DIY graphic design Australian firm hits 2 million users less than 20 months

How the new business could attract 2 million users within 20 months after launching their business? Here is another business success story in Australia.  

According to the Business Review Weekly today, Canva has reached a milestone of 2 million users in less than 20 months and growth at the Sydney-based start-up is accelerating.

Canva, which offers online tools for do-it-yourself graphic design, launched its beta site in August 2013 and had 600,000 users at its last funding round in July 2014.

“Our first 500,000 took 280 days to reach and since then it’s been basically halving - it took about 140 days for the next 500,000 and this one has been even quicker,” Cameron Adams, the technical co-founder, says.

“When you start out, you think it’s a great idea and is going to work but you don’t truly think of the numbers, and it feels amazing to hit these marks that you thought only Facebook could reach.”

The company has had to introduce more automation and self-help features to cope with the scale, but Adams says it has been “amazing” how well the technical side has coped with the growth.

Canva is free to use and the other co-founders, Melanie Perkins, says the start-up is committed to keeping it that way. People pay if they want to download stock images, with the money shared between Canva and the original contributors. Perkins says this is generating “significant revenue” for Canva and some contributors were earning thousands of dollars, so the business model is working.

Perkins says Canva has big plans for 2015; she hints that there might be something in the pipeline for the 200,000 companies using Canva, and building functionality that “will make a lot of people very happy” based on user requests.

The business is backed by big names, attracting $6.6 million in funding so far.

Ref:http://www.brw.com.au/p/entrepreneurs/canva_passes_million_milestone_as_U1Mxt4WSG5YIaxr6HWFWZJ