The secret power of onboarding, w/Canva's Melanie Perkins
Mar 29, 2022
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Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva, discusses the transformative power of onboarding. She emphasizes how her platform's success hinges on engaging newcomers swiftly and simply. With over 40 million monthly users, Perkins shares strategies for onboarding not just customers, but also investors and employees, ensuring alignment with company values. Memory expert Ron White adds insights on enhancing memory retention, linking it to effective communication. Together, they showcase how thoughtful design and onboarding can foster long-term loyalty and innovation.
Effective onboarding is essential for both user and employee experiences, requiring simplicity, speed, and engagement to instill confidence and alignment with company values.
Onboarding investors involves clear communication, shared goals, and creating a sense of inclusivity and trust through consistent updates and celebration of milestones.
Deep dives
The Importance of Onboarding Users and Employees
Melony Perkins, co-founder of Canva, emphasizes the significance of effective onboarding in both user and employee experiences. She discusses the need to make the onboarding process for users fast, enjoyable, and engaging, ensuring they feel confident and empowered to use the product. Perkins shares how Canva uses gamification techniques, such as challenges and rewards, to onboard users successfully and foster a sense of playfulness. She also highlights the importance of onboarding employees to align them with the company's vision and values, emphasizing the need to create a memorable and inclusive onboarding experience. Perkins emphasizes that onboarding is an ongoing process that continues as the company grows and expands into new markets and partnerships.
Building Trust with Investors through Effective Onboarding
Melony Perkins discusses the significance of onboarding investors and gaining their trust. She shares how Canva presents its vision and pitch deck to investors, aligning their understanding with that of the team and creating a sense of inclusivity. Perkins emphasizes the need to make investors feel part of the journey, keeping them informed about milestones and engaging them in company celebrations. By focusing on clear communication and shared goals, Canva builds trust and fosters strong relationships with its investors.
Creating a Fun and Engaging Onboarding Experience for Users
Melony Perkins explains how Canva prioritizes creating a fun and engaging onboarding experience for users. She discusses the challenges of overcoming user fear and insecurity when it comes to design. Canva employs strategies like mini-games and challenges to give users quick wins and instill confidence in their ability to use the platform. Perkins emphasizes the importance of observing user feedback and continuously refining the onboarding process to ensure new users have a positive and playful experience.
Developing a Company Culture through Thoughtful Onboarding
Melony Perkins highlights the significance of onboarding employees as a means to develop a strong company culture. Canva focuses on ensuring employees understand and align with the company's vision and goals. They incorporate various onboarding activities, such as presentations, season openers, and team bonding exercises, to introduce new employees to the company's values and foster a sense of belonging. By striving to create a supportive and inclusive onboarding process, Canva helps employees fully integrate into the team and build long-lasting relationships.
Onboarding isn't just about employees. The often overlooked step-by-step process — to join a product or company — lays the foundation for everything that follows. No one knows this better than Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva. From the moment she started the Australia-based graphic design platform, she knew she had to engage newcomers with simplicity and speed. It took a series of steps: onboard users to her product, one-by-one; onboard investors to help her build; onboard employees in a way that would pass along her values and her vision. Then onboard new investors, new features, new partners, new markets with the same care and ease-of-use — but at scale. With more than 40 million monthly active users and 3 billion designs created, Canva is proof for the magic of onboarding. Cameos: Ron White (Memory Expert).