My blog posts about “Uncategorised”

• Encouraging volunteerism

  “What if one hour of your time could generate 150 hours of value for charities?” was the enticing line that drew me in. I was fortunate to bump into Fion Leung while talking at Startup Grind’s event in Hong Kong a few months ago and she told me about an organisation she’d started called Time Auction. The gist of it…

• A startup’s guide to disruption

  Disrupting healthcare. Disrupting real estate. Disrupting the financial landscape. Disrupting billion-dollar industries. “Disruption” is a cliché in the world of technology and startups nowadays, and it has taken on a rather vague meaning in recent years. Most startups claim they’re disrupting something even if they just mean they’re applying some new buzzwords to an old problem. But if you are…

• Edit more, write less

  In a wide-ranging interview on AngelList’s podcast, Keith Rabois talks about his experiences helping to grow Paypal, Square, and OpenDoor (amongst others). There’s a wealth of learning in there, including Keith’s theory on hiring barrels which we’ve started to really take to heart at Canva. But one of the things that caught my ear were his thoughts on editing as…

• Counting down

  Counting down to launch is one of the greatest and scariest things you can do. Just over 5 years ago we launched Canva and it was an incredibly exciting moment in time. Tensions were heightened by the self-imposed deadline that we’d forced on ourselves by providing a press embargo. And to help keep us focused on when that magic moment…

• Changing the world through communication

  This is the written version of a talk I gave at Change the World in May, 2018. It’s a conference for non-profits that helps them improve their marketing and reach their audience more effectively. I was reading an article about public speaking recently (don’t worry, it wasn’t in preparation for this). The premise of that article was that the only…

• Red dot

  My nighttime ritual for the past two weeks has been to wander out into the backyard and scan the heavens for the brightest red dot in the sky. Mars is the closest it’s been to Earth since 2003 and that proximity gives it a brilliant presence in midnight’s vast inky blackness. We often take the stars for granted because they’ve…

• Product managers, editors, and taste

  Behind every great book is a great editor. When you’re reading a bestseller, it’s easy to think that every word was put there by the person on the front cover. I alluded to it in “Creativity at scale”, but every creative endeavour is a collaborative endeavour. (That’s not to say that the author didn’t do most of the work). After…

• 9 squares of code

  9 squares is one of my favourite online projects. Everything from the design of each square, to the colour palettes, to the whimsical content just works. Three of my favourites are here, here, and here. I recently had a desire to do some tech-inspired FUI, and the 9 squares format was an excellent way to explore a range of techniques…

• Recent reading for startups & design

  I managed to dive into my backlog of articles-to-be-read recently and surfaced with some gems. Here they are: Observational Customer Research “The foundation of all great service delivery is the continuous observation of customers. The purpose of observational research is to understand what people are doing. The purpose of qualitative research is to understand what people are thinking or feeling….

• Creativity at scale

  A one-hundred strong choir chants at the back of Abbey Road Studios while John Williams conducts the impeccably talented musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra into a frenzied tempo for “Duel of the Fates”. This is creativity at scale. Throughout history, archetypes of creativity have focused on the lone artist toiling away in their studio, producing brilliant works of genius…