Website builder Squarespace cashes in on the side-hustle boom by dominating your earbuds

"Sponsored by Squarespace"... said every pod ever. Squarespace has helped 4M+ non-coders design sleek websites with ready-made templates and easy-to-use features. Think: sites for personal trainers, cooking blogs, online shops, and Zendaya's fake seashell company (Super Bowl ad). Americans are starting more businesses as the WFH life and the Great Resignation inspire entrepreneurship.

• Applications for new businesses were up 53% last year from pre-pandemic levels. That means new biz sites created with Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, and others.
• Squarespace IPO’d in May after raising $300M at a $10B valuation. Now it's worth less than half that, but the stock is up 12% this year while the techy Nasdaq is down 11%.
• Squarespace brought in $576M in revenue from January through September (the first time it revealed #s) — but it lost $241M. Must've been all that pod spend…

“There aren’t enough pods”... said only Squarespace. Six years after Squarespace launched in 2003, the biz was losing $$$. Then, founder Anthony Casalena splurged on a big bet: a $20K ad on a tech pod. The result: a third of Squarespace's new subs came from that ad. After that, Squarespace went all in on pods, seeing huge growth from promos. By 2015, Squarespace was the biggest pod advertiser, buying 2.5X as many ads as its next competitor and indulged in 400+ pods/month, from niche shows to big names like Joe Rogan.