Casalena talk about how to make a dream come true

Absrtact: They prepare articles that tell stories and also offer operational advice to entrepreneurs to help build good companies. In the initial establishment, Squarespace just Anthony Casalena for their own personal website, in front of WordPress and Drupal, it does not

They prepare articles that tell stories and offer operational advice to entrepreneurs to help build good companies. In the initial establishment, Squarespace just Anthony Casalena for their own personal website, in front of WordPress and Drupal, it is insignificant. Today, it has risen to $78.5 million trillion in cumulative financing. Using the method to solve the problem, it gradually grew into what it is today ...

Squarespace's original version was just a personal website Anthony Casalena for himself. This is a common entrepreneurial story. Like Drew Houston, he came up with the idea of Dropbox on the bus because he forgot to bring a U disk. Few founders, however, would go on such a long path as Casalena.

Squarespace was founded in 2004 and is now the tenth year. He never had the idea of making the company grow fast until a 38.5 million dollar a-round financing was successfully carried out in 2010. Then, the company grew rapidly and became the first choice for thousands of unprofessional web developers. It successfully hooked up this year's Super Bowl, put out their own ads: a decoupled Web awaits, this move opened the company's development history of another new chapter, attracted tens of thousands of new users. Recently, the company announced the completion of a 40 million-dollar B-round financing. Mainly for research and development and further expansion, the cumulative amount of financing has reached 78.5 million U.S. dollars.

How did Casalena do all this? Once the Squarespace in the rival company WordPress and Drupal before, is so dwarfed, casalena but make it continue to grow so far, become a promising brand, continue to lead the development of the industry? Casalena explains how he made his dreams come true.

(i) Starting from small place

In the 2004, for those who wanted to build their own websites without programming, there were few products to choose from. And there is the site to provide this service, but also because of the details of the sloppy, so that casalena deeply not resistant. Geocities and bloggers are among the two examples.

Casalena said: "There is no product that takes into account design or style." Your site should represent your thoughts and reflect what kind of person you are. And you pay it 2.99 dollars a month for a nasty, clumsy experience. So with Squarespace, I just wanted to make it into a personal website, but I didn't think it would become a company. ”

He then began to share the platform with his family and friends. He soon realized that the lack of existing space functions and feel helpless. More and more people asked him if he could use his tools to build their own website, and as a reward, they offered him money to pay for three years of service costs. In this way, he will have 1.5 million of dollars of money every year.

Casalena's difference lies in his pursuit of detail. ' When you focus on any field or topic, you'll get far more experience than anyone else, ' he says. He began learning to program at the age of 15, when he believed that there would be a better way in this field, and that he had been pursuing it, even at the cost of not having the exact "payday" razzing.

Founder of the company for six years, never give up the details, with their own heart to build products-it is this obsession, let Casalena make the decision to revive the company, he will take the company a new platform, face the competition, truly realize his vision: to provide a simple and stylish Web publishing platform.

Recruitment is his first step.

(ii) Handing things over to the right person

As Casalena has seen, if founders want to retire, there are many ways to convert their established companies into cash, for example through mergers or acquisitions. But he never thought about it. Instead, he gradually introduced talent, gave the team a leisurely growth space, he let go of the principle of a is critical to the company and B he can not do things himself.

Case: Customer service is his first department to introduce foreign aid. The man he hired now manages the entire department-including offices in New York's 100 and 20 in Ireland. Over the years, Casalena has handled issues such as customer complaints, which have taken up a lot of the time he has to spend on products.

Suggestion: Figure out what you care about most. When you find the resources that are available to make it impossible for you to do everything right, give it to someone who can. This has become the guiding philosophy of Casalena and the company.

"You should expect to build a real company, not just maintain a product that is still available." ”

In recruiting, he found that trust is more important than sheer skill. Trust once established is long-term. And if you just think about skills, it means that people can lose quickly.

"Many times, I've put some of the company's decisions aside for others to do without problems, but it needs to be based on a lot of trust." And I found that the exceptions to the situation were always because I had a problem with the manager, or I didn't find the right person. Blindly let go, light will say: ' Oh, I authorize to XX, give them to do it. ' It's not right. First of all, let me really believe that they really have the ability to make the right decision. ”

So how does Casalena know if he put the right person in the right place? According to his experience, the most suitable candidate should be:

Understand your definition of "good enough". For Casalena, "good enough" is synonymous with "excellence" (Excellence). "The person you work for has been doing everything for three years and you need to have a very high standard for yourself," he said. If it was me, ' 90% is good enough, not too perfect, so as soon as possible to complete the work ', that's right, I know I have hired the most suitable person. ”

Feel the same. "It's not about economic pursuits, it's about physical empathy," he said. The cost of doing well is something to be suffered. You need people who know how to achieve the desired level of both themselves and the product. “

Have the right cultural mentality. "You want everyone to forge ahead in the same direction. As in Squarespace, we have similar aesthetic tastes and are focused on product design. It's not about right or wrong, it's not about talent, I think about whether I'm going to be happier or more successful somewhere else, and if the answer is yes, then we won't admit him. ”

"Those who have these qualities are worthy of your trust." They can make the best decisions without you and be consistent with your ideas. ”

Following these principles, Casalena's companies are markedly different from those of the past. He created a team that launched Squarespace 6, serving thousands of users.

"I need talent, should have a forward-looking thinking, can really solve the issue of Web publishing platform, more than I started the time, a step." I've just built my own website, and I don't know much about the needs of the public. ”

On a personal level, Casalena must also switch runways. He used to be just a simple engineer, both in design and in products. And now he has to stand on a higher level and control everything. "It's been a long time since I wrote the code myself." But I did write code for a long time. But one day, I suddenly knew that I had no way to continue to bear so much pressure and responsibility. ”

(iii) grow together with the mission

"I can stay in Squarespace for 10 years because I want to stay for another 20 years or even 30 years." ”

As Casalena said, "We are not only solving the problem of Web site production, we are more concerned about the user's self-expression." "It's becoming more and more obvious: to tell a good story, or to show a unique perspective, to build a site is just a part of the job."

He realizes that if Squarespace wants to expand market share, he must clearly understand and express people's demand. This means that just providing good web tools is far from enough, and companies should try to help users bring their ideas to the public, help them attract more eyeballs, and help them interact with the online community. "All of our products now revolve around this broader need. ”

This gives the company a new mission: Casalena wants to do more for the user. So products like Squarespace Note and Squarespace commerce are available and people can easily sell things on their personal sites.

"With the company's development, we can provide a variety of creative tools to help people achieve their vision." People's ideas can be far more than building a website. Hopefully our company will meet the growing ambitions of people and grow with their ambitions. “

What you need to do as a founder is to keep a close eye on the basic needs of the user. Add your vision for the company and what you want to make it look special. Your mission is to make these ideas meet. Once the mission has been identified, the rest of the work is to make sure that it is reflected in every product, every effort and every company announcement.

This is especially important in the company's rapid growth phase, with new recruits every week. "When your mission and core values are fixed, the company can clearly point out: ' This is what Squarespace's special." That's the way we do things. "In Casalena's experience, this is also a good way to get new people into their roles quickly," he said.

(d) Making your own Lego blocks

Squarespace provides a building block for users to build a Web site tools: Select the necessary elements of the site, and then like to assemble Lego blocks these elements together, you can build a website. The creation of building blocks within the company also helped the company accelerate its own development.

"I remember a few years ago, we were always stuck in the endless fixes for some small functions. And now, it is easy to judge what is wrong, is not suitable for the company's vision, will affect the realization of the goal. The speed of our design process is amazing, "Casalena said."

He attributed this speed to the setting of core principles and steps that everyone would follow and that things would do well. "Just like every time you design a new car, you don't have to think about the position of the wheel, you don't have to take the time to think about the design of the button or how the dialog works." ”

These internal building blocks are very small. including Squarespace logo design language, how to design through the various levels of review, special decisions in the end who is the boss, and squarespace how to evaluate themselves. The company also has a unique attitude towards deadline.

"If you feel like you can't hand over a good product on a given date, we'll put the deadline off decisively," he said. ”

"There are many deadline that are willful and meaningless. In the worst case, they will sacrifice the quality of the design, so that users get angry, and finally there is no possibility to come up with good ideas and ideas. Therefore, short sprints will not be our company's core competitiveness. “

All of this has become a company-wide credo, widely understood by the staff, and repeatedly emphasized by the leadership.

It is easy to make these preparations so that different teams work together, such as the production of commerce or other software, or the promotion of a marketing plan. Let people focus on critical tasks, rather than how to design such trivial things as buttons or titles. People can turn things over to the right people and get good feedback when they take over, to keep the work going.

After all, continuous improvement is crucial to the modular approach, Casalena said. "Another team is responsible for reviewing our building blocks and deciding how we can do better." ”

There has been a period of time, the company's customer service can not keep up with the demand, pricing is also biased, open a plenary meeting can not solve the problem. This is because the building blocks that the company built up early need to be rethink, modified and released.

Specifically, these blocks include Squarespace servers and infrastructure, and they all need to be upgraded to meet new requirements. And the company needs to adapt to its new identity: Front-End developers must create new building blocks, a new job that can be borrowed from the old.

"Through the use of in-house tools, scripting and design functions, we continue to dog-fooding (invite employees to participate in testing, provide feedback and suggestions) to make our own work better." In this way, users do not need to spend valuable effort over and over again to redefine these basic processes. They can use the time to think about more important things, "Casalena concludes.

(v) Strengthening performance management

With the growth of squarespace, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the building block approach and the company's core values conveyed. The best weapon to keep employees together is constant feedback. For Casalena, he only needs to emphasize the importance of feedback and efficiency to top management, which is much easier to communicate with the whole company.

"Actually people really need feedback. This is the most important part of management matters for managers. Our managers need to make sure that everyone in the team knows what the team is doing, why they do it, what goals they want to achieve, and what they don't need to know. ”

"Employees do not need to be involved in all parts of the company. Managers should draw the line and make people do what they need. ”

Startups tend to notice everything to everyone. Employees work in an office, illnesses they all want to be involved, even if it's not related to their work. And when you start assigning managers to your team, the tradition needs to be broken--consciously and actively broken. No one wants to be excluded. You need to make it clear that the division of functions is for the benefit of the employees and the company, which allows the company to rush faster and can do more for the user.

This is not to say that employees are completely isolated. The key is to make employees feel that they are joining a successful team. The best way to do this is to use a plenary meeting to publish the company's results-like selling thousands of of tickets in a week or winning an ad contest. The plenary is a good tool for disseminating information that is less important but closely related to employees. The most important thing is that these shared information should be carefully chosen by managers and help to strengthen the development of the company.

The only way to achieve this effect is for the founders and senior management to agree on a high level of consistency.

"If you want to interview me, or other executives in our company who want to ask questions about the company's operations or the company's primary goals, our answer will certainly be very close," Casalena said. "If you have 20% points of view with your leader, it just indicates where you need to work, or where you are wrong." If you think you are 80% different from your leader, then you may not be the right person to work for this company. ”

In addition to ensuring that all members of their team have access to the information they need, all managers need to be more aware of their scope of competence. Only in this way, they are successful managers, Casalena is the successful founder and CEO.

"If the owner has only a vague idea of the cause of the system failure, what's the use for me?" I'd rather go straight to the person who actually operates the system. Managers need to know all the facts and details, otherwise they do not deserve to lead. “

For Casalena, Squarespace is more about design aesthetics, ease and simplicity. This concept also applies to the company's products and organizational structure.

"I really believe that miracles can happen when you have the right people and the right thoughts, and things may be better than you think." This is one of the reasons why I have been successful in running a company for so long: all the elements are available, just wait and see. ”