DeepSummary
The episode features an interview with Cameron Adams, the co-founder and chief product officer of Canva. Cameron shares insights into Canva's unique company culture, including their approach to coaching employees instead of having traditional managers, and encouraging employees to 'give away their Legos' by passing on responsibilities to focus on new challenges.
Cameron discusses Canva's emphasis on product development, such as their decision to spend a year building their minimum viable product (MVP) before launching, and their strategy for integrating AI into the product experience. He also highlights Canva's successful SEO strategy and the importance of considering the end-to-end user experience.
The conversation covers Canva's early days, including challenges faced during fundraising rounds and the co-founders' dynamic as a married couple. Cameron also provides a preview of Canva's upcoming enterprise product launch and their vision for redesigning how teams work collaboratively.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Canva has a unique company culture that emphasizes coaching employees rather than traditional management, and encourages employees to 'give away their Legos' by passing on responsibilities to focus on new challenges.
- Canva spent a year building their minimum viable product (MVP) before launching, prioritizing a delightful user experience over rushing to market.
- Canva has a successful freemium model that aligns with their mission of democratizing design and making it accessible to everyone.
- Canva's growth has been driven by an effective SEO strategy that considers the end-to-end user experience, from search to landing page.
- Canva has a three-pillar approach to integrating AI into their product: building proprietary AI tech, partnering with leading AI providers, and leveraging their app ecosystem.
- Canva is launching an enterprise product to cater to the needs of large organizations and teams, reflecting their growth and vision for redesigning collaborative work.
- Canva prioritizes internal promotions and hires to maintain their unique culture and alignment with their vision and processes.
- Canva co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht's dynamic as a married couple has been successful by maintaining transparency and open communication.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “We don't really have managers, but everyone at Canva has a coach. They're constantly working with you to look at your skills, but also when it might be time to move on to the next level.“ by Cameron Adams
- “We truly want to democratize design, which means we want to get design into the hands of as many people as we can because we think that the world is a better place when more people can create really rich visual content.“ by Cameron Adams
- “We've had a team of machine learning engineers for probably seven years now. I think their work has become a lot more visual now and more customer facing. Way back when they were just doing recommendation engines inside our emails and our homepage and suggesting templates to you. But now they get to work with some really cool technology which lets them produce images for people and create designs and summarize texts and translate to 100 different languages.“ by Cameron Adams
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Episode Information
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
6/2/24
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
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-canva-with-cameron-adams
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Where to find Cameron Adams:
• X: https://twitter.com/themaninblue
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themaninblue
• Website: https://themaninblue.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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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
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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/
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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