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  • 42. Inside Canva: Coaching, Giving Away Your Lego, and Running Profitably

🎙️ Pod Shots

Today we cover the recent Lenny’s Podcast exploring the unique aspects of Canva's culture, product management strategies, and growth tactics, based on insights from Cameron Adams, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva. Canva has achieved remarkable success, growing larger than Figma, Miro, and Webflow combined, generating $2.3 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and maintaining profitability for seven years.

⚒️ Inside Canva: Coaching, Giving Away Your Lego, and Running Profitably

Lenny’s Podcast

🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📆 Published: June 2nd, 2024

🕒 Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes. Time saved: 61 minutes🔥 
🏅 Canva's Unique Culture: Coaches, Not Managers

Key Takeaways:

  1. Coaching Over Managing: Canva's approach to team development focuses on coaching rather than traditional management. Coaches are dedicated to helping individuals improve their skills and prepare for the next levels in their careers.

  2. Team and Culture Fit: Emphasising a strong cultural fit, Canva prioritises homegrown leaders and promotes from within, ensuring that new hires align with the company's vision and values.

  3. Visual Communication: As a company focused on visual design, Canva integrates visual thinking into its culture, requiring team members to present ideas and strategies visually.

🚀 Building and Scaling Teams: The "Giving Away Your Lego" Philosophy

Key Takeaways:

  1. Embracing Growth: As startups scale, roles and responsibilities must evolve. The "giving away your Lego" concept encourages team members to pass on their tasks and embrace new challenges, ensuring continuous personal and organisational growth.

  2. Fostering Flexibility: Flexibility is essential in a rapidly growing company. Canva's culture encourages employees to be adaptable, ready to tackle new roles and responsibilities as the company scales.

  3. Developing Leaders: By promoting from within and focusing on internal growth, Canva ensures that leaders are deeply connected to the company's mission and culture.

🧩 Product Management at Canva: Connected and Customer-Centric

Key Takeaways:

  1. Product Management Philosophy: Canva's product managers are deeply connected to their teams, integrating ideas, data, and customer feedback to drive product development.

  2. Experience-Driven: Unlike other companies (e.g. Google) where product management may focus more heavily on technical Product Management, Canva emphasises creating delightful and visually engaging experiences for users.

  3. Evolution of Roles: Initially, Canva resisted the traditional product manager role, evolving its approach over time to fit the company's unique culture and needs.

⚡ Overcoming Challenges: Resilience and Adaptability

Key Takeaways:

  1. Navigating Setbacks: Despite its success, Canva faced significant challenges, such as a major investor backing out of a funding round at the last minute. Resilience and quick thinking allowed the company to secure better terms and continue its growth trajectory.

  2. Profitability Focus: Learning from early funding challenges, Canva prioritised profitability to maintain independence and avoid reliance on external investors.

🌍 Growth Strategies: SEO, Internationalisation, and Freemium Model

Key Takeaways:

  1. Effective SEO: Canva's SEO strategy focused on understanding user intent and creating targeted content that seamlessly integrated with the product's capabilities, driving significant organic growth.

  2. Internationalisation: Early and aggressive localisation efforts allowed Canva to capture global markets, with a focus on delivering a tailored experience to users in different regions.

  3. Freemium Model: Balancing mission and monetisation, Canva's freemium model with a killer onboarding journey ensures widespread access to the product while generating revenue through premium features.

🤖 Harnessing AI: Enhancing User Experience

Key Takeaways:

  1. AI Integration: Canva uses AI to enhance the user experience, from recommending templates to enabling advanced design features like photo editing and text summarisation.

  2. Three-Pillar Approach: Canva's AI strategy involves building proprietary AI tools, partnering with leading AI providers, and leveraging an app ecosystem to integrate diverse AI capabilities.

  3. Focus on User Goals: AI is implemented to help users achieve their design goals more efficiently and effectively, rather than simply adding trendy features.

🎯 Conclusion

This summary barely does the amazing story of Canava’s growth justice. Canva's journey offers a stack of great lessons for founders and product managers so the full podcast is well worth a listen if you have the time.

There’s nuggets about how they shirked Product theory by taking their time to release their “MVP” and built for themselves (normally a classic no-no). Plus a common theme of how by fostering a unique culture that prioritises coaching over managing, embracing flexibility, and focusing on user experience, Canva has built a robust and scalable business.

Their success in SEO, internationalisation, and the freemium model, coupled with innovative use of AI, demonstrates the power of aligning product development with a clear mission and vision.

As announced in last week’s newsletter, they’ve just pulled the covers off their enterprise offer. Whilst the launch was incredibly cringe, no doubt their product will continue to deliver incredible hockey stick growth for the business.

Want to know more quickly? Just ask the episode below via the chatbot trained on it [web only]👇️ 🤯 or if you prefer, 🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📅 Timestamps:

  • [00:00:37] Coaching concept at Canva.

  • [00:05:16] A challenging business moment.

  • [00:10:06] Financial focus at board meetings (or not!)

  • [00:12:26] Promoting internal talent within company.

  • [00:16:42] Giving away your Lego.

  • [00:22:57] Coaching and growth at Canva.

  • [00:27:01] Product managers' key role.

  • [00:30:39] Building a successful MVP.

  • [00:33:49] Building a successful product.

  • [00:39:18] Focus on target audience.

  • [00:41:38] The power of onboarding.

  • [00:43:54] Learn and Play.

  • [00:49:09] Internationalisation strategy.

  • [00:50:59] Freemium model for democratising design.

  • [00:54:45] AI integration into products.

  • [00:58:49] Canva Create event in LA.

  • [01:02:17] The joy of design.