Seven ways Canva broke the startup mould

When you think of celebrated startups, names such as Uber, Airbnb, and WeWork typically come to mind — giants born in Silicon Valley and established by tech-heavy founding teams. However, Canva, the $42 billion design platform prepping for its IPO, has charted an entirely unique path.

Canva boasts 225 million monthly users worldwide, with nearly 5 million of those in India, making it the brand's fifth-largest market. But its rise hasn’t followed the usual startup script.

Here are seven ways Canva rewrote the playbook:

Founder’s background wasn’t the “usual”

Most startup founders are techies. Canva’s story began differently. Melanie Perkins, a 26-year-old graphic design teacher from Perth, Australia, teamed up with Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams to launch Canva in 2013. Perkins wasn’t a coder, but she had the vision for a tool that would make design accessible to everyone.

Geography, not Silicon Valley

Instead of San Francisco, Canva was born in Perth — Australia’s fourth-largest city and almost 14,000 km away from Silicon Valley. That distance didn’t stop it from building a global footprint early on.

Solving a different problem

Rather than building enterprise-first tools such as Salesforce or Oracle, Canva started with individuals and non-designers. The mission was “mass accessibility” — design for everyone, not just corporations.

Growth without burning cash

Where many unicorns poured millions into customer acquisition, Canva grew bottom-up: through students, small businesses, and word of mouth. Freemium models and social sharing carried the product further than big ad spends could.

Bootstrapped beginnings

VCs repeatedly rejected Perkins' idea, forcing Canva to remain bootstrapped longer than most startups. That constraint forced the company to stay lean and cost-conscious in its early years.

Global-first mindset

Most companies expand abroad after winning their home market. Canva did the opposite — building for the world from the start. By 2017, it offered designs in over 100 languages, including Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, and Bengali, helping it scale in India and beyond.

Quiet scale, no hype

Unlike many startups that thrive on hype cycles and cult-like founder personas, Canva’s rise has been relatively low-key. The brand has avoided making extravagant growth promises or cultivating a cult of personality, instead focusing on steady, global adoption.

Why it matters

Canva's growth trajectory shows that global unicorns don't need to emulate Silicon Valley, rely on stereotypical tech bros, or incur significant costs to expand. The design platform built its success around accessibility, cultural localisation, and disciplined growth.

(This analysis draws from a LinkedIn post by Sreekant Khandekar, Co-founder & CEO of afaqs!, who highlighted Canva’s unique journey compared to other celebrated startups.)