@cam-adams
Canva head of people; built a coaching culture that scaled to 1000+ employees profitably.
Organic word-of-mouth was Canva's biggest growth driver for years. That only works if people are excited. A product that 'gets the job done' won't create the enthusiasm needed to spread — you need people to feel joy in using it.
Canva's onboarding principle: lower barriers to entry AND increase delight simultaneously. Don't just remove friction — make each step surprising and joyful. Within 3-4 steps, users should accomplish something they've never done before.
SEO only works if the experience at the end of the journey is great. You can't just SEO the hell out of something that's a terrible experience. The landing page, the onboarding, the magic moment — all of it matters.
The product needs to spark joy and delight — it can't just be 'this is a useful tool.' It needs to light up their eyes. They need to be like, 'How do I sign up? How do I pay for it?' And they need to want to talk to other people about it.
Canva's AI strategy runs on three pillars: (1) Build your own AI where you have the most data and advantage, (2) partner with the world's best for commodity capabilities like LLMs, (3) open your app ecosystem so AI developers can reach your audience.
The words we literally got out of user testing were: 'I didn't know I could be a designer.' That was what we managed to do through several rounds of refinement on the onboarding process.