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Squarespace
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
SaaS-based hosting platform
HeadquartersNew York City, New York
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Anthony Casalena
CEOAnthony Casalena
IndustryInternet
ProductsWebsite builder and hosting service
Employees782 (2018)
URLwww.squarespace.com
RegistrationRequired; subscription needed for certain features.
LaunchedApril 2003; 21 years ago (2003-04)

Squarespace is an American private company that provides software as a service for website building and hosting and is headquartered in New York City. The Squarespace service uses pre-built website templates and drag and drop elements to create webpages.

Anthony Casalena started developing Squarespace for personal use as a blog hosting service while attending the University of Maryland and founded the company in 2003. He was the only employee until 2007, when the company reached $1 million in revenues and Casalena started hiring. By 2014 Squarespace had raised a total of $78.5 million in venture capital to fund advertising and growth. The company grew from 30 employees in 2010 to 550 by 2015. The Squarespace service was further developed, adding e-commerce tools, domain name services, and analytics, while removing the coding backend in favor of drag and drop features.

Company history

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Casalena began developing Squarespace for personal use while attending the University of Maryland.[2][3] He started sharing the tool with friends and family members[2] and participated in a business incubator program at the university.[3] Squarespace was launched publicly in April 2003.[3][4] Initially it was funded by $30,000 from Casalena's father, a small grant from the university's incubator program, and 300 beta testers who paid a discounted rate.[3][5][6][7] Casalena was the sole developer and employee, creating the original Squarespace out of his dorm room.[3][6]

Casalena graduated college in 2007, by which time Squarespace was making $1 million in revenue annually.[4] He moved to New York City and began hiring, growing Squarespace to 30 employees by 2010.[4][7] That year, Squarespace raised $38.5 million in its first round of venture capital funding, which was used to hire additional staff and further develop the Squarespace software.[8] This funding marked the beginning of a more aggressive growth plan for the company.[2] Squarespace doubled its marketing budget.[2] From 2009 to 2012, Squarespace grew an average of 266% in revenue.[9] Another $40 million was raised in a second funding round in April 2014.[10] By 2015, Squarespace had $100 million in revenues and 550 employees.[4]

Squarespace purchased its first Super Bowl advertising spot in 2014.[2] This was followed by Superbowl ads each year in 2015,[11] 2016,[12] 2017,[13] and 2018.[14] The 2017 ad won an Emmy Award in the "outstanding commercial" category.[13] In 2017, Squarespace also signed a sponsorship deal with the New York Knicks, adding the Squarespace logo to their uniforms.[15]

After the Unite the Right rally in 2017 and a petition with 58,000 signatures, Squarespace removed a group of websites for violating its terms of service against "bigotry or hatred" towards a demographic group.[16][17] In 2017, Squarespace raised an additional $200 million in funding, valuing the company at $1.7 billion.[18] The money was ear-marked for re-acquiring interests from investors.[18]

Software

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As of 2016, it hosts more than one million websites.[4] Users of the service build websites using pre-built website templates and a variety of drag and drop widgets for common website elements, such as text or images.[8] Developers can also create custom website templates that are sold to users.[8] On-screen instructions walk users through things like search engine optimization or setting up e-commerce inventory.[4]

Initially Squarespace was primarily built for creating and hosting blogs.[5] E-commerce features, such as an integration with Stripe in order to accept credit card payments, were added in 2013.[19] This was followed by a mobile version of Squarespace in 2014, more commerce features, and a developer center for programmers creating custom templates or features.[20] Additionally, in 2014 Squarespace introduced a logo-creation app in partnership with the Noun Project, which designs icons.[21]

In 2011, the Squarespace service was reworked with version 6, incorporating new templates, a grid-based user interface, and other enhancements.[8] It was overhauled again in 2014 with version 7, which phased out the coding backend of Squarespace in favor of a drag and drop interface.[22][23] Squarespace 7 also added integration with Google Apps for Work and Getty Images.[10] In 2016, Squarespace started selling domains, putting it in more direct competition with GoDaddy.[24] It also added an analytics dashboard[25] and integration with PayPal.[26]

References

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  1. ^ "Squarespace.com Site Info". Retrieved October 10, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e Cole, Samantha (May 21, 2014). "How Squarespace's CEO Pivoted to Scale for Millions". Fast Company. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e Lohr, Greg (April 23, 2004). "University of Maryland Student in a Class by Himself". Washington Business Journal.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Clifford, Catherine (April 22, 2016). "How Squarespace Went From a Dorm-Room Project to a $100 Million Web Publishing Platform". Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  5. ^ a b "How Squarespace became a multimillion dollar publishing giant". TechRepublic. June 30, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  6. ^ a b Caumont, Andrea (September 13, 2004). "Squarespace Lets Users Manage Multi-Page Web Sites". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ a b Evelyn Rusli (July 13, 2010). "Squarespace Raises $38.5 Million From Accel, Index Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  8. ^ a b c d "Squarespace 6: Rebuilt From The Ground Up To Take On WordPress, Tumblr And Everyone Else". TechCrunch. October 21, 2011. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  9. ^ "Fast 50". Crain’s New York Business. October 7, 2013.
  10. ^ a b Warren, Christina (October 7, 2014). "Squarespace Ramps up its Tools to Compete with Wordpress". Mashable.
  11. ^ Stampler, Laura (January 28, 2015). "This Super Bowl Ad Purposely Wants to Put You to Sleep". Time. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  12. ^ "Key and Peele turn Squarespace's Super Bowl ad into an event". USA TODAY. January 1, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  13. ^ a b "Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad With John Malkovich Wins the Emmy for Best Commercial". AdWeek. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  14. ^ Poggi., Jeanine (January 31, 2018). "Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad Is Just Keanu Standing on a Motorcycle". AdAge. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  15. ^ Soshnick, Scott (October 10, 2017). "Knicks Team Up With Squarespace for Patch Sponsorship Deal". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  16. ^ "Website host Squarespace to remove a 'group of sites' after violence at Charlottesville white nationalist rally". Washington Post. August 17, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  17. ^ "Squarespace won't host your racist websites, either". CNET. July 23, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  18. ^ a b Vynck, Gerrit De (December 14, 2017). "Squarespace Raises Funding at $1.7 Billion Valuation". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  19. ^ Summers, Nick (February 14, 2013). "Squarespace Adds Commerce Tools To Its Website Builder". The Next Web. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  20. ^ Novet, Jordan (April 16, 2014). "Don't forget about website runner Squarespace. It just raised $40M". VentureBeat. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  21. ^ Brownlee, John (January 22, 2014). "Squarespace Makes Designing A Logo Dead Simple". Co.Design. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  22. ^ Nudd, Tim (October 20, 2014). "Squarespace's Radical Update Is Like a Blank Canvas. So Its New Ads Are, Too". Adweek.
  23. ^ Rhodes, Margaret (October 7, 2014). "The New Squarespace is a UX Dream that Eliminates the Backend Entirely". Wired.
  24. ^ Ungerleider, Neal (April 15, 2016). "Now Competing To Be The Master Of Your Domain: Squarespace". Fast Company. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  25. ^ Ha, Anthony (June 14, 2016). "Squarespace introduces new analytics for its commerce-focused customers". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  26. ^ "Squarespace businesses can now accept PayPal". The Next Web. November 1, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
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Category:Cloud platforms Category:Internet properties established in 2004 Category:Blog hosting services Category:Companies based in Manhattan

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