# How Melanie Perkins TURNED 100 Rejections into a $26B Empire

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/evan-carmichael-believe-unlocking-your-true-potential-7782439/how-melanie-perkins-turned-100-rejections-into-a-26b-empire
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/evan-carmichael-believe-unlocking-your-true-potential-7782439/how-melanie-perkins-turned-100-rejections-into-a-26b-empire.md
Podcast: [Evan Carmichael - Believe: Unlocking Your True Potential](https://stenobird.com/podcast/evan-carmichael-believe-unlocking-your-true-potential-7782439)
Published: 2026-07-25T09:15:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG4487691740.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG4487691740.mp3
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Duration seconds: 1876

## Resource

✎ Get free access to our vault of PDF summaries for every YouTube video here: https://believe.evancarmichael.com/the-vault ✎ Check out my NEWEST video: https://goo.gl/E0eE6m ✎ To get more details on all the research and studies mentioned in this video check out the articles below: https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/how-canvas-melanie-perkins-learned-to-pitch-persuasively-after-more-than-100-rejections.html https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/canva-10-year-timeline/ https://ghwcc.org/news/35-year-old-canva-founder-melanie-perkins-got-rejected-by-100-vcs-now-her-26-billion-design-startup-is-ready-to-take-on-microsoft-and-google/ https://medium.com/the-million-dollar-thinker/canva-how-melanie-perkins-built-a-40-billion-design-empire-bb47004112aa https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/quf53x/canva_founder_was_rejected_over_100_times_by/ https://www.demandsage.com/canva-statistics/ https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/canva-co-founder-cameron-adams-pledges-more-than-half-his-us3bn-fortune/ ✎ Melanie Perkins went from being a 19-year-old college student in Perth teaching design to classmates to becoming one of the most successful founders in tech. In this video, you’ll see how Melanie turned her frustration with complicated tools like Adobe Photoshop into the early idea that became Canva. Her first startup, Fusion Books, proved the power of simple online design and gave her the confidence to dream bigger. You’ll learn how she wrote an 80-page plan, built her first product with Cliff Obrecht, partnered with Fuji Xerox, and grew from 16 schools in year one to more than 100 without any advertising. ✎ You’ll also see the harder part of the journey. Investors rejected Melanie more than 100 times. They told her she wasn’t a real tech founder. They said her idea was t…

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