SQUARESPACE: CULTURAL APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATION

BY JACOB A. MCGINNIS

INTRO

• This is a picture of Squarespace’s founder and

CEO, Anthony Casalena.

• This is a link to a video containing Jeff

Bridges talking about how he used

Squarespace to market his Sleeping Tapes

album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIlfLRe

Hyo

SUMMARY

• Squarespace is a smaller sized company headquartered

in New York City that specializes in software

development pertaining to website design and

maintenance for individuals and small businesses.

• Squarespace’s strong customer support and passionate

drive for excellent design have won them accolades for

years.

• According to Deal and Kennedy, Squarespace has all of

the elements of a strong company culture.

ABOUT SQUARESPACE

• Squarespace is a Small to Medium Sized Enterprise

(SME) consisting of only 580 employees.

• The Squarespace software was invented in 2004 by CEO

Anthony Casalena in his dorm, because he wanted to

build his own website, but was unimpressed with the

services provided by existing website-building software

corporations.

• Squarespace is headquartered in New York City, with

offices in Portland and Dublin, Ireland.

ABOUT SQUARESPACE

• Squarespace has made Crain’s list of best places to work

in New York City every year since 2012.

• Squarespace was listed among Fortune’s 100 best

workplaces for millennials in 2015.

• Squarespace employees use Squarespace to do their

work. For example, the Squarespace official website was

built and is managed using Squarespace, with the idea

that it creates a better connection to the client to have

employees using the service they build and supply.

DEAL AND KENNEDY’S STRONG CULTURES: VALUES

• In 1982, Deal and Kennedy developed what they called “the principles of strong cultures”, which include values, heroes, rites and rituals, and a cultural network.

• Squarespace’s values as listed on their official website are:

• Be Your Own Customer

• Empower Individuals

• Design is Not a Luxury

• Good Work Takes Time

• Optimize Towards Ideals

• Simplify

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Be Your Own Customer: This company value references

the fact I presented earlier that Squarespace employees

use Squarespace to do their work. This makes it much

easier for Squarespace to get and stay close to the

customer.

• This also means that issues apparent in the software may

be fixed before they are reported by customers, allowing

employees to spot bugs in the system ahead of time

because they constantly use it.

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Empower Individuals: Squarespace is essentially a small

business for small businesses. This means that artists,

journalists, photographers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, and

all other types of innovators who either work for

themselves or are trying to start a business or creative

project are enabled and empowered to build their online

presence easily with Squarespace.

• https://youtu.be/P5HyaCFr-Qs

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Design Is Not A Luxury: Similar to Steve Jobs’ vision for

Apple, Squarespace places a high value on the visual

aspect of their product, going to great lengths to make

the website templates they provide beautiful, simple,

and professional.

• For example, the pop rock band Walk the Moon used

Squarespace to create their website:

http://www.walkthemoonband.com/

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Good Work Takes Time: As a company, Squarespace

understands that for projects to get done well, they must

take time, which means that they as a corporate culture

would rather take a long time to release a new feature,

template, product, etc. than release it quickly and not be

proud of it.

• To make sure the company stays in focus, however, and

doesn’t completely lose track of time, Squarespace holds

monthly “all hands” meetings. More on this later.

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Optimize Towards Ideals: Although this value may seem as though it is mere corporate jargon, the intention behind this phrase is that Squarespace makes their decisions based on their values and ideals.

• To go further, this means that Squarespace could, hypothetically, reach the end of a month, look over their financial progress as a business, and consider the month a failure even if they increased profit margins if they felt they didn’t properly execute their values and ideals.

• Squarespace believes their success in the market comes from executing their values and ideals, not merely pushing to meet financial goals.

SQUARESPACE VALUES

• Simplify: Peters and Waterman mention that “Excellent

organizations avoid complex structures and divisions of

labor.”

• Squarespace’s offices reflect this value through a

minimalist layout:

https://www.squarespace.com/about/company/

• Since Squarespace is such a small company, simplicity in

communication networks comes easily. For example,

there are only 10 departments in the organization;

Customer Operations, Communications, Design,

Engineering, Finance, Media and Acquisition, People,

Product, Strategy, and University.

DEAL AND KENNEDY’S STRONG CULTURES: HEROES

• Anthony Casalena, Squarespace’s founder and CEO, is

the most obviously identifiable “hero” at Squarespace, as

he was the company’s only engineer, designer, and

support representative in its early years.

• Although Squarespace has grown large enough for

Casalena to have to hand off many of his responsibilities

to other people, he remains directly involved with the

engineering, design, and product teams.

DEAL AND KENNEDY’S STRONG CULTURES: RITES AND RITUALS

• Similar to Zappos, Squarespace holds “all hands”

meetings once a month to celebrate victories, inform

employees on important updates, and welcome new

team members.

• These meetings feature guest speakers, such as Neil

Degrasse Tyson, Jeff Bridges, and other prominent

industry leaders from diverse fields.

DEAL AND KENNEDY’S STRONG CULTURES: COMMUNICATION NETWORK

• As mentioned previously, Squarespace holds monthly

“all hands” meetings. This is an example of a formal

communication network.

• Squarespace’s offices have lounges specifically for the

purpose of collaboration, so that employees have places

to go other than their desks to do their work. These

lounges encourage an open, informal communication

network.

PUTTING A FINGER ON IT

• Although it is apparent that corporate cultures are

complex systems, and that there may in fact be several

subcultures within the larger corporate culture overall,

Squarespace’s company “style”, or at least what they

want the public to view them as, is incredibly hipster.

• Just as Zappos is “fun and weird”, Squarespace is “cool

and unique.” This general feel can be observed from

their daily catered gourmet meals, pantries stocked with

whole foods, and their company blog posts about

attending indie folk festivals.

WRAPPING UP

• Squarespace is an SME headquartered in New York City

that focuses on software development and web design.

• Squarespace meets all four of Deal and Kennedy’s

principles of strong cultures by putting people first,

demanding excellence, and balancing employee

autonomy and a clear direction for the future based on

company values and ideals.

QUESTIONS/SUGGESTIONS

• Would Squarespace function better as a large company, or is its size intentional?

• Does Squarespace’s CEO Anthony Casalena have a protégé‘, or someone to hand the company to if his health fails? Would Squarespace be able to function properly if Casalena were not around?

• How does Squarespace maintain simultaneous loose-tight properties? Freedom is given to employees to work autonomously, but they still report directly to their team lead who reports to the manager who reports to the CEO or department director. Is this kind of hierarchy necessary? Why or why not?

• In the event of a zombie apocalypse, how would Squarespace function as a mini-society struggling to survive? What would the group dynamics look like? Would everyone panic, scatter, and die, or pull together to wait it out?

QUESTIONS/SUGGESTIONS

• Although this may seem like a trivial suggestion, perhaps adding a small amount of vibrant color to the offices would accent the creativity the company wishes to express.

• Bonding Time: Although I understand that Squarespace is a professional organization, I was sad to see such few cases of company outings. I found several blog posts about attending an indie folk festival, which would indicate that the teams do meet outside of work occasionally, but I believe that more company outings will create closeness within the company, which will in turn directly and positively effect productivity, because people tend to do better work in teams of people they know and enjoy the company of.

WORKS CITED

• https://www.squarespace.com/about/careers

• https://www.squarespace.com/about/company/

• https://www.squarespace.com/about/values/

• https://www.themuse.com/companies/squarespace/offic

e

• https://blog.squarespace.com/?category=culture

• Entis, Laura (06/22/2015), retrieved from

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247417