Cameron Adams is co-founder and chief product officer of Canva, the online design platform. Canva launched in 2013 and reports more than 220 million monthly active users in 190 countries.
Before Canva he ran his own web design consultancy and wrote several books on web design. At Google he worked with Lars and Jens Rasmussen on the design of Google Wave, and he then built the email start-up Fluent. He met Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht and joined them to build Canva.
In Day One's History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem interview series, he described his path from web development and blogging through Google and Fluent to Canva, and why community and connection drive startups.
4 episodes
Start hereCameron Adams on the importance of community and connectionHis full interview, covering Google, his earlier start-up Fluent and how he came to co-found Canva.
Documentary: The History Of The Australian Startup Ecosystem With Mark Pesce, Hayden Williams, Evan Thornley, Tim Fung, Trevor Folsom, Peter Davison, Pete Lead, Terry Hilsberg, Matt Bullock, Allan O'Connor, Rachael Neumann, Maxine Sherrin, Malcolm Turnbull, James Alexander, Alan Jones, Paul Bassat, Hamish Hawthorn, Alfred Lo, Phil Hayes-St Clair, Bruce Tulloch, Matt Barrie, Kate Cornick
Documentary: The History Of The Australian Startup Ecosystem With Jodie Fox, Alfred Lo, Hamish Hawthorn, Evan Thornley, John Allsopp, Malcolm Turnbull, Ian Gardiner, Mick Liubinskas, Matt Barrie, Mark Pesce, Phil Hayes-St Clair, Simon Thomsen, Phil Morle, Silvia Pfeiffer, Dean McEvoy, Alan Noble, Niki Scevak, Alan Jones
Documentary: The History Of The Australian Startup Ecosystem With Michael Batko, Wayne Gerard, Petr Adámek, Peter Devine, Rohit Bhargava, Terry Hilsberg, Peter Bradd, Zrinka Tokic, Rachael Neumann, Zoe Piper, Susan Oliver, Silvia Pfeiffer, Murray Hurps, Rachel Yang, Yolanda Redrup, Peta Ellis, Sarah Pearson, Niki Scevak, Colin Kinner, Mark Pesce, Colette Grgic, Ian Gardiner, Lauren Capelin, Matt Barrie, Melissa Widner, Georgie Turner, Baden U'Ren, Evan Thornley, Alan Noble, Kate Jones, Kate Cornick, James Alexander, Dharmica Mistry, Emily Rich, Lars Rasmussen
The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem - Interview Series Key moments from Cameron Adams on the importance of community and connection.
“People coming together with shared passions, people exploring new ideas together, that's where the real magic happens and that's the real reason why you should do a startup.”
Canva is a Sydney company that makes an online design and publishing platform used to create presentations, social media graphics, documents, videos, websites and print…
2 people · 5 episodes
Adam SpencerHost, Documentary: The History Of The Australian Startup Ecosystem 
Mark PesceFuturist & Host, The Next Billion Seconds 
Hayden WilliamsGroup Product Manager, MYOB 
Evan ThornleyCo-Founder & CEO, LongView 
Tim FungFounder & CEO, Airtasker 
Trevor FolsomCo-Founder and Chairman, Investible 
Peter DavisonCo-founder, Fishburners 
Pete LeadCoach, Scalable Leaders Spot something wrong? Suggest a correctionUpdated 29 October 2026
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