Mar 13

Mar 13 BZ Founder Review 02: Anthony Casalena - Squarespace

Founder Bio

Anthony Casalena is the founder of Squarespace, which is a SaaS-based hosting platform for websites. Actually this website is build on Squarespace. He built the company from his dorm room in University of Maryland and ran a one-man show as the CEO/Accountant/Customer Support/Programmer himself for 3 years. Initial investments came from his parents ($30,000k) for server costs.

Since 2012, Squarespace evolved from a blog building website to commercial site building website. That is when it starts to take off.

Anthony emphasized a lot on marketing, starting with Adwords getting his first customer. He reinvested most of the revenue back into the company and marketing. At one time, nearly all podcasts were sponsored by Squarespace. In 2017, Squarespace’s Super Bowl ads caught fire and drew a lot of positive attentions.

Moving from running a one-man show to being a CEO of a 600-people company, his role changes from coding, marketing and designing to focus on communication, accountability, strategies and hiring. Similar trend in most tech companies these days.

From listening to him talk on podcasts and watching his interviews. He seems like a very humble and down-to-earth man, who was truly passionate about the product from the start.

Founder Quote

“We appreciate aesthetics, we appreciate design, we appreciate minimalism and we hang out and have conversations in these adult places, we wanted to keep some aspect of that cultural value in the fundamentals of the space” - Anthony Casalena

“I think getting pushed outside of your comfort zone and dragged forward and realizing that you cant do it all yourself is really an important time.” - Anthony Casalena

“It’s okay to scale ambition.” - Anthony Casalena

“I’m inspired by anyone who really takes the time to craft a relatable experience. Apple does it with computers. Guys like Ian Schrager do it with hotels. It doesn’t matter. Anyone really willing to say “this isn’t good enough” and push through—push for something that surprises people. I like that.” - Anthony Casalena

“It’s easy to throw out bad ideas, but to throw out really good ones is hard.” - Anthony Casalena