Square space is a website building platform with included hosting.. it appears their going to charge $30/month for a plan that allow people to build sites that include the functionality of collect data (forms)
$8/mo gives you 1 gb with 75gb bandwidth and you use their sub domain
$14/mo give access to having up to "250 users" (email subscription?) and custom URL
$20/mo , $30/mo and $50 really just up the futures to any feature you could create yourself with the $20/month package that includes HTML injection points..
a mash up of woofoo, website builder and hosting...sold to people who probably will never need the 75gb of bandwidth of the first plan..
and to people that don't really need web content management with fancy forms only something like a forms builder/hosting and an app that will process and track gathered data (forms + CRM)...
I bet the founder took money off the table. Say a $40mil on a $40mil pre, and the founder walks away with $20mil in his pocket. 9mo later they go freemium.
Jeez. The offer must have been really attractive.. otherwise why would Squarespace need all that money? Don't say servers.
Conversely, why would VC's throw in so much money into this business? I just can't see the exit strategy. Who can you name off top of your head that could potentially acquire them at a few multiples? I can't.
[Edit] This is just a web design operation, only difference is that the customers get the CMS login. hehe
It does seem like a lot of money ... but Automattic has raised over $30M for (primarily) WordPress. And SquareSpace is actually charging money.
Exits? Inuit paid $170M for Homestead in Nov. '07. I'm sure the acquisition climate is different now but I think there are enough potential fits around. Adobe comes to mind seeing as they need a better HTML(5) web solution. Not sure if that's a route they want to go, though.
Carbonmade's offices are two floors above Squarespace's in SoHo, New York and I've gotten to know Anthony (founder) and Dane (CEO) rather well over the past year. They're such great, smart, and talented people. They really know how to run an awesome team and only hire the best people. They've got a great culture in place and always treat their employees very well.
The thing I respect most about Squarespace -- and Anthony mentions this briefly in his letter -- is that they're always one step ahead of everyone else and aren't afraid to take the risk in pivoting into a new direction. Squarespace dropped free accounts from its service about 3 years ago when everyone else was adding free accounts and that clearly was beneficial for them. I'm excited to see what they come up with in their next release.
Hell yeah... I don't have the benefit of having offices this close to Squarespace, but after spending just one (awesome) lunch with Anthony & Dane I too can attest that they are super cool & extremely clever. :)
I recently started up a new blog (http://nextended.com for Sony NEX users) and searched around the available platforms. I've used blogger in the past but it's pretty clunky these days. I still use self-hosted Wordpress for my personal blog but I've always been annoyed by the post editor, less-than-simple customization and frequent security breaches.
In short, I now pay SquareSpace $12/mo to look after hosting, a very attractive and useful CMS, some good looking templates, point-and-click CSS customisations, drag-and-drop layout, and built-in analytics.
You could do the same with Wordpress (and, in fairness, customise it more) but SquareSpace wins if you value your time.
I used a custom PHP framework for client sites and Wordpress a lot. However, due to my time restraints and their money restraints, a lot of clients have been migrating to Squarespace. This is good because I can still consult and train them, while getting more bang for everyone's buck.
I don't want to manage entire websites on a client-basis anymore. Its one step from MSP IT (not like its a bad thing, I just like code).
Agreed. It suggests a significant change in business model.
You're not going to exit for half a billion dollars making sites for $8 a month for a bunch of SMEs.
Wild guess: they will make it all free, ramp up acquisition until they are a competitor to Wordpress hosted (et al), and then figure it out from there, Twitter-style.
I've used Squarespace for the past 2+ months for my blog on NoSQL and it's been great. I looked around at the various options when I thought about starting up and in the end went with Squarespace because of two reasons:
1) It's the hosting provider of highscalability.com and Todd Hoff had a lot of good things to say about the platform.
2) I saw it as the quickest way to get something that looked good and allowed me to just start on the content.
It's not the perfect platform. Sometimes you have to some crazy things to make things work. But overall I've been a very satisfied customer.
If you are interested you can try it out for free for 14-days to see if it works for you.
Squarespace are offering a great service. Is it a bad sign for my aspirations as an entrepreneur though that I don't know how I would spend that much money on a business like that?
I'm guessing a lot would go on infrastructure if they do the hosting themselves?
$8/mo gives you 1 gb with 75gb bandwidth and you use their sub domain
$14/mo give access to having up to "250 users" (email subscription?) and custom URL
$20/mo , $30/mo and $50 really just up the futures to any feature you could create yourself with the $20/month package that includes HTML injection points..
a mash up of woofoo, website builder and hosting...sold to people who probably will never need the 75gb of bandwidth of the first plan..