When he joined, Lee oversaw only a few different designers and “was designing issues myself,” he recalled. “We had completed some advertising and marketing, however not something at any grand scale.”

In his first 12 months on the job, Lee determined to develop the startup’s first model marketing campaign. “I needed to set the bar a bit greater,” he recalled. His workforce shot the low-budget marketing campaign themselves, after which “we have been off to the races.” 

It was round that point that Lee was additionally impressed to construct an in-house inventive company. “We’re a DIY product—it’s in our DNA—so it is sensible for us to DIY nearly every part we do,” he stated. 

“Early on it turned obvious that Squarespace was a inventive and design-led firm—we care concerning the craft, how our product feels, how individuals use it,” he continued. “We needed to do the identical factor for our model.” 

A ‘DIY’ company

For the previous eight years, Squarespace hasn’t used an exterior company. Its in-house operation now employs about 65 individuals, together with creatives, designers, photographers, editors and producers. 

“In some methods [the team] is about up like a conventional company, and in some methods it’s a lot totally different,” Lee stated. 

One distinction is that in its New York workplace, it has an in-house studio the place a lot of its movies are directed. The creators shoot about 90% of content material themselves, Lee stated. 

Having this expertise in-house means “the velocity with which we are able to greenlight an concept, put it into manufacturing and put it out on the planet would make most businesses crumble,” he contended. 

From lo-fi to worldwide

From these early, low-budget campaigns, Squarespace has graduated into turning into a fixture on promoting’s largest stage: the Tremendous Bowl. 

Below Lee’s supervision, Squarespace has now produced 9 Tremendous Bowl advertisements. This 12 months’s spot was a surreal satire that includes actor Adam Driver, whereas 2022’s outing was a sea-themed tongue tornado starring Zendaya.