Profiled our executives

Squarespace’s executive team didn’t slow down in 2021. 

• Our Founder & CEO Anthony Casalena spoke at length with Moira Forbes about scaling his dorm room startup into a multi-billion dollar tech business,  was interviewed on the highly-regarded This Week In Startups podcast, and appeared at The Wall Street Journal’s annual Tech Live conference. 

• Chief Marketing Officer Kinjil Mathur was named by Business Insider as one of the 27 Most Innovative CMOs of 2021, and was profiled at length by Vogue Australia. 

• Chief People Officer Mary Good was interviewed by Comparably, and Chief Creative Officer David Lee made an appearance on Australian marketing outlet Mumbrella’s podcast.

Lived our “Be the Customer” value

One of our company values is Be the Customer. Developing deep empathy for our customer’s needs, challenges, and dreams is critical to ensuring we do that well. We strive to provide the same standard of tools and services to our customers that we would want for ourselves. 

This value comes to life in different ways at Squarespace—one of which is the sheer number of employees who pursue interests, passions, hobbies, and side gigs outside of their Squarespace job. Many of our employees truly embody this value because, they too, are Squarespace customers. 

This year, we launched an internal directory of employees’ sites to foster connection, inspiration, and creativity across the company. We also introduced a new monthly series on our MAKING IT blog, sharing the stories of our own employees who are bringing their creative ideas to life using our all-in-one platform. Check out one of our employees' stories here.

Doubled down on customer education

This year marked a large push in our efforts to educate our customers — including expanded resources on the MAKING IT blog and several iterations to our Knowledge Base and Help Guides. We also launched a brand new educational YouTube series, tackling topics such as digital brand identity, email marketing, SEO basics, and more.

Expanded our global footprint

Squarespace has customers in nearly every corner of the world — so it’s only natural that our marketing and hiring efforts follow suit. We launched our first large-scale creative campaigns in Australia, the UK, and Germany — and expanded our Brand Ambassador program to include impactful representatives from those very regions.

Prioritized the experience of SQSP employees

The wave of uncertainty from 2020 carried into 2021, making it a top priority to prioritize our employees’ experience. Our Internal Communications and Employee Experience teams collaborated to ensure that amidst a virtual working world, our employees continue to feel connected to one another and to the company. 

To do this, the team:

• Added more frequent touchpoints for Squarespace employees to connect with our executive team and ask questions that are on their minds.

• Hosted weekly virtual events for all employees to enjoy while intermingling, ranging from virtual yoga and meditation practices, cooking and wine-making classes, trivia sessions, arts and crafts classes, financial literacy workshops, and more—with over 50 employee experience events taking place in 2021.

• Organized virtual holiday marketplaces, giving employees a chance to celebrate, support & engage with SQSP customers throughout the year.

Supported local businesses through the Make It Awards

We continued our annual Make It Awards in partnership with the New York Knicks, where for the fourth year in a row, we awarded four tri-state area small business owners with $30K grants and the marketing and resources they need to continue to grow their businesses and positively impact their local communities. This year’s winners included an educational nonprofit aimed at closing the youth technology gap and a popcorn company proudly employing individuals with Autism and other disabilities. Read more about this year’s winners right here.

Partnered with Dolly Parton and Netflix/John McEnroe

2021 got off to a memorable start when Squarespace worked with the one-and-only Dolly Parton to rewrite her iconic song, “9 to 5” as a rallying cry for entrepreneurs everywhere called “5 to 9” at our seventh Big Game spot. Our celebrity partnerships continued with the August launch of our co-marketing campaign with Netflix and John McEnroe – centered on McEnroe’s career transition from tennis legend to voiceover legend. Watch below for more.

Helped schedule 3MM+ Covid-19 vaccine appointments

You may know Squarespace Scheduling as being the easiest way to schedule appointments. But did you know that, during 2021 thus far, Squarespace Scheduling powered over 3.3 million Covid-19 vaccine appointments across the globe. With Squarespace Scheduling, automatic appointment reminders can be via email or text, first-dose and second-dose appointments can be separated, and patient information can be easily collected. Want to learn more? Look no further.

Cultivated a culture of Learning & Development 

As a company, we aspire to be a culture of learning by equipping our employees with the tools to unlock their professional growth and development. Squarespace’s Learning & Development (L&D) team went into overdrive, launching a variety of new internal offerings including a new leadership accelerator program, an inclusive leadership series, and a revamped onboarding process to nurture new hires as soon as they arrive at Squarespace. In August, they also launched Squarespace Learning, a user-friendly, one-stop-shop for L&D to choose your own adventure, chock full of content and experiences.

Recognized as an employer of choice 

Squarespace is the company it is today thanks to the grit, creativity, and dedication of our employees across the organization. That is why we are so invested in our employees. We are proud of how far we have come, and look forward to continuing to provide Squarespace employees with what they need to help bring our vision and mission to life. This year, we were fortunate to be recognized as an employer of choice many times over:

• Best Places to Work in NYC | Built In

• NYC Companies with the Best Benefits | Built In

• Best Places to Work in NYC | Comparably

• Best CEOs for Diversity | Comparably 

• Best Work-Life Balance | Comparably 

• Best Perks & Benefits | Comparably

• Best HR Teams | Comparably  

• Healthiest Employers of New York City | Healthiest Employers 

• Healthiest Employers of Oregon | Healthiest Employers  

• Best Companies for Women | Fairygodboss

• Best Tech Companies for Women | Fairygodboss

• Best Dog-Friendly Companies | Rover

• Ireland’s Best Workplaces in Tech | Great Place to Work Ireland

• Best Workplaces in Ireland | Great Place to Work Ireland

Developed our return-to-office philosophy and approach

The world of working is different than it was two years ago. While Squarespace has always provided a flexible working environment, the events of the past 18 months led us to reexamine our ways of working to provide even more flexibility. 

At Squarespace, we believe in building a culture that embraces individuality while cultivating collaboration and creativity. We care about the needs of our employees and appreciate the varied ways in which people do their best work individually and together. Providing flexibility while ensuring opportunities for face to face collaboration are both important elements of our overall work approach. You can read up on our new flexible work philosophy in more detail here.

Enhanced our employee well-being offerings

2020 and 2021 have undeniably had an impact on our individual and collective wellbeing. Over the past year, Squarespace has made several enhancements to our benefits offerings to help employees best take care of themselves and their family members, including:

• Making it easier for employees to access mental health support on the go by supplementing our current mobile wellness offering (Talkspace) with several additional online and app-based resources including Headspace, HealthJoy (with mental health visits at no cost), and Ginger. In Dublin, we launched enhanced mental health benefits including reimbursement for psychotherapy visits as well as mindfulness apps and stress management programs. 

• Partnering with our Mental Inclusivity & Neurodiversity at Squarespace (MINDS) employee resource group (ERG)—whose mission is to foster a visible and safe community for the discussion and education of mental health topics in the workplace—to schedule a series of virtual workshops focused on dealing with the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Introducing a new category of paid time off, called “Personal Care Leave” where eligible employees may take up to twelve weeks of paid leave to address their own serious health condition.

• Expanding offerings for our transgender population to include coverage for gender reassignment services and procedures.

Observed Juneteenth as a company holiday

At Squarespace, we believe that a deeper understanding of historical events and perspectives directly relates to our collective responsibility to challenge the present and work toward a shared future. This year, we honored Juneteenth through special programming for employees, which included a self-guided learning path that explored lived experiences to tell the story of Juneteenth’s historical significance and how it is recognized today. We also hosted an internal Juneteenth customer panel, featuring activists and creatives whose collective work represents a variety of disciplines — from disability rights to design to sustainability. The panelists gave us insight into their important work and moved us with their personal stories.

We ended the week with a day of rest and reflection, officially designating Juneteenth as a company holiday moving forward. We look forward to continuing to observe this important day in American history.

Showcased our all-in-one platform: Everything to Sell Anything

Whether it’s selling your products, your time, your content, or your story – we at Squarespace are committed to providing you with all the tools you need to sell any type of product or service. As part of this past fall’s Everything to Sell Anything campaign, we highlighted new-and-improved web design features, the launch of our Video Studio app, as well as key offerings from the Squarespace family of products including Squarespace Scheduling, Unfold and Tock.

Underscored our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We are committed to building and developing diverse teams because we believe diverse perspectives enrich both our community and the products that we bring to the world. By embracing the experiences and perspectives that make us unique, we can also better understand and serve the multifaceted cultures and identities of our customers. 

At Squarespace, our Diversity & Inclusion efforts focus on uplifting the experiences and perspectives of underrepresented groups and doing the work that draws out the best in all of us.

In an effort to place a deeper focus on diversity & inclusion this year, we: 

• Grew our diversity and inclusion team, bringing in experienced team members and thought leaders to further develop our D&I strategy. 

• Celebrated heritage months company-wide. We strive to celebrate the histories and diverse backgrounds of all of our team members throughout the year, but ensure that these experiences were especially lifted up during heritage months. Our D&I, Marketing, People, and Creative teams collaborated with our Employee Resource Group leaders to celebrate each month with unique themes and special events for all employees to join, and we shared the bold stories and experiences of our employees and honored intersectionality across Squarespace. 

• Debuted our first-ever D&I page. To help give potential candidates a closer look at our D&I efforts, we published our first-ever public-facing diversity & inclusion page.

Acquired hospitality game-changer Tock

In March 2021, we took an important step to help bring more value to our customers by welcoming Tock to the Squarespace family. 

Tock is a leading unified system serving the hospitality industry with online reservations, table management, takeout, and events in one place. Launched in 2014 by Nick Kokonas, co-owner and co-founder of the Alinea Group, Tock powers reservations, table management, carryout operations, and events for more than 7,000 hospitality operators ranging from neighborhood pizzerias to Michelin-starred destinations, wineries, and pop-ups in 30 countries. Recently named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in 2021, Tock launched Tock to Go in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic to allow restaurants to schedule takeout orders themselves instead of linking out to delivery services. 

As we continue to offer our customers, especially those in the hospitality industry, a way to manage and grow their businesses with the support of our all-in-one platform, we’re thrilled to have Tock as part of the Squarespace family.

SQSP x NYSE: We went public!

This year, we took a monumental step toward realizing our mission to empower entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world. On May 19, 2021, Squarespace became a public company on the New York Stock Exchange. 

This milestone was the result of the immeasurable commitment and dedication from each and every single one of our team members. We celebrated our achievement as a team throughout the day, taking the time to reflect on Squarespace’s growth and transformation over the years. We celebrated the special moment by launching an interactive virtual experience for all our employees, holding various fun and trivia activations throughout the day, and by having a few Squarespace customers showcase their talents by performing an exclusive live, virtual concert. 

We are proud of what we have accomplished together and look forward to the future of Squarespace as a public company.