Melanie Perkins is a talented technology entrepreneur from Australia who became the youngest female CEO running a unicorn startup. She, along with her husband, brought a revolution in the world of online designing with Canva.
Canva is an online app used by millions of people in more than 170 countries as an online design and publishing tool. The app got launched in 2013 after three hard years of searching for investors after being rejected by hundred local investors. Though it took some time to turn the idea of Canva into reality, it soon gathered a good response among the users. Its popularity has helped it become a billion dollars company.
Biography & Wiki Quick Summary
| Popular Name | Melanie Perkins |
| Real Name | Melanie Perkins |
| Date of birth | 1987 |
| Age | 36 years old |
| Place of birth | Perth , Australia |
| Father | Not disclosed |
| Mother | Kaye Gould |
| Siblings | One |
| Brother | Greg Perkins |
| Status | Married |
| Spouse | Cliff Obrecht |
| Children | None |
| Occupation | Enterpreneur |
| Net worth | 3.43 Billion AUD |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Ethnicity | Mixed |
| Religion | Unknown |
| Zodiac | Unknown |
| Height | Unknown |
| Weight | Unknown |
| Measurement | Unknown |
| Hair color | Black |
| Eye color | Brown |
| Complexion | Fair |
| Instagram id | melaniecanva |
| MelanieCanva |
Melanie Perkins Net Worth
Perkins is among the two percent of the CEOs of venture-backed startups who are female.
She has been successfully running Canva as its co-founder and CEO. Her success has helped her to earn a great deal of recognition and fortune.
Last year Melanie Perkins had a net worth of 3.43 billion AUD. This year, she has a joint net worth of 12 billion AUD with her husband.
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Melanie Personal Life and Family
The talented CEO was born in Perth in Australia. While her father is an engineer from Malaysia, her mother is a teacher native to Australia. She has a Filipino and Srilankan lineage from the side of her father.
Perkins grew up in a supportive and hardworking family with her younger brother, Greg.
While growing up, she wanted to become a professional figure skater. However, as she became a teenager, she became interested in business.
Melanie Perkins’s first business venture was selling handmade scarfs within the markets of Perth at a very young age of fourteen.
Starting business gave her a feeling of freedom and excitement, which she has continued to this day.
She loves what she does, and ideas come from her desire to make things simple and accessible. This simple motto has made her one of the successful female entrepreneurs.
Along with a successful career, Perkins also has a successful and satisfying personal life. She got married to the love of her life this year, who also happened to be her longtime boyfriend and business partner.
Though both she and her husband have kept their personal life away from the hawk eyes of the public, it is no doubt that the couple has a blissful life.
Both Perkins and her husband are down-to-earth, who believe in making their business the most valuable company and working to their best. They also are humble and kind and believe in giving back to the community.
Because of their beliefs, they have given away 30 percent of their company to the Canva Foundation, which conducts many charities.
Melanie Husband and Relationship
Melanie Perkins was in a long-term relationship with her beau and business partner, Cliff Obrecht.
She has been with him since her college days. She even started her previous project, Fusion Books, with him.
The couple sat together and built both of their successful projects together. They have been supporting each other and working side by side to grow their company.
When Canva got launched, Perkins took the role of its CEO, while Obrecht became its Chief Operating Officer.
Both the couple had a great understanding and respect for each other and were doing great.
Finally, Obrecht decided it was time to take their relationship to the next level. He popped the question to Perkins during their vacation in Turkey.
Both the couple are strong opposers of the materialistic way of living so, Obrecht proposed her with a simple ring costing only 30 USD.
Though the proposal was not that grand, it was what Perkins wanted, and she said yes.
The couple got married in January of this year, after two years of engagement.
They took their vows on Rottnest Island, one of the islands in Western Australia.
Education
Perkins attended Sacred Heart College during her early education.
Once she completed high school, she joined the University of Western Australia. While in university, she took communication, marketing, management, and psychology as her majors.
However, she dropped out at the age of nineteen to focus on her business venture.
Career
Melanie Perkins started her career as an entrepreneur as early as the age of fourteen.
Her first business idea was selling handmade scarfs in the market of Perth. She became successful in her first venture, which gave her the confidence she wanted.
After joining the university, she started tutoring for some additional money. She used to help students with designing programs like adobe photoshop etc., as it took more than a semester to learn the basics of these complex programs.
While tutoring, Perkins came up with the idea of creating software that would replace the old desktop-based tools, which were complex to understand and took a whole lot of time to learn.
Her initial idea was Fusion Books, a software that allowed users to design their yearbooks online.
Perkins got the idea of Fusion Books after watching her mother, a teacher, spend hours preparing and managing yearbooks.
With her idea of Fusion Books, Pekins dropped out of her university and started working on it with her business partner and present-husband, Cliff Obrecht.
The two of them started working on the idea from the room of Perkins’ mother. As they were working, their families also came to help them.
While the mother of Perkins handled the printings, the mother of Obrecht looked after the accounting, and his father took the responsibility of picking up the mails.
Soon, Fusion Books became the largest yearbook publisher in all of Australia, and its founders started brainstorming their next idea.
This time, they came up with Canva, an app that would assist users in designing and publishing online without any previous technical experiences.
Though the idea was creative, it got rejected by many local investors. It took a whole three years of struggle for both Perkins and Obrecht to find an investor.
During this time, they met Bill Tai, a venture capitalist who has come to Perth to judge a startup competition.
Bill Tai did not invest instantly but, he invited Perkins and Obrecht to many startup-related gatherings, including those held in Silicon Valley.
It gave them a chance to look for their investors. During one of these gatherings, they met the Danish computer scientist and co-founder of google maps, Lars Rasmussen.
They pitched their idea to Rasmussen, and he was impressed with the idea, but he suggested they wait for a while as he did not have the team with the required technological skills required for the project.
Later, he introduced them to an ex-employee of Google, Cameron Adams, who had the team that could turn Canva from an idea into reality.
At first, Adams was hesitant to join Pekins and Obrecht as he was in the middle of searching for investors for his project.
However, after getting an email from Perkins, he changed his mind and joined Canva as its third co-founder and Chief Product Officer.
Now, Canva has become a company with a value of 40 billion dollars, with millions of users.
From a student to a job seeker, everyone uses Canva for designing in more than 179 countries. These users have created over 7 billion designs.
With the increase in users, the company has earned plenty of fortune for its founders.
