January 6th, 2004 - Squarespace, Inc. today announced the release of its ground-breaking online web publishing service. By combining simple on-site editing with an advanced and broad feature set, Squarespace allows both novices and professionals alike to maintain a flexible and professional online presence.
Squarespace is a fully-managed service, so there is no product set up required. Users can be online and have content on their site within minutes from signup.
Looking back at that text, which was sent in a press release at the launch of Squarespace to the public ten years ago today, it’s striking how much it looks like a statement we could write today describing what our company does.
One thing I’m not sure I appreciated at the time was that the problem of publishing a website is actually part of a much bigger whole, and that our company would someday be tackling a much more fundamental human problem. Websites do not simply appear out of nowhere. They are components in a larger narrative – a narrative that for many people starts with ideas and ends with the expression of an idea in a form that someone else can understand.
In reality, ideas are physically close to nonexistent. They’re weightless electrical charges within our minds. But when ideas are expressed – through words, images, or art – they float out into the world to be interpreted by other people. This transfer of ideas between people is one of the great things enabled by modern technology. As a creative tools company, Squarespace pays respect to the difficulties inherent in expressing ideas.
When thinking about ideas that persevere through time – the kinds of ideas that are worth pursuing outside of business goals and are worth working on for ten years or more – looking at the intersection of technology and humanity is especially intriguing to us. Technology shapes everything we experience on a day-to-day basis. We would not have photographs to put online if cameras were never invented. We would not have words to share unless we had language and books. We would not have these ideas merging together into websites without the invention of computers and the Internet. All of these components are building blocks that we as people can stand on to reach bigger things.
Squarespace is part of this bigger idea: Everyone is a creator. As a company, we make tools that help all of us put our ideas into the world. We’re only ten years into these efforts. It’s a scale of challenge that can be pursued for decades.
As a celebration of our tenth birthday, we have ten announcements that we’ll be making in January. Today we’re pleased to present this post on our newly redesigned blog. Thank you for taking this journey with us, and stay tuned for our most exciting and impactful year ever.