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Inside Canva: Coaches not managers, giving away your Legos, and embracing AI | Cameron Adams

Cameron Adams is the co-founder and chief product officer of Canva. Canva is one of the world’s most valuable private software companies, used by 95% of Fortune 500 companies. Since its launch in 2013, Canva has grown to over 150 million monthly users in more than 190 countries, generating $2.3 billion in annual revenue. Prior to Canva, Cameron ran a design consultancy, worked at Google on Google Wave, and founded the email startup Fluent. He is also an author of five web design books and a regular speaker at global conferences. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why they spent a year building their minimum viable product (MVP) before launch • Why Canva has no managers, and their unique approach to coaching and performance reviews • Why they encourage employees to “give away their Legos” • Insights into Canva’s SEO growth strategy • Their three-pillar framework for integrating AI into their product • Stories from the early days — Brought to you by: • WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny • Attio—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups: https://attio.com/lenny • Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-canva-with-cameron-adams Where to find Cameron Adams: • X: https://twitter.com/themaninblue • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themaninblue • Website: https://themaninblue.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Cameron’s background (02:00) Reflecting on the success of Canva (04:50) Reflecting on hard times (10:01) Canva’s product-obsessed culture (12:02) Why they prioritize internal promotions and hires (13:56) What makes Canva unique (16:31) The concept of giving away your Legos (21:44) Why Canva has no managers (24:29) Product management at Canva (27:56) Reflections on working with a married couple (30:37) Why they spent a year building their MVP before launch (33:49) Advice for building an MVP (41:23) Canva’s onboarding transformation (44:25) Canva’s SEO strategy (50:37) The success of Canva’s freemium strategy (54:24) Integrating AI into Canva’s product (01:01:50) Where to find Cameron Referenced: • Canva: https://www.canva.com/ • Melanie Perkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieperkins • Cliff Obrecht on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliff-obrecht-79ba9920 • Jennie Rogerson, Head of People, LinkedIn post about “season opener” events: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jennierogerson_season-opener-is-one-of-my-favourite-events-activity-7006815614556135424-73bD/ • Game of Thrones on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones • Woodstock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock • ‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups: https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/ • Minimum viable product (MVP): https://www.productboard.com/glossary/minimum-viable-product-mvp • Canva’s SEO Strategy Is Elite: https://thegrowthplaybook.substack.com/p/canvas-seo-strategy-is-elite • The SEO Strategy That Led Canva to a $40 Billion Valuation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INyGKt6LAqM • Andrianes Pinantoan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrianes/ • Canva Create: https://www.canva.com/canva-create/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Lenny RachitskyhostCameron Adamsguest
Jun 1, 20241h 3mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Inside Canva’s Rise: Culture, Coaching, AI, and Product Obsession

  1. Canva co-founder and CPO Cameron Adams explains how a deeply product-led, design-obsessed culture has powered Canva’s growth to $2.3B ARR, 60% YoY growth, and long-term profitability.
  2. He details Canva’s unique people practices—like “giving away your LEGOs,” a no-manager coaching model, and promotion-from-within—that enable individuals and the organization to continually scale.
  3. The conversation breaks down Canva’s approach to MVPs, freemium, SEO, international expansion, and how they weave AI into the product in service of real user outcomes rather than as a gimmick.
  4. Adams also shares hard-earned lessons from fundraising scares, onboarding breakthroughs, and designing a global, enterprise-ready product while staying true to the mission of democratizing design.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Build a product so good it drives organic word-of-mouth.

Canva delayed launch for about a year to ensure the initial experience was genuinely delightful, not just functional—aiming for “eyes light up” reactions that would naturally fuel early growth without heavy marketing spend.

Adopt a ‘give away your LEGOs’ mindset to scale yourself.

Employees are encouraged to relinquish favorite responsibilities as the company grows—shifting from doing the work themselves to hiring, system-building, and coaching others—so both the person and the org can move to the next level.

Replace traditional managers with role-specific coaches focused on growth.

Everyone at Canva has a coach from their specialty (e.g., PM, design, engineering) who helps with skills, career pivots, and opportunities, supported by 360 feedback instead of classic top-down management.

Treat onboarding as product-critical, not an afterthought.

Early user tests showed people froze on a blank page, so Canva redesigned onboarding into tiny, playful steps (like “search for a monkey”) that quickly delivered a finished design and the feeling, “I didn’t know I could be a designer.”

Tie growth channels tightly to end-to-end user success.

Canva’s famed SEO strategy works because it maps from intent (“Halloween poster”) to a tailored landing page, to a relevant template, to a smooth onboarding flow, ending in a genuinely successful outcome for the user.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Being profitable means that we never have to go to someone for money to ensure the survival of the business.

— Cameron Adams

Product is, at the end of the day, the most important thing at Canva, and the thing that's gonna help us stand out and continue to have success.

— Cameron Adams

You probably need to give away some of the stuff that you're doing now in order to get to that next level.

— Cameron Adams

We still did a ton of user testing... but you're releasing it knowing that the rough edges are gonna be outweighed by the joyful experience.

— Cameron Adams

You can't just be a product that's purely built on AI. You still need to think about what it is that people want to do and how you build a product that actually meets that need.

— Cameron Adams

Canva’s growth, profitability, and fundraising challengesCompany culture: giving away your LEGOs and coach–not–manager modelProduct management philosophy and building a product-led companyMVP quality, onboarding, and early product-market fit with social media managersSEO, templates, and internationalization as major growth leversFreemium and monetization evolution: from $1 elements to Canva Pro and enterpriseIntegrating AI through in-house models, partnerships, and an app ecosystem

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