I’ve been reflecting on the story of Zach Kitschke, CMO of Canva, an online design and publishing tool. Since launching in 2013, Canva has grown from an Australian startup to a global company, with 60 million monthly active users, over 2,000 employees, and a $40 billion valuation. As a product leader, that trajectory is a masterclass in product management leadership, product-market fit lessons, and deliberate go-to-market execution.
Zach was one of Canva’s first employees, leading comms efforts around their initial launch and fundraise. But since then, he’s done everything from answering support tickets and cooking the team lunch, to serving as a product lead and spinning up the people function. That range resonates with my own experience in high-growth environments: early operators wear many hats to unblock the work and accelerate learning loops.
This career history gives Zach a unique vantage point on why Canva worked. I zero in on the early days — from unpacking all the work that went into their launch, to how they improved the early product and focused on the use case for social media managers and content creators. To me, the insight is simple and powerful: obsess over a clear initial ICP, deliver undeniable value for content creators, and let word-of-mouth amplify your early wins. That’s product discovery in action, supported by tight product roadmapping and sprint planning that prioritizes outcomes over output.
Next, I dig into supporting and scaling the team during hypergrowth. Canva has several unique practices around onboarding, learning and development, and keeping the team connected — from vision decks, strategy docs and a specific skills framework, to their ‘chaos to clarity’ spectrum and ‘season opener’ ritual for making company planning more fun. These practices make culture operational: they align teams on strategy, reduce ambiguity, and create repeatable rituals that sustain speed without burning people out.
From a leadership lens, I appreciate how these mechanisms turn tacit knowledge into shareable playbooks. Vision decks codify narrative; strategy docs create traceability; the skills framework clarifies expectations for IC to manager transition; and the ‘chaos to clarity’ spectrum gives product teams a shared language to navigate uncertainty. This is the scaffolding great product organizations rely on to scale quality, autonomy, and accountability.
Zach also shares what he figured out personally along the different chapters in his career at Canva, including how to leverage advisors and when to bring someone else in to take over your role. I’ve found those two moves to be force multipliers: advisors compress time to insight, and timely succession unlocks what the business needs next. Whether you’re a marketer, a founder, a people leader, or a product manager, there are tons of helpful takeaways for everyone here.
You can follow Zach on Twitter at @zachkitschke.
Inspired by this post on First Round.
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