The site was supposed to take three weeks to build. It took six months.
That is how Envato began. In 2006 Collis and Cyan Ta'eed, with their friend Jun Rung, set out to create a marketplace where designers and developers could sell what they had made, and they underestimated the job by a factor of eight. Along the way they worked their own freelance jobs, out of a garage, to pay for the work. There was no investor. There never would be.
The Ta'eeds never took outside funding, so every decision was theirs, and every mistake.
Cyan had grown up in Sydney. After university she started a freelance graphic design business, and she knew first hand how hard it was for a lone designer to sell a template twice. The marketplace sold WordPress themes, stock photos, fonts and graphic templates, and creators earned a cut each time someone bought them. It was an early version of an idea that later became everyday.
The money story is where Envato is unusual. The Ta'eeds never took outside funding, so every decision was theirs, and every mistake. After launch, they spent about eighteen months travelling, determined to prove that a business could run from anywhere with Wi-Fi. When they returned they set up a Melbourne office. The team grew quickly and they started a family there.
Freedom did not make it easy. A stretch of consolidation followed, as the company cut back to fewer products when demand shifted. Cyan left in 2018 to start Hey Tiger, an ethical chocolate brand. In 2020 Collis stepped down as CEO, handing over to Hichame Assi. The couple moved to Darwin to focus on philanthropy, including work with First Nations communities, and Cyan chairs the Bright Moon Trust, which invests in First Nations entrepreneurs.
Then came the exit. In May 2024 Shutterstock agreed to buy Envato for US$245 million in cash, around A$375 million. The Ta'eeds owned about 68 percent. Collis's brother held roughly 16 percent, with Jun Rung holding part of the remainder. Shutterstock said the deal would add around 650,000 subscribers to its own base of about 1.15 million.
The quiet lesson is in that six months. If they had known the build would take half a year, they might never have started. Underestimating the work is a mistake founders rarely forgive themselves for, but the six months did not stop them. They paid for their ignorance with freelance work, and the result was a company they owned almost outright.