Circle Live with Squarespace CEO and Founder, Anthony Casalena
While Squarespace‘s second annual Circle Day has come to a close, the event remains top of mind for the thousands of entrepreneurs and creators who attended the conference in-person and virtually.
This year’s theme was Build Your Toolkit, with the day’s sessions focused on developing skills in everything from marketing and artificial intelligence to coding and collaboration. Through breakouts, workshops, and presentations, the professional web design community walked away with inspiration and knowledge to take their personal brands to the next level.
A highlight was the day’s mainstage session, “Circle Live with Squarespace Founder and CEO Anthony Casalena.” Circle Live is a Circle member-exclusive talk show hosted online each month, where Community Managers Sam Zelitch and Sarah Greisdorf interview Circle members, Squarespace product managers, and other experts.
The core of Squarespace since the beginning, Anthony wrote the foundation for what would become Squarespace in his college dorm room more than 20 years ago. Anthony once wore every hat in the company, originally serving as its principal designer, engineer, and customer support representative. As an executive, he still leads the brand from the front and is hands-on with many of the departments that he once ran, working with the entire Squarespace team to make an accessible platform that elevates ideas.
In this unique episode of Circle Live, the community got up close and personal with the leader behind the platform that they use to run their businesses through a candid conversation about the brand’s mission and trajectory.
Empowering through design
Anthony highlighted the core elements of what makes Squarespace special: community and design. He reflected that a central part of the brand’s success is its belief that “design is not a luxury,” a concept established with Squarespace’s Chief Creative Officer, David Lee, who closed out the event. While big brands often rely on expensive creative direction and teams of experts, many entrepreneurs simply don’t have access to those resources. Squarespace provides that access by making it possible for business owners to develop a design-forward online presence.
Anthony’s initial goal was to empower people to create beautiful sites for a fraction of the cost. “It’s just been a real pleasure to spread that value of design to the world and do it in a way that’s at an accessible price point and get millions of people access,” he said.
But, a major piece of that success has been the feedback from Squarespace’s professional community of Circle members. With open lanes of communication and a high level of engagement, Circle has become an integral part of the product feedback loop that helps Squarespace improve and innovate.
Anthony’s been connected with the community since day one. He remembers his time as the only support rep for Squarespace, blocking off a few hours between college classes to answer emails from customers. In replying to technical issues, feature requests, and more, he’d use their issues and feedback to further improve the platform.
Through those interactions with early users, he developed the groundwork for the Circle community. “It’s not like we sat down and said, ‘what if we courted all these developers,’” he laughed, “that was already happening. We just wanted to get it together and provide more resources and engage.”
Powering the internet of now
Anthony stated that while Squarespace started as a functional, beautiful web publishing platform, it has evolved with the internet. What began as a DIY web tool focused on design eventually scaled into a platform that enables entrepreneurship for millions of businesses worldwide.
Anthony highlighted how Squarespace acquisitions like Acuity and Tock better enable people to transact online and grow their business. The platform initially hosted portfolio sites and landing pages for small businesses, and has since expanded to a place where visitors go to buy physical products, book appointments, or make reservations.
Squarespace is powering the next era of ecommerce, and the work of the Circle community is an important part of fueling that growth. “It’s really amazing to be part of an ecosystem where we’re responsible for millions of people’s businesses being online and billions of dollars transacted through that platform every year,” Anthony said.
Committed to community and creativity
Anthony’s appearance on the monthly talk show concluded with a statement on AI. While Squarespace can benefit from tools like machine learning AI, it’s ultimately a platform that’s powered by the creativity of humans.
Ultimately, it’s the human touch that people like the Circle community bring to their work that makes Squarespace great. The community brings creativity and care to their site builds, empowering entrepreneurs around the globe to grow their businesses.
For the entire organization, it’s not just about progress, it’s also about passion. Anthony and the team at Squarespace build tools for Circle members because they’re members of the community too. “We build tools for you all because we’re very much like you, too,” he says, “it’s just a natural alignment.”
With the collaboration of the Circle community, Squarespace continues to fuel the momentum of the platform and bring high design to businesses everywhere. “It remains incredibly humbling to see all of you and all the businesses that are built around the Squarespace ecosystem,” he says.
Because the Circle community aids new clients who need help getting online, they’re an important part of keeping the Squarespace ecosystem growing. “This community accounts for almost, depending on how you define it, 10 percent of our new subscribers. That’s huge,” Anthony says.
Most importantly, Anthony sees Circle pros, designers, and Squarespace as strongly connected and working together towards a common goal. “Circle remains an essential part of our Squarespace ecosystem, providing an invaluable feedback loop on new products and features, as well as helping us grow our broader customer base,” he says. “It is an honor to have thousands of amazing web professionals convene for our annual conference and learn firsthand their needs and business goals as they look to grow their businesses with the Squarespace platform.”
Visit the Circle blog for additional session highlights.
Want more?
Check out Squarespace Circle, Squarespace’s program for professional designers. Along with exclusive content, discounts, and other perks, Circle brings professionals together from all across the globe to exchange advice while connecting with new clients and collaborators.
