Circle Live

Circle Live: State of the Web Design Industry 2025 with SquareKicker

• Squarespace Circle • Season 3 • Episode 1

Share episode

Get inspired to refresh your business by seeing how today’s top web designers get things done. For our first episode of 2025, we were joined by the co-founders of SquareKicker, Nick and Hannah Ippolito, to discuss web design in 2025 and Squarespace’s latest State of the Web Design Industry report. 

Based on a survey of Circle members from around the globe, the State of the Web Design Industry Report details how today’s web designers operate their businesses and the projects, milestones, and achievements they’re most proud of. 

Discover: 

  • How the web design industry has evolved over the past year
  • New trends, tools, and strategies to elevate your craft and achieve your goals 
  • Inspiring Circle member stories 
  • Motivating ideas to help you plan your next big project

Watch Nick and Hannah discuss which of the report’s findings were most helpful and surprising as well as how they plan on leveling up their business in the year ahead.

If you use a podcast player (like Overcast), use this link to subscribe to Circle Live: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2299108.rss

Already a Circle member? Check out the events calendar to see what’s coming soon! ➡️➡️➡️ https://forum.squarespace.com/events

To learn more about Circle, check out some resources below:

Hello entrepreneurs, designers, digital nomads, and business gurus. Welcome to Circle Live, our internet talk show just for Squarespace. Circle members, I'm Sam Z, your senior community events manager. And I'm Sarah G, team lead for the Circle program team. Last month, we had the best time talking with Circle members Jen Maher, Dreyah Bohlen, and Squarespace senior brand designer Dorian Dreyfuss about our design trends for this year. Sam, we were also in the same room last night. I know, unfortunately, we're now in two separate small boxes, but, there's not a studio. But, you know, I think, it's it's good. It's good for us to change things up a little bit, try something new. You know, we're getting to practice. Yeah. Sarah, another thing to note, it's not just any regular day in the office today, because this month we'll be talking about the recently released State of the Web Design Industry report. If you haven't downloaded your copy, you can get it from the link icon that says Download Report on the left hand side. Or you can get it from a link in the show description. Sarah, you know that there's a lot of information in this report that is useful to anybody who is looking to get started with a web design business, continue their web design business, build on their web design business. We're talking about team sizes. We're talking about services offered, income streams, the cost of running a business. We even identified a niche of the year, if you can believe that. But before we can get get into all of that quantitative data, I want to highlight the year of celebrating wins, which, in addition to all of the data that we collected, we asked each survey respondents what was their proudest moment of 2024. All of the answers are incredibly inspiring. You can read some of them in the report. And, obviously we couldn't fit all of them into the report. There were just too many proud moments. So to start today, I wanted us to share some of our favorite moments of pride that didn't make it into the final report. Are you ready to share some of our members favorite moments from the year? Let's go! Okay, so one respondent said that they were proudest of, quote, using AI to write JavaScript, which I understand but don't write. It has made so many new Squarespace custom functions possible. That sounds like a future Circle Day session to me. Yes, I love that so much. Okay. One respondent to that they were proud of, quote, helping a small mom and pop shop thrive online. They were intimidated by switching platforms, but after customizing their site and a few training sessions, they're now confident and thriving in e-commerce. I know we're about to talk about, how big e-commerce is getting it. So cool. The circle member is able to help us small business do that. Another respondent said, quote, getting to redesign a site for a radio DJ. I grew up listening to and thinking about some of the radio DJs that I grew up listening to and imagining what kind of a site I would design for them. I'll report back later. You'll report back? One respondent said, I delivered a website to a client who was so happy with it that she started crying tears of joy. That was the best feeling in the world. That was not actually the only person who said that their client cried when they saw their website websites. They can be emotional. That's awesome I love that, I sure can. No, I that is great. Let's each do one more. I like this one because it's so specific. Quote, I worked with a specialized therapist who had a very poorly built website, and I was able to redesign it, changing the entire user experience and making the site fully accessible. And it grew her business 80% in only two months. Amazing, amazing. All right, last one. Quote, pulling together a personal project with very little spare time and a one-year-old child who won't sleep. We will be talking about team size later. It's cool that you're already on a team of two Circle members. People are balancing a lot, we can say. And, designing websites is, I guess, kind of the ideal job for parents. I've heard this from people before. You can read even more, inspire and proud moments in the 2025 State of the Web Design Industry report. Download link to the left. Jen Taylor sharing it in the chat. I will also be. It will also be on the show notes if you're watching the replay. What about you, Sarah? What circle project are you the proudest of in 2024? I think the, the project that I'm most proud of. We haven't actually told Circle about yet and, look forward to tease out in a in a minute, but, I love just seeing all the different ways that our community gathered this year. I think, we gathered in-person and digitally more than we ever had before Circle Day at various meetups. I'm really excited to see that continue. As we go into this next year. Well, a lot to be proud of. We're going to be hearing some more of those moments. With the interview today, we're going to have a short break. Right now, Sarah is going to deliver some important information in the form of a little ad read, but when we get back, we're going to share our interview with Nick and Hannah Ippolito, the dynamic duo behind SquareKicker. If you don't know, SquareKicker, you need to know SquareKicker, and you're going to find out a whole lot more about it in a second. They'll also be joining us live later for a Q&A, so lots to discuss. Meanwhile, for the short break. Sarah, I believe you have an update to share with us. Yes. Thanks, Sam. Okay, so, Circle members, audience members, guess what I did last week? Jeremy Schwartz, the director of our channel partner business, and I recorded our seventh This is Squarespace video. And believe me, this is one that Circle members absolutely should not miss. Easily the biggest update that we've ever shared. In addition to a Circle-exclusive preview of upcoming Squarespace releases, we will share some big news about the Circle program and our plans to make Circle members’ experiences even better. This is Squarespace drops on February 19th and you are not going to want to miss it. So look out for the link to our This Is Squarespace website in your inbox and on the forum next month. What an exciting, exciting announcement. If none of you, have experience with This is Squarespace, super fun. The energy between Sarah and Jeremy on screen is really great, and the announcements are always so amazing. So you really can't miss it. Definitely check it out next month when that comes into your emails. So we're back, and I think we have, we have, some people in the chat who have been sharing their proud moment. Sarah, what are we seeing? What are people proud of? Christy says getting to see so many of you in person at Circle Day was my work highlight of 2024. Mine too, Christy. Leslie helped a large Montessori school create a new user friendly site that elevates everything for them. I bet it does. Virginia's proudest moment was moving three clients from, WordPress to Squarespace. I'm very proud of you for doing that as well. Ellen bought out her long-term partner and is now running the show on her own. Okay. Very impressive. And, um, Kia spoke at Circle Day. She says best day ever for me as well. We agree. Totally the best day ever. But right now, last week, Sarah and I sat down with two incredible members of our community, Nick and Hannah Ippolito. They are business partners and life partners, both with so much to be proud of. They were excited about this report and they had some thoughts about it. So without further ado, I want to share our interview with Nick and Hannah Ippolito of SquareKicker. Nick and Hannah. Ippolito. Hannah and Nick. Ippolito. So great to have you. So great to have SquareKicker on this call in this interview in this room with us. With the SquareKicker template marketplace, you're in a unique position to see what works for a variety of types of websites. Let's start with this question. Really raw, really unfettered. What stuck out to you about this report? Amazing. Thanks so much for having us. We're so excited to be here. And like you said, the second year of this report and it is such a valuable resource, I think it's a really exciting way to start the year to kind of see all of this come in and be able to touch base with what the community's doing. And I guess for the web designers, looking at it like, are my experiences the same as others? How are they faring? And I think it's a really cool resource. Like the main impact that it had for me when I first read it through is the optimism. It's just so there's so much positivity in there and there's so much growth. And comparing last year's report to this one, it's been really exciting to be able to go, wow, like, this is such an exciting, growing community and one piece that I loved. And I would recommend for everyone. If you don't read anything else, go to the last couple of pages and read through the way. Testimonials. There are a few dotted through the reports, but that's so exciting to see how excited people are about the platform, what they can do with it, how much it's growing. Yeah, the optimism was definitely my biggest takeaway. If I were to speak candidly about what stood out to me, it was actually the different variety of services that are within inside of the Squarespace kind of website ecosystem. Normally when you hear about, you know, Squarespace designers, you kind of leave it at that. Like they make websites cool like that makes sense. But there are so many other different types of services that go into that. So, you know, be, creative writing or education or courses on how to use Squarespace or plugins or templates, as you imagine. So there's I mean, just this huge, a diverse community as well. And that's it's really exciting because we're all kind of all this in together. And, you know, I think about the community and how that actually that that's seen as a rising tide lifts all ships. You know, we're actually all supporting each other. And it's not a cutthroat community. It's actually a supportive one that actually is growing and learning off each others’ skill sets is really exciting. We hear that all the time about the Circle community, and that is something that we actively try to cultivate. Is that sense of, collabetition is a buzzword that I've heard before. Fancy. So fancy when you mix words together, isn't it? So I want to talk a little bit about, team size this is something that gets featured on page three in the report. We ask Circle members, do you work by yourself or part of a team? And 60% say they work solo, which is in some circles a majority. 31%, 31% though said that they work as part of a small team of 2 to 5 people. It's great. A pretty large team, I think comparatively. What gets easier about working with a team and what are some of the challenges you face? Because you're not working solo? Yeah, I, I could probably start with that. I started my Squarespace journey as a solopreneur in 2015. I started building websites on Squarespace, and it was primarily just me. I mean, Hannah was a solopreneur as well, but she was working on a different kind of, skill set than Squarespace. And so I was by myself making websites, you know, sharing what I learned, with the community and with Hannah as well. But it wasn't until about, you know, 2019 where I was feeling the pressure about there was a lot of work to do, and I'm just not see my family. I'm not going outside anymore. And I need to make some life changes. And I remember Hannah saying, you need to figure out what you're going to do with this, because we we want to see you. Everyone. So, well, you know, this is not sustainable. And so I kind of took it on me to think, oh, how am I gonna scale my work, you know, do I hire someone? Do I outsource to my contract. What does that look like? And I think Hannah asked me that question, like, do you want to run and manage people or do you want to build websites and services? And I thought, that's a really good question. I just kind of thought I was busy, I need help, but actually, how do I hire that help? How do I get that help is really, was it quite a big decision? So I decided that actually, yeah. Like I can see myself personally being more excited about running a team and leading a team than maybe more so about, building projects out by myself. And so that was that first step in 2018 to hire the kind of first ever employer employee rather of, a web design business that this is before SquareKicker even started. What do you remember even asking that question? What was your professional life like at the time, and how did that develop, along with, what Nick was doing at the time? I was, working as a photographer. So I had always kind of had creative careers. I trained as a fashion designer, then had kids, and, turns out making custom wedding dresses with thousands of dollars of silk isn't super helpful when you have toddlers. So pivoted into photography, which was great, but I think, like, we kind of joked about before one of my superpowers was asking uncomfortable questions sometimes and actually being able to pick apart ideas. And in hindsight, that's what I love. I love running the business. I love working with a team and and really empowering people to be super successful. And, I think that's been a huge part of our journey, is bringing people into our team. We always try and hire based on kind of a good culture fit, and then the skills will come. You know, there's there's lots of different things that people bring to the team. But I think if you can have a good culture fit and you can get on well, you can be so much more successful. So that's been a huge part of of how we've built the team and a really important part of how we've kind of put this together. And if you are interested in building a team and you can get those those right people alongside you, it's really exciting. Like Nick mentioned before, there's so many different avenues of services you can do in Squarespace. So, you know, maybe you're an amazing designer and you can bring someone in to help you with copywriting or branding, and that just expands what you can offer to your clients. Or, yeah, are lots of different ways that you can pull it apart. But I think, you know, thinking about your skillset and thinking about what you need to help build that out to make the life that you want to live. What do you think is contributing to that vast majority of Circle members working as solopreneurs? Is it that they genuinely want to work solo, or do you think that maybe it's possible they're just like Nick was not asking the right questions? I think my perspective on it would be is is for the most part, it's a choice. That's how they want to operate their business. They really enjoy it. I think, Squarespace allows you to be really creative and run a really successful business on your own without needing a lot of other skills brought in if you don't want to. But I would say one of the trends that I think we've noticed is more teams growing, more people actually looking to work in teams looking to work together in a studio. We've definitely seen more and more shift that way. SquareKicker users. I know when we started off, we didn't even have an agency plan for SquareKicker. And then we had people knocking on our door saying, hey, we're a bigger team. We need something that functions that. So we're definitely seeing a little bit of a shift on our end as far as how people are putting together their teams. I think that's a perfect transition to our next question. Thinking about how your business has evolved. And, one of the other trends that we saw in this year's report was the growth in, ecommerce site set up. I know last year it was 32%, this year was 38%. So already in the span of one year growing a lot. I'm curious, from what you have seen, you guys have been running an ecommerce business for a while and then added the template store this year. I'm curious if there's anything new that you've learned about ecommerce, as you've added another wing to your business. It's a great question. I think there's lots of different types of ecommerce, and I think that's what Squarespace really brings to the table. Apart from other platforms. So we think about ecommerce as cool. You set up a store and you have a physical product and you sell it and you ship it and you have orders and you deliver. But something that's really probably changed, I think, on the internet is obviously COVID, the pandemic, and actually how do you make an income and if you are not selling a physical product, what does it look like to actually make a business? And so we sell a subscription. A SaaS product is called software as a service, and it's very similar to what Squarespace sells. They sell subscriptions and SaaS products. But it's kind of hard to do that with a physical product. You can sell it repeatedly over and over again. But I think people are finding more creative ways to sell their services on a subscription or sell their education on a subscription, or sell like a community on a subscription, where they find people to kind of learn stuff off each other. So, I've seen that in other areas, but it's something that we've found as well. You know, with, with our, with our software is actually, being able to provide a, the whole idea about square cake, it was, can we make some money on the side to sell this thing that we've developed? So that we can kind of front us through the low seasons of web design? That was primarily the biggest reason for creating SquareKicker. And it took off and a new and new and interesting way we didn't expect. And so we pivoted and just did that full time. But I think everyone is trying to figure out ways to do that, as well as supplement their service spaces, their physical products with subscription based time. And I think Squarespace specifically allows you to do that really well, probably better than I seen anywhere else. And I'm not just being biased. Like, I really believe that that's a a really cool niche that Squarespace found themselves in. And then I think obviously selling digital products as a whole, another avenue as well. There's server spaces that you can sell, but also digital products that you don't need a shipping manifest, you don't need orders to deliver. And I think that's, a really cool opportunity because the overheads are really low. And we've seen that with obviously with templates, it's easier to ship a template when there's no postal code and there's no order delivery. And you have to about integrating with a, you know, a different country. And, so that becomes a really cool opportunity for any opportunity, any entrepreneur, rather to sell something rather be a plug in or a template or a design course or whatever it is be. So that's yeah, that's the trend I think we've seen grow and even more so in the past year. Yeah, absolutely. Our next question is actually about income streams. So that leads really nicely into that. One of the questions that we posed to Circle members in the report was about how they make money, how their business is set up. And while site creation is obviously still number one, you kind of, spoke a little bit to that earlier. Nick. There are so many different ways that we are seeing Circle members, kind of supplementing that site creation income. And one of them is very familiar to you, which is template selling. Curious how you all settled on adding template selling to your already obviously very successful plugin. Yeah, that was it was a fairly easy decision for us, really, in that once the extension was kind of at a place that was quite settled, and we felt really comfortable that it was offering really good value to our users. We took a little bit of a step back and interviewed a bunch of SquareKicker users and basically said, what pain points do you have? What other things do you need to make your life work the way you want it to? What other things do you need to make your business work the way you want it to, and without any hesitation? The biggest thing everyone talked about was passive income. And particularly templates and, and their being a good system that they could build templates, without being kind of tethered to this concept of, I guess a challenging process where if they sold a bunch that was actually a whole a lot more work, and maybe they were going to get a lot more customer support than they wanted to be able to deal with. So, yeah, we were able to answer a lot of those pain points through building out good software, and it was very much based on kind of feedback from our community. And it's been really exciting to see how people have responded to that. There's obviously a lot of people that are very excited to build templates and use that as a way to support the income. There's a lot of creativity in owning a business. Just even if it's not necessarily a creative business. But obviously there's extra creativity if you're working with designers and trying to make them happy as well. I just going to ask you point blank, would you consider both of yourselves? You can answer individually. Would you consider yourselves part of the 79% of Circle members who say that they are creatively fulfilled in their career? I mean, yes, for me personally, I, I, I find myself, I didn't actually start in with design. I've got a long history of youth work, so designs kind of. I mean, I've just learned on the fly and I've learned how to code on the fly. And so I'm not naturally a gifted designer. And so but what I find myself find the most creativity is actually solving problems. So when I see a problem, you know, there's, there's always the same way that people keep hitting, you know, the nail, you know, on the top and ink and the carry on. And I need a bigger hammer, I need the bigger nail, I need whatever it is I like. Well, what if we made just hitting the nail easier with a nail gun? Like, what would it look like to actually create a nail gun that actually is more, you know, efficient and fast? And so those kind of problems I find I have just as much, if not maybe more creativity. And that really fulfilled me because it's now it's just my creativity trying to solve a problem. But then I get to empower other people to be more fast and efficient. What they do, and I think that's where the creativity has fulfilled me the most, is when I get to see it in other people's hands and how they use that. And that's really exciting to be able to kind of, you know, to see that people all around the world, designers are using this thing we've kind of created and solving these problems for the vast majority of people trying to create custom code, but can't quite figure it out. Yeah, I'm the same goodness 100% creatively fulfilled. I think we're in such an exciting position. Being in this amazing community and being able to serve this amazing community, it's it's incredibly fulfilling. And I think it's probably what keeps Nick and I working way too late at night when we're sitting on the couch next to each other. Because we're just so excited about what we can do. And I was thinking about the, the stats, because that was one of the things that really stood out to me was how much fulfillment people were saying they had and how positive this was, as like I mentioned at the start, and I was thinking about it, and I see web design as such a helper job. You know, it's it's not tapping on a keyboard like you are helping someone solve their problems. And no matter who you're building that website for, you're thinking about ways you can solve their problems. You're thinking about ways that you can present them and their business and their services in the most incredible, ways and all these different, different ways that they come across. And every client is different. So you're having to think that through free time. And I, I wonder if that's where a lot of that fulfillment comes from is actually day to day. We get to help people solve problems. And that's what every web designer is doing every time they open up Squarespace to start a website. Okay, so that's when the creativity is fulfilled. I want to dig a little bit into the opposite of that. When is creativity? Maybe think to a time perhaps recently when your creative juices weren't flowing, when you were actually the person who is batting your head up against a wall? How do you work through that and find yourself back into creative fulfillment? Whenever I'm kind of feeling at that stress level, kind of rise up, even if I'm doing a creative task, I'm no longer enjoying it because I'm actually just too much to do. A in a short period time. I just, I'm rushing it. But we're taking some small steps away, actually can be quite a good thing. We've actually got, a dog that's in our office together, and so often people say, I'm taking Toby for a walk. I just need to get outside. And so they get Toby in the lead and off they go, just for a walk. And it's just, an opportunity to get outside, like Hannah said. For me personally, is doing something physical. What? I love to build things. My hands. Go for a mountain bike ride, go for a run, and that somehow, for some reason, oh, I don't know why I was so stressed, but I just need to do something physical and get my endorphins going and get some vitamin D, and I'm actually ready to go again with a lot more optimism. It reminds me of something that, our designer Lauren did last year. You know, we were super busy at the end of the year. Everything was really busy, and and she was kind of reflecting on this. She's like, I'm feeling just a bit creatively drained. And she actually took a day where she just played with Squarespace and SquareKicker and, and just had a day just designing and playing around with no outcome required, no pressure and looking at trends that are happening, you know, visually, online and being able to apply some of those. And I think that can be something really valuable as well. I think it's important to go. It's okay to take a step back sometimes in order to be able to take a few steps forward. And however, is best for you to do that. And I think it's important to kind of give yourself the space to allow that to happen. One of those, big themes for the report this year on page one was all about celebrating wins. And obviously you all launched the Template Store. Huge win. I'm kind of curious outside of that, if you have any other moments that you're really proud of for this year? I think day to day, one of the things that makes us proudest is, is the messages that come in from people that are so excited for what they can do. Like you said, actually saying like, oh my goodness, I can pay my mortgage off. Or you know, I can do this because of the way that your product has allowed us to kind of grow our company. We've had, people come and say, you know, I've hired three extra people. We're now a team. And that's because of what we can do and extend our skills with this. I had someone call me and say, you know, that they were having a baby, and that was so excited that they could make some passive income with templates because of the products. And so I think it's those little bits that that make me really proud. And we have a Slack channel in our team, where we actually post those really, really regularly. And I think having those small, constant wins that we can share with our team that are really valuable to us, you know, we want to be so focused on the people that we're serving. And, kind of constantly being able to be reminded of those wins is is really awesome. So the biggest question we're asking literally right now, probably even next week, is what are our big strategic goals for the next year, and how do we actually funnel that into a, a statement so we can all be on track together? So looking forward to that. It's not something we've had time to do in the past. The reason why? Because the goal has been finish the templates door and it get delayed and gets delayed. But now we're actually here going great. What's what's next for us? And that's, that's an exciting place to be because we haven't been able to kind of put our heads up for a while now. Well, we hope you can, put your heads up a little bit. See, you know, see what time you have in your schedule to go take Toby for a walk. And ask some tough questions. Hannah. Nick. Ippolito, I want to thank you very much for digging into this report with us. I hope you found some value in it. There's a lot of information here. I know that the rest of the community is going to get a lot of, value out of it, and they're going to get tremendous value out of this conversation that we had today. So I just want to thank you both so much for joining us here. Thanks for having us. What a lovely couple. We're going to take another short break here, but when we get back, we will be joined live by Nick and Hannah of SquareKicker for a Q&A. and we will see you all again real soon. Whether you're dreaming of starting your own business, freelancing, or expanding your skills, now's a great time to become a web designer. Our How to Become a Web Designer course will teach you everything you need to know with top tips from Squarespace Circle members, pros who have built successful careers using Squarespace. Each lesson is packed with actionable advice, proven strategies, and assignments designed to deepen your knowledge of the Squarespace platform and its most popular features. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to level up, you'll be guided by experts from Squarespace’s premier partner program, Circle members who know what it takes to succeed with practical tips and hands on learning, you'll build the skills you need to create stunning websites for clients in no time. We can't wait to see what you create. Fantastic! We're back and we now have some people who want to join the conversation. Hannah and Nick Ippolito. So great to have you here. You had an incredible year last year. And thank you for starting your year off here with us at Squarespace Circle Live. It's great to be here. Yeah, I remember everyone in New Zealand as well in the chat. There's quite a few Kiwis here, which is exciting. Oh that's delightful. And yeah, I mean, you all got to hang out. It's a good time. Yeah. I missed the coffee saying, you know, coffee, whatever. Whatever you all do, however, you all choose to connect with each other. Sarah, what kind of questions are we seeing for they can hang, from the chat. Yeah. Sure thing. All right, so first up, we have a question from Christine that says I'm working on launching my first template. Could you share the biggest challenges you came up against when launching your template store. That's definitely you, Hannah. It's a me one. Is it? Okay? Cool. Yeah. I feel a little, I guess, uneducated to answer this question in a way, because our template store is a little bit different. If you haven't checked it out, you can go in and do that over at SquareKicker. So I won't reveal too much about it, but what I can say is, is what we designed with the software of our template store kind of serves two ends. It serves the end user who's buying the template. And then we've also got a product that serves the designer making the template. And so you actually create the inside of the SquareKicker system. And what we did in order to create that and why it took so long to create it, is talking to template designers and asking them what their kind of biggest struggles were. So it was lots of, like having to duplicate the sites to send them out. It was the customer support, kind of getting those emails and, and having to be constantly on with that, having custom code in there that they have to serve us. So a lot of those problems we solved through building software, but certainly there are some amazing template designers that are doing it on their own without the SquareKicker software. So I would recommend having a quick Google on there and checking out what they've done. Some people have made some amazing courses as well. If you are looking to do it on your own, then I think we'll answer a few of your questions. Awesome. We have a question from Hailey that says how much upkeep or maintenance do the templates, and we can talk about the templates that are on your store. Need after you launch them. For example, when new features come out and Squarespace, do you all go and update the templates or how does that work? I can probably try to answer this one myself, so I guess I'll try to answer this in two different phases. One, there is there is a pain point here, and I guess that's why the SquareKicker template store solves a lot of them. We've we've addressed some of them. And that is if you've used custom code specifically, then that custom code is potentially just raw city on the site. And so if you've sold 100 or 200 or more of the sites and there is some breaking change in that code, that becomes quite a bit of a challenge, because now that code is broken on all those sites, and I'm going to come back to you to fix it. So, trying to find ways to update those asynchronously when updates come out that you can roll it through, and that's something that square has built into it. We can actually achieve that through the software. So, not everyone has the ability to, to do that, but is something that you can think about and how you make your templates. The other thing is, if you have a new feature, of course, when you sell a template, that template is essentially static. You email someone the template website, and if you want to say update it or new features, it's really hard to say, here's this new page or here's this new section, or who's this new thing that Squarespace came out with. So that, again, is another pain point that we there's not really an option other than just, hey, just go to here and use it and here's a course how to use it. But we're developing a way to be able to systematically kind of deliver, hey, the creator actually created a new page or a section and you bought it. So you can actually now download it and retrieve that new page or retrieve the new section. So hopefully a Squarespace, you guys keep making these new exciting features and that the template is gonna say, man, I really want to put that in my template and you can create that and actually get that delivered to any template purchaser who can receive that download. So that's exciting. Future of where hopefully templates are going that doesn't really exist now. So we're looking forward to what the future has. So exciting. We have a question from Christy that says Hannah. Nick, what templates are you seeing that are selling the best? Is there a particular design style or niche? It's a good question. I mean, again, if you haven't seen the templates at all, what we have is not templates created by us here at SquareKicker. They are templates made by designers from all around the world. Many of them are here with us today, which is exciting to see. And we get the joy of of helping them create those with our software and then hosting them and selling them. So there's a huge variety on there. There's lots of different industries that are being served and such unique designs, which is just the most exciting part to see. And I would say we're seeing a broad range of those selling, I think every time one sells, it's in a different niche. Or we've had a few that, are more repetitive. I would say one of the ones that surprised me is some of the more masculine styles. I think you see a lot of really pretty feminine stuff with Squarespace, and often those more masculine styles aren't really well represented, particularly in templates, and we've seen those ones flying off the shelves. A lot of kind of community and nonprofit, people are coming in and purchasing the templates. So wanting to do that, then those are the ones that stand out to me. Nick, anything else that stands out to you? Well, I would say the templates that have a good brand seem to sell really well because it's a strong brand and people can instantly go. I can imagine my brand looking like that. And even if it's not the trend of the industry, that that template has been fitted out for. My most favorite recent one was someone purchased a barber shop template and turned it into a search-and-rescue template. So very different industry and I'm trying to figure out how do they sell the vision that this person cutting hair was going to now rescue people. So it was it was really exciting to see like how people use these templates in everyday life. But I think the brand probably stood out to them as like, yep, that really identifies who I am as a brand, that they're looking for something that didn't quite fit them because it was a pretty Pinterest brand that didn't quite fit their, you know, their search and rescue. But this barber shop really stood out to them. So yeah, I think branding really helps. And if you can nail that, I think the template, what kind of help to fill the blanks with content? That's very cool. I feel like the template creators are coming with their creativity, and then the purchasers of the templates are adding their own layer of creativity on it. And that's amazing. Question from Jeremy on the Circle team. Lots of Circle members work with clients who are far away, timezone-wise. I'm wondering what Nick and Hannah have learned about how to work with people around the world, while also getting sleep? Oh, I can try taking this one. I do a lot of the like Hannah wants to say something to, but I do a lot of the kind of off off hand off season, if you will, customer support. Because I've learned different time zones now. I learned for us. The UK wakes up at 9 PM., which is there's enough time to do some things there.

Or, you know, the US wakes up about 3:

00 in the morning time and then everyone starts going to bed around, you know, midday hour time. So, what have I learned? Having really good, support channels for us has been really helpful, but I guess that's kind of asynchronous. I asynchronous my my new favorite word, which is basically a way you can communicate with people that you don't have to be right there at the time to do it. You can communicate back to them. So for us, we found that Zendesk, which is a support system that we can kind of have tickets coming through, but if it's emails, if it's some other sort of chat, it's really, really helpful. They have that kind of at your own time, at your own pace to reply to them. And we try to say within 24 hours we always get back to people. Sometimes it's purely because we're just sitting right there. But I schedule in blocks in my time, so I might do a couple for evening because I see that the UK is woken up, maybe a couple in the morning and maybe, you know, the team normally does it during the day and so I don't have to worry as much during that time. But I find those kind of pinpoints really good. If I leave them too long, then I have, I'll sit down for like half a day to get them all done. And that's not ideal for anyone. So for me, anyhow, it's, it's picking them to, you know, certain blocks of the time of the day. Yeah. I do, I do want to say something. I think it can be a huge advantage actually being in different time zones. And one of the things we've found is when a lot of your customers are asleep, you can actually get, you know, kind of that deep work stuff done without your emails popping off all the time or feeling like you have to urgently get back to someone. So I think, you know, have a think about where your customers are, see if you can kind of mentally create some of those blocks where you go. I know a lot of my customers are going to be awake at this time. Like maybe I take off a couple of hours in the middle of the day when I want to do something I can enjoy, and then I know at 9 p.m. I can jump on and be available for those. So I think it's one of those things where as a web designer, you have the ability to kind of create the life you want a little bit. And so I would just be a little bit strategic about it, see what you can map out and see if you can think about ways that you can make it work for you. It can definitely be a significant advantage. And a really quick tip to drop in. I found Loom several years ago, which is a video recording software. It is saved probably this whole piece of work and content, because if I need to say something to them that's more than an email I can provide. I can create a screen recording, a face recording. I can share all the things I need to say, and then they, in return can do the same. They can read video record. Here's my question. Here's my thought how do I do this? And then you can go back and forth that way. So it feels like a delayed phone call, but you're able to go into the details without you can't necessary an email that really is helpful. Great tip. There's so many great tools out there. And that's I think one of the reasons why it's so great to have a community, of Circle members out there sharing, swapping little tips like that. I want to pop in here with, and, my own question, actually, from the report, something that we didn't really have time for in the interview, but, I thought that both of you would have something to say on this theme of the report. We ask some questions, about what can be learned from veterans. Of web design, veterans of web design, people who are seasoned web design experts. And I think both of you would consider yourself seasoned web design experts, not only from the experience of designing websites, but also from working with a bunch of seasoned web design experts. The question that we asked here is what sets seasoned web design professionals apart? Anything from finding deep satisfaction in their work, collaboration, spending time on projects? I'm curious, from your perspective, what do you think sets a seasoned web design designer apart from somebody who's maybe just starting out? I can probably answer this one. Having gone through the period of not knowing what I'm doing at all, and I take on every job and say yes to everything I could do, even though I had no idea how to do it. Because there is enough creativity, enough resources, enough people to ask you that you can figure them out. when you take on work or you take on things you have no idea how to do, and I'm confident I can figure them out eventually, either a tutorial or on-the-ground learning. And then as I carry on, I figure out how to do it. And now I've got this kind of bucket of now I, I know how to do this thing I didn't know how to do. And it took me three hours. But the next time I do it, it will take me probably 20 minutes because I've already experienced that. So the longer you do that year on year on year and project after project, you can take on pretty much most jobs and already know before they even ask them how to actually achieve that task. So you're able to maybe charge the same, but then actually do it way faster so you can take on more work, which is an exciting place to be at. Or you can actually charge more because you know, your experience is going to provide a way, a lot more offer than you used to have, because now you know all the tips and tricks, all the things that you would never know how to do the first time you did it. So I think as a as a veteran, do it so many times. Don't feel free to actually charge more for your time and you work because your time is valuable, maybe more so than the time you were your old self. I mean, you know, several years ago when you didn't know actually how to do it. I'm surprised when people ask me how to do something really simple and Squarespace, that maybe is a little bit buried, but I can visually see exactly the menu, where to go, how to click it on, how to do it, how to set it up when. The only reason is because I've done that multiple times, and the first time I didn't know how to do it. That's a great answer. And I'll also just connect that back to something a previous Circle Live guest said, back in October, we had Omari Harebin on the show who was talking about every time he learned something new, he would videotape himself doing it, and he actually used that as content to bring people into his flywheel. So I think that there's so many ways to take what you don't know and turn it into something beautiful. Hannah. Anything to add there about what you think separates a seasoned vet website? I mean, I feel like my answer is going to tell you all how much of a systems person I am because I feel like that's what I'm rabbiting on about today. But I think, yeah, as as you do, more and more you create systems for yourself and little pieces that used to take a lot of time. I think particularly in the like onboarding a client and then offboarding a client, you know, a lot of the web design, stays the same. You know, there's there's work to be done there that will always have to be done there. But I think the systems that you can create as you start to understand the processes of what it's like to bring a client on really effectively, what questions do you ask so that when you're halfway through the build, you've got everything that you need? And then how do you off board them? Really? Well, I know Christy Price talked about onboarding clients, I think at Circle Live, I'm sorry, Circle Day last year. Maybe the year before. Oh, I'm getting my years mixed up. But yeah, so I would I would definitely go and check that out. But I think creating those systems, as you start to build out more and more and getting an idea of how you can streamline some of those things, I think shows a veteran and you can see it in their work in the way that they do it. And this community is amazing. And there are so many veterans, you know, even on this channel where I think we all recognize a lot of these names and that's so helpful, and they're so willing to share what they know. And I'm really excited about the, the program that you shared that circle has made for, making, you know, learning how to become a Squarespace designer. There's so many people in this community offering these tips, offering to share what they know. I think that makes the Squarespace community really unique. When those veterans do come in and go, hey, I learned these lessons on my teen years here. Let me take them to you a bit faster. Well, that is a fantastic place for us to leave this conversation today. Nick and Hannah Ippolito, such a pleasure to know you, to watch your business grow and to have you with us here today, talking about this report and answering all of our questions. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. It's been great. So, so great. Sarah. This is all for today's show. We will be back with Circle Live next month. And until next Circle Live, this is Sam Z, and I'm Sarah G, reminding you to wear a helmet when conducting a website speed test. Bye everybody!