Building your own business from scratch and seeing it grow is a dream come true.

The vision we have and seeing it come to fruition is something we all aspire. Earning a lot from it is also a great bonus. After all, that’s what businesses are for; we invest to earn. But what would you do if your company reaches a value of, say, a billion dollars? What would you do with all that money?

Melanie Perkins never thought Canva would be a multi-billion company when she first thought of it.

Melanie was studying at the University of Perth back in 2006, where she also spent her spare time teaching design programs part-time. It was then when she realized how cumbersome most design software are and grew frustrated with all the complex functions that students still need to learn before they can accomplish something.

She thought she wanted something more accessible and collaborative.

As she saw her students struggle, she wished that it wouldn’t take years to acquire design skills and gain experience. She and her husband, Cliff Olbrecht, thought of taking the entire design ecosystem into one page and make it accessible to everyone.

That’s how Canva came to life.

Of course, it wasn’t an easy road for this couple. They had to pitch their business idea to gain investors. From meeting with potential investors and funders to completing their team of co-founders, they finally found the perfect formula for their tech start-up.

Fast forward to today, what started as a start-up is now taking the design industry by storm.

From an initial investment of $1.5 million, Canva is now valued at $15 billion. They also opened offices in other parts of the globe like Manila, Philippines and Beijing, China. Their continued growth is proof that their once-crazy dream helped people harness their creativity through easy and accessible design tools like Canva.

But even with that much valuation, Melanie and Cliff thought of giving it back to the community.

The couple decided to give 30% of Canva to their charitable institution, the Canva Foundation. They planned to donate their first charitable donation of $10 million to vulnerable families in South Africa and hoping to give more after that.

According to Forbes, Canva has more charity involvements even before hitting the billion mark.

The company joined the Pledge 1% Movement, wherein companies donate not only their money but also their time, resources, and equity to charity. Aside from this, Canva is also working with 130,000 non-profits and 60,000 schools. They also help the environment by planting trees for every printing job coursed through the company, and they already planted 2 million as of September this year.

For Melanie and Cliff, their success means nothing if they don’t use what they have to help others.

“If the whole thing were about building wealth, that would be the most uninspiring thing I could possibly imagine. It has felt strange when people refer to us as ‘billionaires’ as it has never felt like our money. We’ve always felt that we’re purely custodians of it,” she said in an interview with Forbes.

If only all tech giants would do the same, we’ll be living on a much better planet right now.

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Source: CNBC International YouTube Channel, Forbes, Bloomberg Wealth