20VC: Canva Co-Founder, Cliff Obrecht on The Journey From 100 VC Rejections to a $40BN Company, Why Good Enough is Not Good Enough, The Secret to Hiring Non-Obvious Talent and Relationships to Money and Why They Are Giving Away Billions

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cliff Obrecht is the Co-Founder & COO @ Canva, the free-to-use online graphic design tool that makes it easy for anyone to design anything from presentations to videos and social media. Cliff and Mel have scaled Canva to over 60 million monthly users, 2,000 employees, and 500,000 teams from companies like Intel and Zoom using Canva. During this incredible growth journey, they have raised over $580M with their last round valuing the company at over $40BN.

In Today's Episode with Cliff Obrecht

1.) From Teacher to Billionaire Tech Founder:

How did Keith make his way into the world of tech with his founding of FusionBooks? What did the process with FusionBooks teach him about how to run Canva?
How did the early fundraising days for Canva go? Why does Cliff think they got over 100 no's?
What are Cliff's biggest pieces of advice for founders today, not in Silicon Valley, looking to raise from Silicon Valley VCs?

2.) Scaling to $40BN: The Biggest Lessons:

What does Cliff mean when he says the secret to successful hiring is looking for "distance traveled"? How does he determine this in the interview process?
What have been some of the single biggest lessons in what it takes to acquire the best talent?
What are some of the biggest mistakes Cliff has made in talent acquisition? How has his process changed as a result?
What do Canva do to get the best operators as advisors in the company? How do they compensate these advisors? What does Cliff advise founders on how to do the same?

3.) The Art of Deal-Making:

How does Cliff think through what makes a "good deal"? How does he approach negotiation?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make when negotiating and doing deals?
What have been Cliff's biggest lessons on successful investor relations over the years?
How does Cliff and Canva approach acquisitions? What do they look for? What is their process? Why do most tech companies approach acquisitions the wrong way?

4.) Cliff Obrecht: Money, Fatherhood and Marriage:

How does Cliff analyze his relationship to money today? How much money is enough? How has his relationship to money changed over time?
Why have Cliff and Mel given away over $10BN to their foundation? Why is philanthropy so hard to do effectively?
Why would Cliff hate for his children to be brought up in excess wealth?
What does "great fatherhood" mean to Cliff? What are the most challenging aspects of parenting?
What are the secrets to a happy marriage? How does co-founding a company with your other half work well? How does it work poorly?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Where do we get money from? Silicon Valley's got heaps of money. Let's go to Silicon Valley.
0:03.7	And then we went to Silicon Valley. We spent over a year there and we got rejected over 100 times by VCs before we finally convinced some people to invest in us.
0:13.4	This episode's day is one of the most remarkable stories in technology how a couple from Perth in Western Australia built a business from nothing to a valuation
0:21.3	of $40 billion last year and getting many nose in the process.
0:25.1	I'm so thrilled to welcome a friend in the form of Cliff Obright, founder and C.O.O. at Canva
0:30.1	the tool that makes it easy for anyone to design anything from presentations to videos and
0:35.1	social media. Now Cliff and Mel have scaled Canva to over
0:38.3	60 million monthly users, 2,000 employees and 500,000 teams from companies like Intel and Zoom
0:45.0	using Canva. During this incredible journey, they've raised over $580 million across rounds,
0:50.8	and their last round, valuing the company at over $40 billion. But before we dive into the show today, the single most important element of any team is their ability to work together in the best and most efficient way.
1:02.0	And Coda is the dog, where teams can work on entire projects from start to finish with everything they need all in one place.
1:09.0	Think about the way your team works today.
1:11.6	If all the work is spread across different documents, spreadsheets, and a stack of workflow
1:15.6	tools like they are in all of my teams, it's tougher to focus on getting things done,
1:19.6	let alone getting them done together.
1:21.6	And that's why I realized that I had to have Coda and why you need Coda.
1:25.6	Coda is the dot that brings it all together.
1:27.9	By putting data in one centralized location, regardless of format.
1:32.0	With Coda, you'll never need to ask, where are the latest project updates?
1:35.8	Anyone know where the performance stats are?
1:37.8	This is what really slows teams down and prevents collaboration.
1:41.8	With Coda, your team can operate on the same information and collaborate
	...

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