and I think...... I really look out for that in the hiring process. And so, if you have come from a obscure background, like non-traditional tech or whatever, um, and have taught yourself the tools, I find those people, once they figure out the, the game, 'cause this all is just one big game, once they figure out how to play the game, they are some of the best people we have.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you? You said that before we, we started recording. What do you mean when you say it's a game?
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs) Um, most things are just a game, really. Like, we're, we're fortunate. We live in Australia. We have a, a social safety net. So if you have no job, you can go on the dole and get enough money to live and eat and have a roof over your head, um, which is a great system, by the way, um, that many other countries should follow that can. And so with business, we've just always treated it like a game, and it's a serious game. Like I- I'm very, very competitive, so when I play a game, I play to win. I absolutely play to win. But at the end of the day, the business doesn't define me. I know I would be just as happy if I was a fisherman. Um, I actually think I'd love... (laughs) That would be my dream job is going out fishing every day. Um, or, or like, uh, I was in the construction industry before I, I started teaching and, and like, uh, I think I'd be happy out on site digging holes every day. Often, I long to dig a hole and not have to think about things and manage people.
- HSHarry Stebbings
This is personal, but fuck it, we can do. Um, you know, I, uh, I was not trained for this in any way. Um, and respectfully, you didn't go to Stanford and the usual Silicon Valley, you know, graduation mechanism. You're a teacher. Uh, were you insecure moving into this world, and did you, did you have imposter syndrome, and do you have imposter syndrome about kind of by not being trained in the classic mold?
- COCliff Obrecht
So short answer, yes, absolutely, um, and still have it very much to this day when we, when we meet sort of fancy people. Um, one thing you realize though, say, and so I used to have it, like, tremendously, and it, and it was like, it was c- sometimes it's crushing. Have you ever been in a room where a-a... And that's why, like, I would, I would often go to some of these social events, like have a couple of drinks because, like, uh, you'd need that social lubrication-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- COCliff Obrecht
... just to be able to function because these people, you're, you're dealing with people that have created billion-dollar businesses or venture capitalists, and they, they all seem so intelligent. And, um, I guess you don't think you're that smart, and, and, and it's super, super intimidating. But what I found is as you get to know these people over time, they're... And this probably sounds conceited, but, like, they're not that much smarter than you. And like sure, they've got experience in a thing, and they sound really smart because they're talking about the thing they've spent 10 years doing. If you've spent 10 years doing something, you should sound smart talking about that thing. Um, and so, yeah, it- it- it's hugely intimidating going into a new world, a new industry, but, um, yeah, I think you gotta start backing yourself. And this really, really hurt us in hiring actually throughout the early years of Canva because we used to have all these, I used to... I call them fancy people with their fancy titles coming from fancy companies, um, interviewing at Canva. I'm like, "Oh, shit. We're not even wor- I'm not worthy to be interviewing you. You are so good. You were like a, a senior VP this or that at, like, one of the FANG companies. Like, I'm not worthy. Like, I'm lucky to be interviewing you." And, and I guess that came across, and we made a bunch of really, really poor hiring decisions because we just assumed these people were smarter than us, and then, like, they're in the company, like, a year, and we're like, "Fucking hell, fuck, you're not really smart at all. Like, these ideas you're coming up with that we've been listening to are kinda stupid, and they're taking us on a massively wrong direction." And so we've kind of come full circle there and realized that actually we're, we're not bad at some of the stuff we do. Uh, Mel, I think she's the best product person in the world, um, and her product vision is just, like, impeccable. She's seeing around corners 10 years into the future that no one else is. Um, and we've really learned to, to trust each other and trust our judgments a lot more, which has been a huge kinda U-turn from where
- 16:39 – 17:47
Hiring Internally vs Externally
- COCliff Obrecht
we were before.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about hiring internally versus bringing someone in? Here's something that-
- COCliff Obrecht
I love that, yeah. I love hiring internally. I love, we love building talent. Um, our... My EA is now our head of people. Um, Zack, our CMO, joined Canva, uh, as, like, a content writer, a contract content writer. He was, like, 19 at the time. He's been with the company about 10 years now. He's now our CMO. Wouldn't change him for any of the best CMOs in the world. He's absolutely phenomenal. Same with Jennie, our head of people. World-class, absolutely world-class. And these people didn't come from fancy tech companies. Um, but that being said, there are, like, great companies that have built great people. And so we definitely complement homegrown talent with really amazing people we bring into the business. So it's like, it's the yin and the yang. It's the art and the science. It's all about the vibe.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Man, you said Zack.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
That's my new big quote from an Australian movie probably. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I, I spoke to Zack before this episode, and Zack told me about your strengths and weaknesses. And he said when it comes to strengths, one of your biggest strengths is your deal-making ability. I wanted to touch on this 'cause
- 17:47 – 24:59
How to Be a Deal Maker
- HSHarry Stebbings
it's, it's a specific strength. What do you think is good deal-making, and what makes you so good at it, do you think?
- COCliff Obrecht
So firstly, I think people's strengths are whatever comes natural to them, and, um, I'd... We didn't grow up with, like, no money, but we, we didn't grow up with like a lot of mon- lot, lot, lot of cash and stuff when we were kids. That we had a great little family, um, upbringing. Mom was a teacher as well. Dad was a, a boilermaker welder who got into, uh, doing work safety stuff, like worked for government doing... inspecting building sites. Um, and so... Do you have Kmart over in the UK, like Big W and Kmart?
- HSHarry Stebbings
This is like supermarkets, correct?
- COCliff Obrecht
No, they're like kinda like Walmart, I guess.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, well, I mean, yes, we do, but they're not called Kmart, so yes.
- COCliff Obrecht
Okay. So, so think of it like a Walmart. Uh, we'd go into Walmart with my mum, and she would haggle at the equivalent of Walmart. I'm like, "Mum." I was so embarrassed. And like, but she used to like kind of haggle for everything, was always trying to get a good deal, was always trying to find the best value in things, but was also like honest and open when she did it. So, I learnt a lot from her just about (laughs) like, I guess it was the art of like getting a good deal. She's Italian, um, and so I think Italians are good at the haggle. Um, and I think I just grew up in that environment and, and as, as that sort of skill transferred into business, I had a few just like really simple revelations, and this applies to acquiring a company, growing someone through your business and helping with them career- their career, or hiring someone. You essentially just need to align the company you're acquiring or the person's goals with your goals, and I just find being really transparent, like, "Here are our goals. What are your goals? If we can get our goals to align, magic can happen, and one plus one can equals 10, equal 10." Um, and so that's just like, it's a really simple philosophy, being super transparent. Like, any acquisition we make, and a lot of people don't believe it upfront, and I say, "Talk to all the other companies we've acquired because you'll find that, like, what I say is actually true." It's like, "I'm just gonna be super transparent with you from day dot, and if you speak to sort of like corp dev people," and we've spoken to a lot of them from like lots of the big companies, there's a lot of kind of bullshit there. Um, and I'm just like, "That's not what you'll get from me. I'm gonna be super transparent. This is why we love your company. This is why I think it's great for us to partner, and this is the value we see, and these things aren't valuable to us, and this is how we value it from a dollar perspective or an equity perspective," or whatever the deal terms are gonna be, um, "And let's just talk about that." And I'd do that very early, and I'd say, "I'd rather a fast no than a, a long no, but better is a fast yes."
- HSHarry Stebbings
Man, I'm naive. What's the normal bullshit in acquisitions corp dev? What's the normal bullshit?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, like, uh, like, you, y- they'll reach out and say, "Oh, just wanna chat, learn about your business," or whatever. You're like, "Okay, you're the corp dev person. I know exactly where this goes." Then they're, "Oh, let's talk about a partnership." Like, "W- okay, what kind of partnership?" And they can't articulate an actual partnership, and after three or four meetings, they'll go, "Well, would you consider an acquisition?" I'm like, "You could have said that in the first 30 seconds of us chatting, and I could have told you no. We're not looking (laughs) to be bought." Um, but, um, yeah. That's kind of, that's the bullshit.
- HSHarry Stebbings
C- can I ask, in terms of like integration, integration is really hard. Um, like, and you said about aligning goals there. People will sometimes say goals that may not be true to get acquisitions done. How do you ensure that the goals they say are the truth? And, you know, you're a very trusting guy, but you also have to be savvy enough to know when someone wants to get a deal done and say what you wanna hear.
- COCliff Obrecht
I think I'm a decent judge of character, and I like to get to know the human behind the business. Um, and that's probably the most important thing because the business speaks for itself. It's like, you can look at SimilarWeb and you can look at their traffic, you can look at their metrics, you can outside in how a company is going. You can then understand how their culture is outside in as well. You look at their attrition through LinkedIn, who's jumping jobs, et cetera, et cetera. So, there's a lot of knowledge you can kind of assess just from sort of outside in analysis. And then it's really around like, what are the motivations of the founder? What are they like as people? I mean, it was hard through COVID because you couldn't go out and spend some time with them and really get to, get the cut of their jib. But, um, we find we have a real philosophical alignment with the founders w- we've, uh, acquired their companies of, um, and, and, and we've, we've acquired some amazing founders. Rob is our head of product. Um, the Flourish team are heading all our data vis. It's like, yeah, so, so we've j- uh, maybe we've just been really lucky, I think. Um, but, but we've, we've, we've had a little luck in that regard.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Have you ever made a bad acquisition? And if so, why was it a bad acquisition?
- COCliff Obrecht
Not really. Not really. Not really. We've, we've acq- n- no. I'm saying no. Okay. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Y- you said there about how, the importance of the human. I think one thing that I heard a lot from your investor base was exactly that. When you think about like investor relations, what have been some of your biggest lessons as you reflect on the investors that you have on your cap table now and, and the great relationship you have with them?
- COCliff Obrecht
You're probably spotting a theme here. Uh, the most important thing for me is trust. Um, you can garner any knowledge and skills you like, um, through commercial means. I've, I've actually, having listened to your podcast for a long time, heard a lot of really smart people and just reached out to them and say, "Hey, can you be an advisor to the company?" Or, "Can I pick your brain on this thing?" And so, um, you can get a lot of great advice around domain, c- certain domains from just reaching out to people, and obviously as you'll- you get more leverage with your company, that, that becomes easier and easier. But even in the earliest days, we used to pay people with generous equity grants, and we still do to this day, to get them on as an advisor. So, Canva, to give you an example, Canva until three years ago, we were like a big bodybuilder that had not done a single leg day in their life. So, we had a huge upper body, and that was our user acquisition, that was our product, and that was our, our, our organic growth. But our two weak little legs were marketing and sales. Um, and so it was like, Zach, me and Zach were like, "Hey, let's figure this out together. Who are the best people? Who does marketing better than anyone else? Let's go speak to as many of them that, as that, that will speak to us." Um, and so we started by building our own knowledge, and then we hired a few people, and we made a few bad hires, and we made a few great hires. Um, and we just figured it out. And then now we're doing that with sales, and I would actually think we're pretty damn good at marketing now, traditional marketing. Um, and sales is definitely on, on the right trajectory. But these things take time and, and, uh, a lot of learning. But back to the investors, sorry, you were asking about investors. Yeah, trust is the most important thing. Um, and, uh, once again, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and, uh-This is cliché, but you really see investors' colors in the tough times. Uh, the good times everything's easy, but it's in the tough times where people's true colors come out. Um, and the, the age-old sort of do some, um, reference checks with companies that, uh, haven't done well for that firm, et cetera, et cetera, all, all
- 24:59 – 32:58
Toughest Times at Canva
- COCliff Obrecht
actually makes a lot of sense.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Cliff, I look at Canva's journey and it doesn't look like there have been tough times. And I know there's always tough times in a business, but it kind of looks up and to the right. What was the toughest time that comes to mind?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, we've had a few. I'll tell you the toughest time I've had recently was putting up this Christmas tree that I bought. Um, (laughs) it was, it got the better of me. I'm, I'm, I'm terrible for not reading instructions and, and I, I did it all wrong, just like IKEA furniture, and it took me about four hours to put up this Christmas tree. It was like 11:00 PM and I, (laughs) I nearly gave up, but I didn't. Um, the next biggest challenge in our business journey was we had our first version of Fusion Books, the school yearbook company, um, built in Australia, um, by contractors, and that was becoming very expensive. We couldn't afford it anymore, so we outsourced it through oDesk, which was now Upwork at the time, to a team in India, and there's a lot of amazing development teams in India, but this wasn't one of them. Um, and so we had about 400 schools on the platform at the time, and the whole concept of, like, I guess Canva for yearbooks is the teachers and students create their yearbook together using this WYSIWYG software, it's all amazing, and then they hit publish and that exports a PDF document that gets printed. So the WYSIWYG part worked, but it couldn't export a PDF, so we had to, I think, recreate over 100,000 pages, um, with, like, Photoshop and InDesign where we had to hire a team of designers, uh, on Upwork yet again, um, to essentially, like, eyeball these pages and redesign them in Photoshop and InDesign, and then we had to convert those into a PDF and publish them. So that was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. The other hardest thing we ever done, we're about five years into Canva, and we realized... When you're a startup, right, you have to make trade-offs. Um, and often when building technology, that trade-off is, uh, speed for sort of tech debt. Um, and we'd accrued a lot of tech debt, particularly in our front-end code, um, and it got to the point where it was untenable. We couldn't scale our team. Our user base was scaling massively, um, and we were like, "I think we need to rewrite this whole thing." And we obviously analyzed pulling it to, to bits and recreating it component by component, but that wasn't going to work, so we had to down tools and ship no features for a full two years. It was supposed to be one year, but it took two years, um, in the middle of Canva's growth journey, r- call it from year four to six. We're at year 10 now. And that was a death march, and like for a company that's so used to shipping product and shipping value to customers, that was a really dark time.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How did that impact your growth trajectory?
- COCliff Obrecht
So for the first year, like, we had all the tailwinds, it was a great product, but we had, like, people copying us. Like, we have had so many copycats copy Canva, um, over the years, and you get, like... Uh, like, Mel doesn't ever look at competition. She's like, "Fuck the competition. Like, we've got this 10-year vision. They're copying where we were." I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that's nice, but I'm, like, kind of... The- these people are copying us and they're (laughs) it looks pretty good." Um, and so, so I'm probably a bit on the other side, but I've learned more to be like Mel. Um, and seeing these copycats just ruthlessly copy you, and then one of the copycats, they introduced video, and that was a core part of what we were gonna launch. It was like, "Fuck, they've launched video. They're gonna, like, beat us and blah, blah, blah." Um, but ultimately we just stayed the course, uh, and while it was tough, we got through it, and now our product velocity, because of this new re-platform, is faster than anyone else and, and once again we're off to the races.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Cliff, how important is first-to-market, and how do you advise founders on how to think about competition?
- COCliff Obrecht
First-to-market's important, but, um, user acquisition is just as important. So you can have a great product, but if you haven't cracked the user acquisition channels, then you've got nothing, right? Um, because customers need to be able to find your product and, and use your product and love your product, and, and we grew Canva through a couple of different ways. Primarily our product was our biggest marketing channel, so we built Canva over the course of a year before we launched an- launched anything. And at the time, the lean startup was really in vogue, um, and so our investors were all going, "What are you doing? Launch, iterate, do all the lean startup stuff, hack your way to success." And Mel was like, "Absolutely not. We are gonna launch the most delightful product to our users and offer it for free, which is the freemium model, and our users are gonna be our biggest marketing channel." And that's what we did, uh, despite all that pressure from investors, and we picked a really good target audience when we were starting as well. We were like, "Who has the biggest need for visual content creation? Social media marketers," so... because social media is a visual content beast and you need to keep feeding the beast. So we approached social media marketers and, and one of the person- people I, I cold outreached to was Guy Kawasaki, and, uh, he responded, like, and we were nothing at the time. He had, like-
- HSHarry Stebbings
He, he was, he was my first ever guest on the show. First ever guest.
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I remember hearing that, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Eight years ago, yeah.
- COCliff Obrecht
He's an absolute legend, and good on him for giving a chance to underdogs that have no leverage. Like, most people, you need enough leverage to, for them to sort of pay any attention, but Guy Kawasaki responded to my tweet and he responded to whatever you sent him, uh, and so, yeah, kudos to Guy. Let's have a homage to Guy moment. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I, I absolutely love that. Can I ask, you know, when you think back, I, I heard you there say you focus on social media marketers. As a VC, straight away I just think a load of VCs would say, "Ha, small town."
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Um, when you look back, were there commonalities in why VCs said no?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, there are so many reasons why VC said no. Two non-technical founders from Perth, uh, a couple, um, like there was, we got every reason under the sun why, why there was a no. But yeah, uh, but we have a philosophy around that. It's start niche and go wide. Like you don't want to boil the ocean, you want to, you want to solve a problem for someone that has that problem, solve that problem really, really well. Um, and then once you've solved it for them, what are the adjacent industries, people, professions that have that same problem? And let's go pick those off, and, and that's sort of what we've done with Canva. Um, and, and the other sort of user acquisition channel we cracked in the early days was, um, SEO as well. We're a content company and we figured out a way how to propagate that content onto the internet so people searching it can find it, uh, and then drive people to the product like that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
When I think, like over those reasons, the two technical founders, honestly, Cliff, is one where I might slip up on. Um, I do like to see a technical founder. I like to see someone like deeply rooted in, like engineering and product. So I know Mal's obviously a product visionary, but it's not like technical, um, in the se- in that way. Why am I wrong and why does it work?
- COCliff Obrecht
You're right, it's a huge risk actually. You're right. Um, it is, it is an absolute huge risk, um, because if you don't have the right technical foundation of your business, um, then it's, it's like a house of cards. Um, we were incredibly lucky to bring on a third co-founder, Cam, um, Cam Adams, absolute legend, great human, um, great friend. Um, and he was at Google, uh, and he wasn't quite technical, but we kind of like palmed him off as the technical co-founder 'cause he could write JavaScript and he did write JavaScript. He built a lot of the first front ends in, in Canva. But, um, having him on board, like we had a couple of like early commitments, but getting him on board really tipped the needle in regards to in- investors and also allowed us to get on our CTO, who is also another amazing human, um, Dave Herndon, who's still with the company and, and absolutely phenomenal, uh, and, and, and really built the technical foundations that are still there
- 32:58 – 39:44
The Future of Canva
- COCliff Obrecht
today and we can build off.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You mentioned prioritization earlier when you said about kind of the technical debt versus, um, you know, performance and new features. Uh, when you think about what you have ahead of you stay, there are many different angles that you could go down that it's, it's kind of exci- it's ex- extremely exciting, but also quite a challenge. How do you think about product prioritization today when you look at the different avenues that you have in front of you?
- COCliff Obrecht
Two ways. Greatest good for the greatest number, like I always think through the product, I don't want to give away all our secret sauce here, but like as a funnel. This, this is like super ob- obvious. People l- sometimes love to pitch ideas and features and like my first question is like, how many people is going to, how many people are going to see this feature? Like you can't build a feature nestled so deep in your UX that it's only going to be seen by sub 10% of your user base. So it's like you need to think through... I think through a lot of things as funnels and like around product development it's like, what is going to have the greatest good for the greatest number? And then the other product philosophy is like sometimes, a lot of the time, and this is like Mel's strengths and I've learned this from her, people don't know what they don't know, right? It's the whole sort of Henry Ford, if you ask them, people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Like you need to be looking at the future and understanding trends and we're thinking 20 years into the future, not just two years into the future. And if you think how industries coalesce, um, over time and what that's going to mean to your business, it allows you to sort of be really strategic and, and, and make long term bets as well as short term bets. Um, and just like sort of how that applies now is, is like really relevant in AI. So Canva was created because before Canva, the design ecosystem was incredibly fragmented. You had to go to a stock photo site to get your stock photos, you had to go to Vistaprint to print your stuff, you had to use three different softwares to create your design and you had to communicate over a whole different communication layer like email, et cetera, et cetera. So we brought all of this industry together in one simple page to create Canva, and it was the aggregation of that disjointed industry that really enabled us to help the everyday person to achieve their goals and their visual communication goals. The same is occurring in AI at the moment. There's all these cool tools, but it's really how those tools show up in a workflow where people get their job to be done, done, that really adds the most value, and that's why we're investing so heavily into AI as really the copilot to help people achieve their goals because people don't open their computer at the start of the day or wake up in the morning thinking like, "I want to use AI." They wake up in the morning thinking, "I have these certain jobs to be done," and we see it as our job as a company to help them achieve those jobs to be done.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I hear, you know, we hear a lot about, "Hey, we're really investing in AI." What does that mean? (laughs) I know it sounds stupid, but like is it just hiring machine learning talent? Like what, what does investing in AI mean for Canva?
- COCliff Obrecht
So for Canva it's really, people come to Canva to create visual content, right? It might be a social media graphic, it's often a presentation. It could be a video, it could be whiteboarding and brainstorming, which we recently launched. Um, but that process, we made that process easy by allowing our customers to start with a template, right? So I want a template for podcast promotional social media post, and we probably have that 'cause we have over three million templates in the library. Um, and, and we would show them a template and they could edit it. Now you can write... Well, this will be launching soon. Me, Harry Stabbings, I want a, create Harry Stabbings social media thing in a, a bright color with a happy vibe with...... me wearing a hat with a moon in the background. I'm, I'm giving you a really terrible example. But you can just tell the system whatever it wants and it aggregates our content libraries, it can auto-generate things, it can write copy for you. And it's the aggregation of all these AIs that are the real power embedded into people's workflows.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you, when I hear about the different products and tools, the thing that I think of is bundling versus unbundling. And respectfully, and you're gonna probably kill me for this, when you unbundle, you get increased product quality in a lot of cases, the hyper-specialized, yeah? Where it's very detailed functionality, and you often can't have that in more bundled products. How do you think about that trade-off? And are you trying to take people away from the vertically specialized tools, or is it not that, it's for the general populous who needs good enough?
- COCliff Obrecht
So we are, we hate good enough, like hate it. Good enough is not good enough. We aspire and, and are, in many cases, world-class across our key product areas. And we've built the entirety of Canva on the one unified platform. And so every doc type for us, and that comes with a bunch of benefits. When you use a video creation tool or whiteboarding tool or, uh, a presentation tool, a social media graphic tool, whatever, you don't want to learn a whole new interface, you don't want to upload all your stuff to a whole new content library. You want the interoperability of designs. Um, and so we've built all of Canva off this one ecosystem and one graphics engine, so every doc type is built off the same interface, and it's very interoperable and easily understood. That also allows you to actually convert a presentation with one click into a video. It allows you to convert a doc into a presentation. It allows us to do all these crazy things that you can't do with these point-and-shoot, um, tools. Also, as sort of like, as, as like particularly going into this economic downturn, people are looking to aggregate their visual communication tools just from a pure simplicity and, like, jobs to be done perspective, but also a cost-cutting perspective. You shouldn't have to pay $20 for this tool and $20 for this tool and $30 for this tool when you can get Canva for essentially $14 a month, and we only charge you based on active users. So we really align the... And we're, and we're very customer first, so it's like how, how do you add the most value to customers? And, and so that's like our pricing even is aligned to customer value, so we don't try and sell an organization 1,000 seats. We only charge you based on the number of active seats in a particular quarter, so value is aligned with value. And we really believe over the long term that, and we're seeing this, that really builds trust and, and allows, yeah, good things.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If you could acquire one company today, Cliff, which one would it be?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh. I'm not gonna go into that. (laughs) I got lots
- 39:44 – 42:05
Cliff’s Relationship to Money
- COCliff Obrecht
of companies I'd like to acquire, but, um, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Cliff, I wanna take it a little bit of a different turn, actually, away from the business. But, you know, with the incredible succ- success of the business, one's financial profile changes. When you think about your relationship to money today, you've had many people answer this question on the show before but it's one that I, I grapple with, um, w- how would you describe your relationship to money and how has it changed over time?
- COCliff Obrecht
I don't know. I've always felt rich, right? Like, my favorite wine is what we call in Australia a goon bag. It's like boxed wine. It's, it costs like $10 a box and, and I know it's my favorite wine because the last blind wine testing thing we did, it had everything from like a $500 bottle to, to this boxed wine. And like the blind wine test, tasting test was m- my favorite, the cheap one. Um, and so I've always felt like I've had abundance. We've, we've always, um, had enough money to travel. We've always had, like Mel and I used to be carnies. We used to do airbrush tattoos at carnivals, um, and, and, and we used to work our ass off and make enough money to go to India or Thailand for three months at a time, or Africa. Um, and, and when, especially when you travel to those companies... C- coun- countries, not companies, you realize how lucky you are and like... And so we've always felt l- lucky and rich, um, and I guess as the company's grown, I mean, we're all in on Canva, so it's not like we've cashed out tons and tons of money and, and all that kind of stuff. Like, we're very long on Canva.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you think of founders who are actively angel investing? You see a lot today with funds. I have very strong views on those with funds who take external money. What do you think about founders who are actively angel investing with or without funds?
- COCliff Obrecht
I actively don't angel invest. I do do some just because it's like a great person, um, that I know or it's like a... I really, like I, I don't do anything to, to make money. I, I do back ideas that I think the world needs to see. Um, but yeah, in regards to, to the, the money stuff, it started to become really uncomfortable for us, um, when Canva started really growing in valuation, um, and the papers started writing about us as like billionaires, um, and we were like, "That, that, that feels horrible. We, we don't really want to be billionaires. Um, we have more than enough,
- 42:05 – 47:44
The Canva Foundation
- COCliff Obrecht
um, with, with what we have." So, so Mel and I, we, we own 31% of Canva and we put 30%, so like 99% of what we own, um, in, into a, a charity that we can't spend on our own stuff because we... And they're selfish in a way, because we get the most joy, I guess, or, or like we get, yeah, most fulfillment from helping others rather than sort of buying a PJ or, or that fancy car (laughs) or um, anything like that. So, um...
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you manage-
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah, that's been kind of hard for us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... how do you manage the 99%? Do you have someone who manages that philanthropic activity?
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah, we very much aligned it with the Canva Foundation, um, and so the team now that, that runs the Canva Foundation, we, we just pool that capital. We draw down some capital every year where we pick projects we believe in. A, a, a really great one we've, um, been focusing on for the last couple of years is in conjunction with GiveDirectly that essentially gives cash to the world's poorest people and aims to lift them out of poverty. And our first sort of big pile-up was in Malawi, um, and, and, and it's a journey though. It's like building a business. Like, 10 years ago, we knew jack shit about building a business. Now, we know jack shit about philanthropy. We, we know we've been incredibly fortunate to have this, this pool of capital that isn't ours. We're custodians of that capital, um, and, and now it's on us to figure out how to deploy it, uh, through projects and investments to, to have the biggest positive impact we can on the world. And that sounds really wanky, but like it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, I just... I'm... I, I guess I just don't... (laughs) I'm a VC. I just don't get it.
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Like, uh, it, it really... It's, it's very, uh, uh, strange to me, and what I mean by strange to me, not the giving to charity obviously. I think that's fantastic. But like, you're not custodians and it's not not yours. You create... It's not like inheriting money. You earn the money.
- COCliff Obrecht
How much money do you... How much money do you need? Like, like I... We had a kid recently, and the last thing I want her to do is grow up rich. Like there, there's so much joy. Like, you're self-made, Hari. Y- you built this business by grinding it out from the early days. I remember you saying one time, your first podcast, it must have been with Guy Kawasaki, you got your mom to take the phone off the hook ............................
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I am a fan, see? Um, but like how is the joy in actually, like, building something for yourself that you've earned? Imagine getting everything handed to you on a silver platter. Like, I would not take that right away from my daughter to not earn her own, like, self-worth.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I have a genuine question for you that I think about a lot. Would I work as hard as I do if I had 200 million from my family in the background? And I would like to think I would. .......................... But I don't know if I would, honestly. I have to do what I... Like, I love it, but I have to, like anyone does. You have to make money. Um, I don't know if I would. Would you?
- COCliff Obrecht
I wouldn't.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No?
- COCliff Obrecht
No. It'd mess you up. I'd, I'd be messed up. I would, I would've gone off the rails. Imagine growing up knowing you're super rich and you can do anything. You'd be a little, uh, yeah, expletive. Like, you see some of these kids that grow up rich and entitled, and it's like, "That's not what I want for future generations." (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
How much money is enough?
- COCliff Obrecht
I think you need enough to have a nice house, travel, do all the, the, the things. But like, to be honest, like, I've never flown on a private jet before, but I'm very keen to be invited on someone else's.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Are you serious?
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah. No, we fly... Oh, I still can't... I'm such a tight-ass. I told you my mom used to haggle at the Australian version of Walmart. I still fly, um, economy unless I can get a points upgrade because I can't... Like, I'm like, "You want 10 grand for like a five-hour trip?" I'm like, "I'll tough out that 10 grand and I'll spend that 10 grand on something else." I never do spend it on something else, but like, just like... I just don't value, I guess, my comfort that... (laughs) Well, I'll try. Like, I've never thought about this. But yeah, I'm a tight-ass. I'm not... I'm not a tight-ass with others. I'm, like, just a tight-ass with some decisions. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
One thing that I did learn though, actually, and a friend taught me very wisely, is that actually some things are better to pay for now you can afford it 'cause it makes you better. And so like an example of that is like I spend on a personal trainer because it makes me fitter and healthier, and I could never afford to before, now I can. But it's right to. I, I actually have someone who cooks my meals and they're prepped, and so I can eat healthily without worrying about it, and it makes me better as a business person. Are there any things where you invest there that do actually make you better?
- COCliff Obrecht
We invest in experiences. Um, and, and so yeah, I've, I've recently got a personal trainer as well 'cause yeah, we work a lot, and, and, uh, yeah, you often put off exercise, so having someone, uh, you're accountable to actually helps with that. But, um, no, we really invest in experiences. Some of the coolest things we've done in recent years is like we, we rode motorbikes across, um, Bhutan, um, went, uh, what do you call it? Um, zip-lining in Laos, uh, rode motorbikes again, dirt bikes, um, on the, the, the China-Vietnam border. So we, we just like, like to have experiential holidays and, and, and that, that, that means
- 47:44 – 52:55
Married to Your Co-Founder
- COCliff Obrecht
a lot to us, and that's where we get the most of our joy.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tell me, my friend. You've mentioned Mel obviously many, many times. I'm just fascinated. You have the most incredible relationship, and it's also (laughs) a very rare one because most people I interview aren't also, you know, co-founders with their other half. What's the secret to a successful marriage do you think?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, um, so I don't think... I, I don't know. If there is a secret to a successful marriage, um, please tell me. Um, like anything, it's, it's always a work in progress. Like, Mel and I have only been married two years but we were dating 16 years before that, so we've been, we've been, um, together for like 18 years. So we've really grown up together, uh, and, and she's really my best friend more than anything else. Um, and, and I think that's important. But shit, we get in heated debates. (laughs) Like, it's not, it's not all, uh, roses and teacups. There's, there's lots of, um, challenging moments.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do, do you have, like, Chinese walls or, like, separation? And like when you go to like a family Sunday lunch, and it's like, "Fuck, we lost that fucking big enterprise deal. Cliff, damn"? Are you like, "Ah, ah, ah, ah, nah, not on Sunday"? Like, do you have like the Chinese walls of separation?
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs) We endeavor to. We have, like, this thing. We're like, "No work talk." And then, and then that just means we're not talking about work. Like, "Can't be bothered talking about work tonight." Um, and so we often try and do that on weekends and stuff. Inevitably, it creeps in, um, and we used to do it a lot, like talk about work a lot. But now I guess we try, we try not to. Um, but... And we do. A- And often it's fun, but sometimes you just need to not talk about work, like if you're on a date night or if you're doing something fun. Um, you need, you need that division. Uh, and like we've said a few times, it's a marathon and not a sprint. And, and as y- you've been doing it for a long enough period of time, you actually need those recharge moments where it's not about work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm gonna get you in trouble here.
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the biggest pro and the biggest con of co-founding a company with your other half?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I think if we... either of us were dating anyone else, we would both be dumped because we're both kinda neglectful partners (laughs) at times. Like, so many times it's like, oh, like, someone's making dinner for the other person and, um, it's like, "I can't come up for dinner," like, "I'm, I'm flat out on this thing, I need to get it shipped." Um, but we understand each other. It's like, "You go, girl." Like, "You're doing this for the team." Or, or like... Um, and so if we were with anyone else, it'd be terrible. Um, so that's, I guess, a pro, that we can really work really hard and not get in trouble for it. I know other people that, um, have, uh, demanding businesses, um, whose partners aren't in the business struggle with that because it's just a, a, a dichotomy of, like, who's more busy. Um, the biggest con... Yeah, we both work a lot. Uh, I don't know. Uh, it's all fun. It's all in the mix.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Final one before we do a quick fire, but I do wanna touch on it. You mentioned, you know, the newborn. Uh, what does great fatherhood mean to you, and how do you think about being the best father you can be?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I always really valued my independence, um, and like to, to cut my own course. Um, and I think you need to give that space to kids to find their own path and cut their own course. I think, I guess, what you can instill on them is a set of values, right? Be honest, be a good human, um, be kind, work hard, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and, and if you leave them with those values or those guiding principles or kinda guard rails, you can even... E- you can say, you would hope that they can then make good decisions for themselves.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the hardest thing about being a father?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, no sleep. (laughs) She's, she's super young. So, (laughs) uh, it's just getting better now. The first five months were very, um, very trying in regards to, like, not getting much sleep. And I guess I underestimated-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you split that between Mel? Is it, like, uh, alternating nights? Who gets up in the middle of the night?
- COCliff Obrecht
No, uh, Mel's breastfeeding, so, like, she has to get up an- and breastfeed. I don't have boobies. Um, but, but, like, w- we, we, we, we, we tag team it, right? Like, we both work incredibly hard. So we tag team it. She, she had a lot more of the load in the early days, um, by nature's default. But, um, yeah, it's starting to even off a bit more.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But that's a great example. I would invest in a night nanny. Oh my god. For your sleep and for your sanity, invest in a night nanny.
- COCliff Obrecht
Yeah. We, we kinda tried that, but didn't really work. We ended up getting a lady in, um, for, like, a few hours for about a week, and she really just, like, whipped us into gear. Turns out, it's all about routine, and like, Mel and I are not very good at following structure and, and strict routines. And apparently kids need that and it actually works. So anyone out there that's, um, got a kid that doesn't sleep, yeah, do the whole routine thing. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Uh, listen, my friend, I wanna move into a quick fire. So I say a short statement and you give me your immediate
- 52:55 – 58:54
Quick Fire Round
- HSHarry Stebbings
thoughts. Does that sound okay?
- COCliff Obrecht
Perfect.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay. So let's do... What's your favorite book and why?
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs) So, I think I've read nearly every... Well, I've, I've read a lot of business books over the years, but now when I'm going to bed at night, I want some trash and I read Jack Reacher.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Oh, wow. I'm... I'm... Uh, I was... I thought... I had in my head that you were gonna say Sapiens or something, and I was like, "Oh, no. Don't say that."
- COCliff Obrecht
I do like that book. And I... Uh, the business book I'm really enjoying now is Working Backwards. It's about Amazon. Um, but for me, business books are like flavor of the month. Like, whatever I'm reading is my... (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you know- Do you know what I like? I like Daily Stoic. I like Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday.
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And I like it because I don't read more than a page. Uh, and it's a page per day. Tell me, my friend, what do you most want to achieve from your philanthropic endeavors?
- COCliff Obrecht
Uh, we've just got a lot to figure out. I think the, the world has enough good intentions and capital to solve the world's problem. I think what we need to solve, and, and not just us but like all... The bridge we need to... Like, the, the gap we need to bridge is connecting those good intentions and that capital with the problems. And I feel it's a very inefficient system. So figuring out a way to connect the world's goodwill to the problems and solve those problems.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Would you ever do another startup?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I don't think so. It's hard.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tell me-
- COCliff Obrecht
Although we're gluttons for punishment. Like, we, we, we will probably do... S- We'll run projects, philanthropic projects, that are built like a startup based on technology.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What have you recently changed your mind on, my friend?
- COCliff Obrecht
Um, what things have I changed my mind on? How hard having a kid is. Like, I used to tell Mel when she was pregnant, which she used to hate, she's... I was like, "Having a baby has gotta be easy. Like, people have been doing it since the dawn of time. There wouldn't be so many humans on this planet if, like, it wasn't, like, easy." And that didn't go down well. And, like, and now I know why it didn't go down well. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Oh, man. That's a risky place to go. Um, uh, tell me, what three traits would you most like your child to adopt?
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I think perseverance, um, kindness. Um... They're two pretty big ones. What's the third one? Being a good person. Being curious.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If you could add anyone-
- COCliff Obrecht
And a sense of adventure, like a real sense of adventure. I want my daughter to have a real sense of adventure.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If you could add anyone to your board, who would you add? Dream add. Doesn't have to be, like, real.
- COCliff Obrecht
Oh, I think probably Bob Iger. I love Bob Iger. Bob has a very values-first approach to business, and, and I think it really resonates. Like, what's best for the customer? What's best for the employees? What are we actually trying to do here? So, he often relates things to Disney, and, and, and they're in the business of telling beautiful stories that engage people. And you can... And I think this is one thing that people get really distracted by. They focus on the art of running a company rather than the art of creating value. And, and like, and that's why people and a lot of founders lose sight of why their business exists. And often in tech, it's like you create a product that solves a problem. Um, and people, as, especially as their business grow, they get caught up in the internal politics, hiring the next big hire, blah, blah, blah. But like, what do your customers see? All your customer sees at the end of the day is your digital product. And if that product is not delightful and amazing, your business is going to go to shit. So, I think that's a common misconception that people have, and focus too much on their company and not en- not, not enough on their actual product and the value that they're creating for their customers.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started Canva?
- COCliff Obrecht
Uh, I'm glad I don't know how hard it all is, because that, that would be a challenge and all the, all the hurdles we would have had to jump, jump over. Um, because if you knew, then it would be, it would be sort of harder to start. Um... Well, I guess a lot of the people management stuff. Like, I've really evolved in sort of how to get the best out of people, um, like that whole thing I was talking about before, aligning goals and, and just being, like, transparent. Uh, they're, they're probably some of the things I wish I sort of could have brought into my toolkit earlier.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Penultimate one, my friend. What would you most like to change about the world of startups?
- COCliff Obrecht
I think the thing I would like to change is changing, and it was this concept of, like, everything used to have to be in the Bay Area, you had to be a Stanford grad, all that bullshit. The amount of investors that rejected us because they said, "I like to ride my bike to my startup." I'm like, "Fuck off." Um.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- COCliff Obrecht
So, like, that is changing though. I think COVID really accelerated that change. Um, and now investors are having a more global approach and seeing that, like, unorthodox people in unorthodox places can and often do solve big problems because they have unique perspectives different to those perspectives that are grown in the Bay Area.
Episode duration: 58:54
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