{"id":38895,"date":"2023-10-20T14:59:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/canvas-melanie-perkins-on-running-the-coolest-tech-company-in-australia-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:59:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:33","slug":"canvas-melanie-perkins-on-running-the-coolest-tech-company-in-australia-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/canvas-melanie-perkins-on-running-the-coolest-tech-company-in-australia-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Canva\u2019s Melanie Perkins on running the coolest tech company in Australia – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Canva<\/div>\n

Canva has been named Australia\u2019s coolest tech company to work for by Job Advisor.<\/p>\n

The competition, now its third year running, also named Envato the coolest company for promoting diversity, Splend the coolest small business and WorldFirst as Australia\u2019s coolest finance company.<\/p>\n

Rising stars 99Designs, SocietyOne and Driveyello were also among the finalists.<\/p>\n

While awards like these are great, Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins says it\u2019s important to remember what lies at the heart of all these businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften competitions like these focus on perks,\u201d Perkins tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while a lot of people say Canva has a lot of perks, describing them as perks doesn\u2019t really explain why we put so much effort into creating a great culture and place to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perkins says there some basic principles a startup can live by to achieve the unimaginable. Here are two of them.<\/p>\n

Raise the standards, not the rules<\/h3>\n

To build a team that\u2019s united by a culture of collaboration, creativity and productivity, Perkins says it\u2019s important to set the bar at high standards instead of strict rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreating a good team culture is about creating a place where everyone loves coming to work,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means we don\u2019t have any rules for the sake of having rules, we have high standards and we care about each other and enjoy hanging out together.”<\/p>\n

Culture can’t be bought, it’s created and nurtured<\/h3>\n

Over the past three years, Canva\u2019s rapid growth into a company worth nearly half a billion <\/a>dollars with more than 10 million users and 130 team members has meant a lot of has changed for what used to be a tiny startup.<\/p>\n

But one thing has remained, says Perkins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the same culture when we were in my mum’s living room with my first company with no budget at all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture isn’t about fancy lunches \u2013 yes, we do now have amazing chefs \u2013 but it\u2019s about having lunch together as a team, even if it’s just having left overs!\u201d<\/p>\n

Perkins says there is a great misconception about the financial cost of building good culture and teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture is about how you treat people, which doesn’t cost a thing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canva has been named Australia\u2019s coolest tech company to work for by Job Advisor. The competition, now its third year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}