That’s what happened at <strong>Canva</strong> Create, a summit held in Los Angeles last week, in honor of <strong>Canva</strong>, a graphic design company known for helping non-designers produce good-enough flyers to advertise a yard sale or middle school talent show. In LA, Melanie Perkins, co-founder of the $40bn Australian ...

‘A fine line between humor and flopping’: tech summit’s rap battle is the height of corporate cringe | US work & careers | The Guardian

Get the most recent info and news about Canva on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Before Canva, creating a professional looking design was a complex process - you had to purchase expensive software; learn how to use it; purchase stock photography and fonts for the software; decide on a layout; slice images; receive photos and content via email; design something; upload and email the pdf only to find revisions needed to be made … and then finally be able to prepare your design for web or print. 

Since launching in August 2013, Canva has been changing the way in which we communicate. Today our design tool has attracted over 60 million happy users across 190 countries, who have collectively created more than 7 billion designs. 

With an integrated marketplace that has both free and paid stock photography, fonts, illustrations, and thousands of templates; a paid subscription that offers the ability to set up a brand kit so users can save their brand colours, fonts and assets, and ensure consistency across their designs; and a print service that gives our users the ability to produce professional prints in a variety of formats and sizes, delivered straight to their doorstep - Canva is disrupting the way we design.

Canva

According to the , reports of identity theft and fraud went up from 4.7 million cases to 5.7 million cases in 2023. Although there are many ways for someone to steal your identity, one of the most common ways this happens is by a bad actor finding your personal information on an old PDF or document. Federal Trade Commission It’s easy for malicious individuals to use your Social Security number, address, financial details, or other sensitive information to cause a lot of damage to your life. This can be easily avoided by redacting personal information before publishing or sending your PDF out into the world. This post will cover how to black out and blur out text in a PDF with both Photoshop and Canva. How to Black Out Text in a PDF with Photoshop To start, open up Photoshop, then go to . Then, double-click the PDF you wish to redact on your hard drive. File > Open This will open your PDF in the Photoshop interface. Study your PDF and locate all the information you want blacked out. To black out your information, grab the in the or press . Rectangular Marquee Tool Tool Bar M Then, draw a rectangle around the information you want to black out. Doing this will make it so that only the pixels inside the selected area will be affected. Now that the area is selected, select the . In the Tool Bar at the top of the screen, make sure to: Brush Tool (B) The is set to . Mode Normal The is set to . Opacity 100% The is set to . Flow 100% Also, make sure your is black. Foreground Color Now, you’re ready to paint the inside of the selected area black. Don’t worry about trying to stay within the dotted lines, as only the area within the box will be affected. Repeat this process for all the information that you need to black out. How to Blur Out Text with Photoshop If blacking out information is a little too abrasive for your tastes, you can always try blurring it out for a more subtle feel. To blur out text with Photoshop, first select the area with the Rectangle Marquee Tool as described above. In the Layer’s Panel, make sure the correct layer is selected, then go to . Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur In the Gaussian Blur options menu, adjust the Radius slider until you are satisfied with how blurry your information is. Only the area within the selection will be affected, so don’t worry about the rest of your document. When you’re happy with the effect, click to confirm. OK Repeat this process as many times as needed to blur out all your sensitive information. How to Save Your File as a PDF Once you’ve redacted your document, you may want to create a new PDF for easy distribution. Doing this is slightly different than exporting an image as a PNG or JPG, but it’s just as easy. First, go to . File > Save As In the Save As options menu, choose where you want the PDF to be saved. Then, make sure Photoshop PDF is selected in the format drop-down menu. Click when ready. Save Your PDF is now ready to add to any email or message. How to Black Out Text in a PDF with Canva If you don’t own Photoshop and you don’t feel like paying the $20 a month to use it, there are free options out there as well. By far, the easiest free option for you to choose from is Canva. If you haven’t heard of Canva or don’t have a free account yet, you can check out more info . here To start redacting a PDF in Canva: Click the button in the top right corner of the Canva Home Screen –>Then click . Create a Design Import File When prompted, choose the PDF you want to redact from your hard drive and click . The PDF will then open up in Canva in a new tab. Open Now that your PDF is open click the tab in the Side Menu and select the square under the section. Once you do, a square will show up on your canvas. Elements Shapes Then, resize the square to fit the text you want to black out. To change the color of the square, make sure it’s selected, then double-click the color picker above the canvas. In the sidebar, choose black. One of the advantages of using Canva to black out your text is that you can make your job easier by duplicating the element you just placed. To do this, select the black square on your canvas, then in the Mini Options Bar above the square, click the button. Duplicate This will make an exact copy of the square. Place this copied square over the next piece of information you need redacted. Repeat this process as many times as needed. How to Blur Out Text with Canva If you prefer to blur out your sensitive information with Canva, unfortunately, doing so is not as easy as it is with Photoshop. Thankfully, it’s not a complicated process once you’ve done it a few times. Your first move is to duplicate the page you’re working on. To do this, click the in the top right corner above the canvas. Duplication button Then, with the duplicated page selected, click . Then, in the Side Menu, select under the section. Edit Photo Blur Effects Make sure to adjust the Intensity slider until the entire page is as blurred as you need it. At this point, you now have your original page on top and a blurred duplicate on the bottom. From here, drag the burred copy on top of the original and make sure the two pages line up perfectly. The goal now is to shrink the blurred page to fit the area you need blurred. To do this, click the blurred page to select it, then use the side handles to shrink it down to the exact area. Repeat this same process as many times as needed to blur out all of your sensitive information. How to Download Your PDF Once you’re finished blurring your information, you might want to resave it as a PDF. To start, click the big button in the top right corner of the screen, then select . Share Download In the next menu, open the File Type drop-down menu and choose or . Your choice depends on what you want to do with your PDF: PDF Standard PDF Print Select if you plan to send the PDF in an email or post it online. PDF Standard Select if you plan on printing the PDF physically. PDF Print Finally, check on Flatten PDF if you plan on printing the PDF. Otherwise, leave it unchecked. Ensure the correct pages are selected under , then click . Select Pages Download Your new PDF is now available on your hard drive. Final Thoughts If you only have a few documents to redact every few months, then Canva is the best option. If you have multiple PDFs to censor per month, it may be best for you to invest in Photoshop, as it can be faster to redact your documents, especially when it comes to blurring out your information.

How to Black Out Text in a PDF with Photoshop or for Free in Canva

Cómo oscurecer texto en un PDF con Photoshop o gratis en Canva

Comment noircir le texte d'un PDF avec Photoshop ou gratuitement dans Canva

फ़ोटोशॉप के साथ या कैनवा में मुफ्त में पीडीएफ में टेक्स्ट को ब्लैक आउट कैसे करें

Photoshop または Canva で無料で PDF 内のテキストを黒くする方法

Como ocultar texto em um PDF com Photoshop ou gratuitamente no Canva

Cách bôi đen văn bản trong PDF bằng Photoshop hoặc miễn phí trên Canva

如何使用 Photoshop 或在 Canva 中免费涂黑 PDF 中的文本

Today, there is a wide range of tools that designers, animators, and motion designers use in their work. On the one hand, it is good to have options to choose from, but, on the other hand, it might be difficult to choose a tool that will meet the needs and requirements of a particular specialist. This article discusses how to choose software and services that will be of benefit to you, aren't too primitive or overcomplicated, and will fit into your budget. Let's go! Step #1: Define your goals As nearly in every activity, in order to achieve a good result, it is important to first of all clearly define the goal. In our case, choosing a tool for creating animations and motion design means formulating the task for which the tool will be used. For example, creating animated graphics for advertising on social networks is very different from preparing video clips or creating movies. And despite the fact that, in general, different products can be used for a wide range of tasks, it is usually not possible to achieve high efficiency in this way. There is no software that would be equally convenient in all possible cases, inevitably there will be cases where the product will show either insufficient functionality, or too much time and effort will be spent on solving simple tasks. Step #2: Define a set of desired functions Once you are clear about what kind of graphic content you are going to create, you should think about what functions a tool should have to solve this task. For example, you need to create videos with animated text for your work—what features should your software have to be able to do it quickly and easily? Most likely, there will be a number of such tasks that will require different features to be solved. Thus, you will get a list of functions, which you will need to compare with the descriptions of existing tools. That’s what we will do at the next step. Step #3: Explore available options So, you have a specific task and an understanding of what features should be in a professional tool to solve it. Now you need to understand what products are available on the market, and how they correspond to the list of the desired features. It is important to understand that, in general, there are several categories of tools for creating animations and motion design—simple services with low entry level, more advanced tools and "starships" for sophisticated video content production. It is very likely that one or even several tasks can be solved with different tools fitting into each category, but how fast, convenient and cheap will it be? This is what we need to understand in the next step. Step #4: Making final choice To begin with, we need to make a shortlist of tools that might be suitable for our goals. For example, let's imagine that we want to create animated banners with animated text. Now, create a table listing the products that can do this—take the tools from the categories listed above (simple, medium, complex). is a popular tool for creating simple designs in a drag-n-drop editor. Canva is an online service for creating promotional videos and animated banners for social networks featuring professional effects. MixaPixa is a professional graphics and effects software package developed by Adobe that is used for the post-production of movies, video games and TV shows. After Effects It is clear that each of the listed options can help us solve our problem, namely, to create a high-quality animated banner for social networks. Still, we need to understand how easy it will be, how effective, and at what cost. Buying all possible variants of software to perform a test is not the most effective option. That's why it's a good idea to start by studying the available materials on creating the type of content you need in each program. For example, here is on how to create animated banners in Canva. The result is as follows: a tutorial Let's go further and study MixaPixa. We see that our task can be solved with the help of this tool, too. And the result can be more interesting from the visual point of view: And here's on how to create animated banners in After Effects. It took more than 1300 English words to describe how to create this gif image: a tutorial Now we can make a table with the pros and cons of each tool: The analysis of the table shows that for our task of creating animated banners for advertising in social networks the best choice would be MixaPixa—this tool has more flexibility than Canva, but it is clearly easier to work with than with After Effects. At the same time, if we needed only standard animations, it would be better to use Canva, and for rendering commercials with actors and dubbing we would have chosen the product by Adobe. Conclusion The selection of professional tools is always an activity that requires time and effort. The stage of analysis and market research should not be skipped, otherwise, you are more likely to start paying for software that might not have all the necessary features. The other extreme is to follow trends and start using the "most advanced" tool that can do virtually everything. In this case, up to 90% of its functions will not be used. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. These four simple steps for analysis and comparison will help you avoid problems and save much effort and time.

Canva vs. MixaPixa vs. After Effects for Animation and Motion Design

“Everything artificial is designed.” - Dan Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things What is Canva? Canva is a software product that helps designers of any skill level to create media 10x faster. Canva simplifies designing: Presentations Blog post covers Social media posts of different formats (regular posts, stories & WhatsApp Status, etc.,) Ads across every digital ad network (Facebook Ad, Twitter Ad, LinkedIn Video Ad, Leaderboard Ad, Story Ad, Feed Ad) Canva makes it simpler and faster to design media assets embedded across the internet. Product: The product is designed with the perspective of getting a particular job done for the user rather than aggregating a bunch of tools that allow a designer to edit an image. Not everyone who wants to create a LinkedIn cover photo has the skill, time & patience to wrestle with the complex tooling available in Adobe Photoshop. Instead with 1 click, Canva allows anyone to get started, and within 5 mins of intuitive exploration of Canva’s predefined templates the user will be able to come up with a new custom LinkedIn Cover image. Example: The effort to do the job of creating a LinkedIn Cover post is reduced by 10x with Canva. The same holds for any type of job that Canva supports currently. Time Saver as a Mental Model: Great products save great amounts of time to their consumers. Cornelius Vanderbilt's railways saved time to travel across the country for people and goods. Amazon saved time for consumers to go to the big box stores. Canva saves time in designing media that is routinely used everywhere on the internet. Business Model: Canva uses the popular freemium model commonly used by most of the Software as Service products. They give away the product for free and charge a premium price for more advanced features. Pricing options include Free ($0), Canva Pro(12.95/Month $119.40/Year) & Canva for Enterprise (Pricing is unavailable). Canva's freemium version is generous and for a majority of use cases, the premium subscription is not required. This strategy helps Canva in building a large satisfied customer base that will become strong advocates for their product and even drive their enterprise subscriptions. The reciprocation effect is at its peak effect. It is also a bottom-up strategy that has been successful in other SaaS products like Slack. As someone who has created a ton of media assets on Canva, I would bet Canva has one of the highest NPS scores in the industry. Positives: Product: Canva nailed the in-browser product experience for creating media assets while the industry started moving from desktop to browser. They also nailed down the use cases consumers are using the product for, which was a step away from what Adobe was building at the time. Instead of competing with other design products like Figma, Canva's approach has been about integrating with competition and making them partners. A designer could still design things on multiple products like Figma, , or Adobe and in the end, create the final product in Canva. Facet.ai For every investor dollar that goes into a startup, $0.5 goes into two types of taxes. Cloud tax: Paid to AWS, Azure, or GCP Marketing tax: Paid to Google or Facebook Canvas adoption is also the result of nailing the use case of creating Ads across Google and Facebook ad networks. With a significant customer base, Canva has the opportunity to expand its product into the arena of companies like HubSpot in case of marketing and also compete with Shopify in case of Click to Print category services. Product & Market Expansion: Negatives: This is a personal bias as a long-time Canva user, but there is hardly any negative that I can see as an outsider in Canva's product, strategy & execution. Competition: Adobe has a Canva equivalent (Adobe Spark) which doesn't address the customer job to be done as well as Canva. There are new startups like , & (in India) which are creating products to make it easier to create media assets. Simplified Facet.ai Invideo The previous iteration of companies made it simpler to create & edit media in browser, the next generation of products will be an attempt to make them smarter using AI & ML. The Big Question: For a long time, the prediction was that Adobe would acquire Canva. This scenario is now more unlikely. Canva is estimated to be making a cool $1B revenue/year in revenue. This is higher than a lot of publicly traded SaaS companies. Adding to that equation is the recent fundraising announcement of $200M at a $40B valuation. It looks like a Canva IPO is more likely in the next couple of years than a Canva acquisition. P.S: The cover page for BMB newsletter is designed in Canva. P.P.S. If you are interested in getting an edge in early-stage startup business models, subscribe to the BMB newsletter here.

Canva Business Model Breakdown: Product, Revenue, Competition, and The Big Question 

If you’re someone who works in the graphic design field or just likes to create visual content, chances are you have heard of or used Canva. Canva is a platform for creating graphics for social media, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. Its Australian founder, Melanie Perkins, has a remarkable story, and her journey to success is something we’ll be talking about today. The Young Entrepreneur Perkins was an entrepreneur at a young age. She started doing business by designing and selling scarves in her hometown when she was 14. She said she "loved the freedom and excitement of building a business," which played a big part in her motivation for the future. As you can see, Perkins was fuelled with ambition from the very beginning. The Problem When Perkins was in the university, she taught other students graphic design. She often witnessed her students struggling with the basics due to the complicated and non-beginner-friendly graphic design software. Additionally, the software was extremely expensive (The cost of Photoshop was nearly $1,000 at the time) and was overkill for many projects. There had to be a better way. She had a vision that design software in the future would be online, collaborative, and more accessible than the existing complicated tools. And so, at 19 years old, Perkins and her boyfriend Cliff Obrecht started to test out a portion of this big idea, which was called Fusion Books. The First Project Fusion Books was a print design company that was used online. It allowed people to make their own designs for the site with Fusion's templates and then order them from there, which in turn made it easy, quick, and cost-effective as opposed to traditional printing options. The couple grew the company, and in the span of 5 years, it became quite successful. To this day, Fusion Books is still fully operational and is the largest yearbook company in Australia. Broadening the Focus Fusion Books was no doubt a success for the couple, after all, it is the biggest yearbook company in Australia, and had already expanded into France and New Zealand. But when Melanie and Cliff were running Fusion Books, they thought there could be a broader application for the software, which was the start of what we would know today as Canva. The Start Of Canva In 2011, Melanie and Cliff started Canva. It was a big risk since there were many other competitors in the market - like Adobe Photoshop for example. But they continued regardless. Canva's goal was to become "the simplest way possible" to design images with just drag-and-drop functionality of templates that are accessible to everybody with an Internet connection. Rejection Perkins was based in Australia, so it was extremely difficult for her to garner big tech investors which, by the way, were mostly based in the other parts of the United States. She lived with her brother for 3 months in San Francisco. She pitched to more than a hundred venture capitalists, but unluckily, was rejected by all of them. She said in an interview: "I remember thinking: "Why is this so hard?"”. Finally Taking A Right Turn During her Fusion Book days in 2010, Melanie met venture capitalist Bill Thai at a conference in Perth. Bill was interested in the startup. Six months later, he introduced her to Google maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen. Together, they introduced her to a range of other investors. Two years later, she was able to raise the seed round. Things were finally taking a right turn! She was also eventually introduced to celebrities Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson. The two liked the idea, and invested into it. Be Patient, Not Frustrated Rasmussen agreed to serve as their tech advisor. However, when he took the position, he rejected every single resume and LinkedIn profile that Perkins sent to him, as well as anyone else she brought to him. At the time, Perkins just wanted to get started, so this was incredibly frustrating. In the end, it was all worth it. They found a tech developer in Dave Hearnden and a co-founder in Cameron Adams, who were both from Google and had the refined skillsets that the startup needed to evolve into what it is today. After closing their first round of funding, the company already began to see early growth. The Perfect Timing Canva was launched in August 2013, it got a couple of reviews from blogs and users. Canva's engineers had to stay up late just to keep up with the growth and new subscribers to the platform. During the time, the rise of social media platforms was changing how brands reached people. Schools, authors, bowling alleys - everyone really started to care about their online presence. It was the perfect timing possible since Canva was an easy and affordable way to build a magnificent online presence. In Canva's first month, it grew to 50,000 users. Melanie focused on building an incredible product, didn’t cut corners, so when people discovered Canva.. they loved it.. and evangelized it and spoke about it to all of their friends and peers. Billion Dollar Growth Canva raised $3 million by 2014. It had 600,000 users who have made over 3.5 million designs. Six years later, this start-up has become one of Australia's hottest new businesses. Mary Meeker, an investor in Silicon Valley, led the 85 million dollar funding round in October 2019, valuing the company at 3.2 billion dollars. Additionally, it makes it one of the most valuable woman-led tech companies in the world. 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies utilize the platform, and now, it's a company valued at 15 billion-dollars. Future Visions Perkins takes on this responsibility seriously. She plans to use the funding to demonstrate her leadership capabilities, expand her team of seven hundred across Sydney, Beijing, and Manila, and create new revenue streams. With this strategy, Perkins will be closer than she has ever been to competing with professional design tools of leading tech giants like Adobe and Microsoft. The young founder is ready to take on the challenge! 3 Lessons From Canva 1. She built a product for a problem she was trying to solve. She taught graphic design, used photoshop and realized it was too expensive for most students. She scratched her own itch. 2. If you build something that solves multiple customer problems, and does it better and/or simpler than other products, you can still go into a saturated market and be successful. 3. You will be rejected... a lot. You will fail... a lot. Expect this, and work on developing a personality that can withstand these setbacks.

The Story of Canva: A Billion Dollar Startup Built on Democratizing Design

is awesome for graphic and web design. Canva.com Especially using the file export feature that downloads a design as a transparent SVG. To export a transparent .svg file, first, create a design. Then, select SVG from the options dropdown. Make sure to . check the box for transparency Once downloaded, add to your project folder, and viola! ty

🎨 Export a .svg file using Canva ⚛️

Do time-saving apps like Canva help or hinder the careers of freelancers and digital creatives?  Tell us what you think! At Hacker Noon, we are all about collaboration and open sharing of ideas, and love to share this process with you via our Slogging (blogging for Slack) app that lets anyone turn a Slack thread into a beautiful Hacker Noon article. This Slogging thread by Linh, Amy, Kien, Natasha, Akasha Rose and Shaina occurred in Hacker Noon's official #podcast channel and has been edited for readability. Linh Jun 25, 2021, 4:03 PM Kien this is your turf but I think it’s time we update the default thumbnails for YouTube (again) I feel like our current one looks, for lack of a better word, too visually boring with all similar design. Here’s side by side comparison of ours and another tech channel. How do we engineer this kind of exciting, useful, user-friendly thumbnail and not have you necessarily needing to design it every time? Is it as simple as taking a better zoom screenshot where everybody smiles or shows some kind of emotion with a big text bubble a la Hacker Noon? I’d also encourage you to look through some other successful YouTube tech channels to see what they did well. Amy Jun 25, 2021, 4:47 PM Yeah, I love those thumbnails. Maybe we need to take screenshots from the video. Kien Jun 25, 2021, 4:58 PM Unfortunately, that kind of thumbnail you’re referencing takes more time than you think, with the cutting people out of the background and everything. what do we think of that? Kien Jun 25, 2021, 4:59 PM Since each thumbnail is kind of different, there will be no such thing as templates and every time I (or whoever in charge of this) will have to jump in and use a bit of creativity to design the thumbs 😂 Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:00 PM I don’t think it needs to look exactly like that! Lemme find some other screenshots I like. Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:00 PM Closest we did was these thumbnails. Amy Jun 25, 2021, 5:01 PM Oh, I like that better. Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:02 PM Yeah, this one looks better! A little too green maybe but can mix and match with brand colors guideline? How long do those take to create? Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:02 PM Can always bring that back, we lil twist 😂 Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:02 PM Um i remembered Natasha did most of the cropping people out? so maybe not that… long? 😂 Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:02 PM How long does it take though? Ideally I want something replicable..ish Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:03 PM Look how simple this one is Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:03 PM (She does have good stills from an expensive camera though 😂) Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:03 PM LOL but we don't have the aesthetics to follow that kind of simple 😂 😂 1 Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:03 PM YES Natasha Jun 25, 2021, 5:04 PM Hey team Canva has a background remover :brain: 2 Natasha Jun 25, 2021, 5:06 PM It's a premium feature 🤗 Just click on "effects"  while your uploaded image is selected - it's the first option: 🔥 1 Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:06 PM Cool! problem solved Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:07 PM Genius!!!! We do that on top of 5 custom colors and BOOM 💯 2 Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:07 PM Hmm  hope they have that outline feature, too! Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:07 PM Let me go see Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:13 PM OHHHH SHEEET, THEY DO! we can play with shadow effects and make it the outline effect (which will come in handy for whoever is designing these!) 💚 1 Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:16 PM People say Canva are stealing jobs from graphic designers I'm saying IT SAVES US SO MUCH TIME lol 😂 😂 2 :fireball: 2 Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:17 PM Yup!!! Time to actually design lolllll! Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:20 PM Hang and I just had a similar convo convincing a dev (who shall not be named) that he should just pay for a tool instead of spending time coding. The long view is it saves you time! Use tools to our advantage so we can use our brains for actually demanding high skilled tasks! Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:25 PM Btw Kien what if you hit "slog" on this thread and title it “Does Canva hurt of help graphic designers? A designer’s take” or something like that. Kien Jun 25, 2021, 5:27 PM I was thinking of that, but I'm also scratching my head with the startups video 😭 Linh Jun 25, 2021, 5:30 PM Slogging is so simple though just hit create draft!!! Linh Jun 28, 2021, 8:31 PM Akasha Rose what if you add your 2 cents here (or not) about other types of freelancing work vs. tools? Akasha Rose Jun 28, 2021, 11:52 PM When I do Youtube strategy for startups I always recommend Canva. I've used the remove background feature since it launched and it is great. I didn't know about the outline feature though, that's cool! Akasha Rose Jun 28, 2021, 11:58 PM In the future, most creative jobs will be done via AI. A lot of people in digital lost their jobs in the early 2000s when these jobs went offshore. And then came the rise of Fiverr etc that means that even providing services as a freelancer was undercut. So tools like Canva are just a progression of this, and then there will be AI. We will put our video through an AI interface and say what mood we want and it will suggest an SEO and clickbait optimised title and even produce the thumbnail. So even Canva will be disrupted in about 5 years, no more. The system is veering towards ultimate efficiency. This isn't a bad thing, as long as we implement a global UBI. Universal Basic Income. The issue at the moment is that all the wealth we generate (via mining, energy, resources, banks) goes to big companies and the wealth of 50% of the world is concentrated in the hands of 1%. Redistribute that 50% of wealth (e.g. via DeFi) and have AI do the work, and  human culture will experience a golden age of creativity and prosperity that isn't tied to physical labour or the time dollar. Shaina Jul 3, 2021, 9:26 AM Yaayy! hello everyone, Linh as Kien is busy with startup.so, for the time being, I just took Hackernoon latest podcast thumbnail and did something in different style like you said about zoom screenshot, big bubble text and all💕. But the thing is there's no permanent template for this, we have to design it every time, but the plus point here is by using Canva "background remover" feature it can be done in less than 15 minutes, all we need to do is take screenshot of zoom, remove bg, add some elements (like bubble text), put hackernoon logo and taaa daaa its ready...:carlton: Here's something I created from latest Hackernoon podcast thumbnail, just a rough idea😄 Shaina Jul 3, 2021, 10:19 AM Kien you can take a look and I think I should have added "white outline" (or green maybe) in that also👀 Linh Jul 3, 2021, 1:01 PM Awwww that’s so cute!!!! 💕 1 Linh Jul 3, 2021, 1:01 PM Let’s not do green on white though haha Shaina Jul 3, 2021, 2:24 PM Yeah sure!😄 Kien Jul 5, 2021, 2:28 PM Thanks Shaina, i’ll get to this tonight! 💕 1 Kien Jul 5, 2021, 3:26 PM What do we think about this one? def will take more time than the current template ✅ 5 😍 6 Amy Jul 5, 2021, 3:28 PM OMG KIEN I LOVE IT Natasha Jul 5, 2021, 3:28 PM YAY LOVE Natasha Jul 5, 2021, 3:29 PM Also double YAY Alex Cobb and Amy the intro snippet ft. richard-kubina sounds great!!! Linh your intro... OMG everybody great job :star-struck: 💚 1 Linh Jul 5, 2021, 3:34 PM Kien looks awesome 😎 is this something Shaina perhaps can do in like less than 24 hours 3 times a week? Kien Jul 5, 2021, 3:39 PM def doable in less than 24 hours, but i will need to give her (or anyone in the future in charge of that) a tutorial vid - which wont happen until after wednesday Kien Jul 5, 2021, 3:40 PM So for this week’s Topic, I can do it Amy yall can just send me the thumbnail image! Tomorrow’s when we’re posting right? Amy Jul 5, 2021, 3:40 PM SWEEEEETTTTT Amy Jul 5, 2021, 5:59 PM More thumbnail inspo that might be less design heavy? Linh Jul 5, 2021, 6:15 PM Looks like they have clean background that’s why it works Amy Jul 5, 2021, 6:16 PM TRUE no one needs nic cage 😂 1 Linh Jul 5, 2021, 6:16 PM Haha also my background is always chaotic =))) Natasha Jul 5, 2021, 8:40 PM I feel like Nic Cage might one day come on the podcast if you keep that up for long enough Amy Jul 5, 2021, 8:52 PM OMG stop LOL can you IMAGINE

Does Canva Hurt or Help Graphic Designers? Hacker Noon on Design

Canva head of growth shares insights into how remote teams are collaborating creatively on the platform. We are more than 6 months into the "new normal" courtesy of COVID-19. At this point, companies like Zoom, Slack, and Asana have made huge gains by having the right solution for newly remote users to collaborate and keep business running. However, workers need more than ways to communicate and track - areas like sales, marketing, and product need to work together creatively and creative productivity tools are needed. In terms of creating layout and design with very little design skill needed, and then collaborating around the design with a team, there are few solutions that can compete with Canva. I am not a designer, but in a pinch, I've had to make images for publication   -  Canva works like bumper rails at a bowling alley, I can decide the direction but the templates make sure that everything will be more or less on track. It's Been a Good Year for Canva According to TechCrunch, Canva sent over strong product data that implies , though no publicly released financial information from this privately-owned company. strong revenue growth Canva stated that their online design service has experienced "increased growth over both Q2 and Q3, with an increase of 10 million users in Q3 alone (up from 30 million users in June)." Beyond an outstanding thirty-three percent growth in users, Canva stated it has supported more team-based usage since the start of the pandemic, which one might reasonably assume means more revenue from group subscriptions. I had the opportunity to ask a few questions of Dave Burson Head of Product, Growth & Monetization at Canva who leads the product, marketing, and growth teams behind Canva's core subscription product, Canva Pro, following his appearance on Growth Manifesto. business and technology podcast David Burson responses: David Burson Head of Product, Growth & Monetization at Canva - Pro Your user base has clearly grown quite a bit since March. What would you attribute this to? There has never been a more important time for simple and affordable tools that empower creativity and collaboration. The last few months, in particular, have highlighted the fact that the need for design is now more universal than ever. Whether you're a yoga instructor, cafe owner, teacher, or entrepreneur, creativity and visual communication are becoming increasingly important skills across the globe. From creating wedding invitations to social media posts, people who use Canva for the first time quickly discover the power and creativity they're able to unlock. This, combined with a vast and affordable library of design ingredients has led to much of our accelerated growth around the world. How has usage changed - what do people need from creative tools during COVID19? The last few months have definitely highlighted the need for simple and collaborative tools capable of fueling the rapid shift to remote collaboration around the world. With the majority of the world working from home, the outdated notion of needing to collaborate in one way or one place has been proven otherwise. Since the start of the pandemic, we've seen a surge in the sharing of designs along with continued growth around the globe as small businesses pivot and adapt their offerings and services. From virtual menus to social media posts, millions of people are using Canva to communicate important updates with their customers, empower students to learn remotely and collaborate among teams from anywhere in the world. The most important aspect for us has always been centered around creating a powerful platform that's both simple and enjoyable to use. For far too long, graphic design has had a high barrier to entry, often requiring expansive budgets or extensive knowledge. We believe people shouldn't need to learn complicated software, but rather, the software should be intuitive enough to guide and learn from the people using it. There are lots of SaaS solutions out there trying to make us more productive  --  is there a need for more creativity during a pandemic? How is that need manifesting and how is Canva pivoting to meet it? The pandemic has undoubtedly put a unique spotlight on creativity, particularly as small businesses pivot to remain open and continue serving their local communities amidst the pandemic. From distilleries producing hand sanitizer to personal trainers running digital classes, we've seen first-hand the ways in which creativity can have an enormous impact on just about anything. We've recently rolled out a number of initiatives to support this, from our free small business recovery toolkits to expanding our Canva for Nonprofit program to provide health organizations with free lifetime access to our Canva Pro subscription. *Images provided by Canva.

Canva Gains 10 Million New Users in 2020 Q3 [Interview]

founders are often “hailed as superhumans,” but the truth is they’re not. They’re everyday people like you and me. But the thing that makes them different is their fearlessness to take risks. Startup In saying that, there is a lot that can be learned from successful entrepreneurs that have made it. So, I decided to spend a good chunk of my weekend researching billion dollar tech companies to see if there were any unique patterns or key learnings that I could distill. Here are a few things that I discovered. Lemonade Insurance 2015 Founded: Fintech Industry: $2 billion Approximate valuation: Using artificial intelligence, a mobile app and other tech-centric methods, Lemonade founders Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger are turning the centuries-old business of property insurance into a . millennial-friendly consumer product Every homeowner and renter needs insurance, but many distrust insurance providers. The two concluded that insurance, with its market value of $4.6 trillion, was ripe for disruption. The differs from that of a typical insurance company – it keeps a flat 25% fee of a customer’s premium while setting aside the remaining 75% to pay claims and purchase insurance. Unpaid premiums go to a nonprofit of the users opted for the annual “give back” deal. This builds trust with millenials. Lemonade business model Unlike fintech competitors Hippo and Jetty, Lemonade doesn’t sell policies backed by established insurers. It took the risk to become a licensed carrier itself, retaining claim liability on its own balance sheet. This risk has paid off, allowing them to create a social-compact pitch that pays claims fast. Lemonade can’t profit from denying legit claims, and customers making bogus claims are cheating charity, not some greedy insurer. Lemonade puts users first, building its product with the in mind. One of the biggest pain points of traditional insurance companies is the fact that interactions can be intimidating and time-consuming, leaving consumers powerless. Not the case with Lemonade. They started by thinking about the users and built from there. user experience Entrepreneurs can sometimes make their lives harder than they need to be. Often falling victim to things like and paralysis by analysis. By focusing purely on the most essential things I.e. the problem you’re solving and your solution to that problem. shiny object syndrome Lemonade, as a name, is brilliant in its simplicity. Each step along the customer journey? Also simple. Their content? Simple to digest. Netflix 1997 Founded: Entertainment Industry: $141 billion Approximate valuation: For nearly twenty years Blockbuster sat at the top of the US video-rental industry. In the early 2000s a small disruptive company called Netflix offered to partner with them to help run their online brand in exchange for promoting Netflix in their stores. Reed Hastings (co-founder of Netflix) got laughed out of the room. Fast forward to 2020, Blockbuster is now merely a distant memory after filing for bankruptcy in 2010 while Netflix is currently worth $166B (Feb 2020). Netflix is one of the best examples of transforming your business to stay ahead of the curve. When Netflix first launched in 1997 it was purely a website-based movie rental service — this was groundbreaking at the time. It took them 10 years before they introduced their streaming services which changed the entertainment industry forever. Like many other innovative companies, Netflix is not driven by pressure to do things first, but by delivering for the customer. The opportunities to do this evolve with technology, making it a never-ending process of testing, implementation and testing again. good experiences Netflix also shows that it pays to take risks. It took a decade for broadband internet to catch up with the founder’s vision, and Netflix’s decision to switch to "original content" and divert budgets away from licensing film releases was another famously big bet. The political drama House of Cards, cost a reported to produce the first two seasons. This bet paid off, when the show went on to win multiple awards and attract millions of viewers every episode. $100 million Airbnb 2007 Founded: Travel Industry: $35 billion Approximate valuation: Long before persuaded strangers to sleep in one another's homes and became a $35 billion company, it was just an idea to earn a bit of extra money to make rent. After their first guests, the three founders realized they were onto something bigger. Airbnb They presented a final version in 2008 but investors weren’t convinced. Out of 15 angel investors, eight said no and seven ignored them completely. It was 2009 when they finally picked up $600,000 in seed funding and the rest is history. Airbnb shows how important it is to understand your users and update your product according to their requirements. The company realized early on that receiving payments was crucial for those who are giving out their space on rent, so they promptly added the advance payments feature. Marketplace models such as Airbnb have become common today, but back in 2007, this model was mostly unproven. To apply this to your own startup, you need to have an idea that not only challenges existing solutions but is also able to create value. lesson Airbnb used disruptive technology by creating a marketplace at a time when it was rare. It created ripples in the hotel industry by providing a that was different, endearing, and reasonably priced. Airbnb used innovative and new-user discounts to build loyalty for its product. service referral programs Their focus is on providing more and incremental value to their customers. If you can build a product that adds value while providing your users with an incentive to spread the word, you can create a win-win situation for your business as well as your users. Canva 2013 Founded: Internet software + services Industry: $4.7 billion Approximate valuation: For every second that you’re reading this article, Sydney-based startup Canva (fun fact: they were originally known as ) — have helped millions of people create beautiful designs and documents using its online graphic tools. Canvas Chef More than have been created since its 2013 launch, which makes you wonder why it took three years of rejections by more than 100 potential investors before it got started. These knockbacks worked in favor of the founders, allowing them to polish their offering before it hit the market. 100 million designs Canva’s purpose is to democratise graphic design – to create a tool that is imbued with such simplicity, it allows amateurs to do things that previously were only in the domain of experienced design professionals. “Simplicity” is at the core of Canva’s brand, and it’s an attribute that the company tries to weave through its entire customer experience, from an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, to its polished design templates – even its . privacy notice The strongest attribute Canva’s founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams have is . Canva’s success didn’t happen overnight, with their journey starting all the way back in 2007. persistence It takes time to build a unicorn — with it almost being guaranteed you’ll experience rejection, failure and frustration along the way. A great example of the founder’s persistence is the fact that it spent three years from meeting their first investor to actually landing the first investment. Focus is another strong attribute. One of the sole reasons Canva has been a big success is that the founders focused in the early days on finding one highly influential person in their space and getting them to help with their startup. Avoid trying to meet hundreds of people that aren’t really related to your business or what you need. Concentrate on the few names that can have the most impact instead. SEEK Limited 1997 Founded: Employment Industry: $7 billion Approximate valuation: SEEK Limited (stylised as SEEK) and its subsidiary companies, known as the SEEK Group, is one of the largest . SEEK focuses on facilitating the matching between jobseekers and employment opportunities and helping hirers find candidates for advertised roles. job sites in Australia SEEK was founded by brothers Paul and Andrew Bassat and Matthew Rockman, essentially as an online version of print employment classifieds. Today SEEK makes a positive impact on a global scale, with exposure to , more than 51 million students and learners and a presence in 18 countries. 2.9 billion people While a recruitment giant and disruptive force, Seek went through “a scary period” when it found itself on the other side of the fence, with new disruptors coming in and threatening its place in the market. they were not “pushing or challenging ourselves”. Andrew Basset admits Seek started to re-focus, considering what makes a person choose one platform over another, given the way technology has evolved. Bassat and SEEK’s leadership team realized that if they didn’t innovate they would be in “a lot of trouble.” “The reality is, today, everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted,” he said. “We always need to be vigilant. There’s always someone coming to take our business from us.” Key takeaways It’s important to remember that although some of the ideas and technology leveraged by these companies had never been seen before and completely changed the game. The principles and values used by the founders have been around for a very long time. Here are 3 of the main takeaways: Canva and Netflix are great examples of two companies that took nearly a decade to really hit their stride. That’s over 120 months of riding the emotional rollercoaster that comes with building a company. Consistency: All of the companies I’ve covered in this article have benefitted from simplifying processes, tasks and experiences that were traditionally painful for their customers. Simplicity: It can be easy for founders to become distracted by vanity metrics and superficial product features. By focusing on your customers' problems and how you can solve them — your company is more likely to create real value for your customers. Be obsessed with your customers: These ideas might not be as exciting as the latest trends or tactics. But they are almost guaranteed to continue to be  essential building blocks for the billion dollar companies of the future. Summing up Establishing a unicorn startup is no easy task and it’s not meant to be. You need to become comfortable with the feeling of failure and remind yourself the journey of an entrepreneur is a marathon not a sprint. Once upon a time, unicorn startups were a rare breed. Today, not so much. Lastly, if you are looking to take the dive into startup land then: be curious, be problem focused, but above all, take action.

CANVA

canva.com

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Since 2012

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CANVA

canva.com

501-1K employees

Since 2012

COMPANY RANKING

CANVA

EVERGREEN INDEX #887

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