Circle Live

Circle Live: Ghost Stories with Cody Juhnke

• Squarespace Circle • Season 3 • Episode 5

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On this episode of Circle Live, Cody Juhnke from Ghost Plugins joined us to discuss building a web design business that’s equal parts successful and personal.

Listen to hear Cody’s journey from his early beginnings in web design to managing Ghost Plugins, a thriving online resource offering hundreds of plugins and templates used on over 100,000 Squarespace sites.

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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:

There have been times where I've kind of doubted myself at things. Whether that's, you know, business or life or whatever. Whatever comes my way. But you got to just kind of push through. Also, if you're kind of doubting your business, get honest feedback from people, whether that's friends, family. If you know, you know how you have let's say you have another job as outside of Squarespace world. As for the year over there, you know, they're probably going to be really supportive. Ask anyone that you trust in that is in your corner, and I guarantee that that's going to kind of push you in the right direction. Hello entrepreneurs, designers, digital nomads and business gurus. Welcome to Circle Live, our 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. And we have our colleague get Taylor Liguori managing the conversation. In the chat last month, we talked to Bri and Stephen of Studio Le Tare about selling on Squarespace. You can view the replay of that episode in the link that Taylor is sharing in the chat. Sam, what have you been up to since, our last episode? Woo! Let me think about that. Well, last weekend I had the opportunity to co-host a taco tour. Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Wow. Did you say co-host? I did, Devon, why don't you throw up a photo? Scream? Those two cool cats look familiar. So, fans of the show may not know, but, cast members of Circle Live do hang out sometimes outside of the world of Circle Live. And, last weekend was a great example of that. Well, cast members of Circle Life, they're just like you. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And, I have to tip my hat to Sarah for organizing it. It was a great event. Yeah. See, which we did not get very many tips from that tour. Just $2 now. I still haven't seen that money, actually. Hopefully they're relevant. Today, to get back on track, we're going to be joined by special guest Cody Key of Ghost Plugins for some ghost stories calling it come up. Coming up, we're going to share our interview with Cody. We'll also have him joining us live for an audience Q&A, as you all know. But to start us off with some fun news, let's go back to another edition of Release Notes Live. Today's product, Deep Dive, is an exciting new way. We are going to be communicating with circle members on the forum from now on. I'll let community Manager Taylor take it from here. Hi. Circle. My name is Taylor and I'm an associate community manager on the circle team. I'm here today to show you the new Circle News and Announcements board. As you may have noticed, program information, product news, and Squarespace News is located all over the forum, making it incredibly hard to find. We hear you. We understand the struggle, which is why the Circle team and I put our hearts together and built this new board for you in order to find this board. You'll want to log in to the Squarespace Circle forum, navigate to the Product Updates dropdown and select the first selection, the News and Announcements one. Once you select it, you'll be navigated to this page. This is where the official product updates, weekly updates, and program updates from the Squarespace team will be located that you are used to seeing in your weekly release. Notes. Email. This board is categorized into three ways this week, last week, and older. Each category will contain the entries that are relevant to that specific week, and it'll contain information such as the update when the post was made, who it's available to. Meaning is it public? Is it only available for circle members? Is it only available for silver, gold or platinum? And what the status of the update is? Is it launched? Is it a feedback request or is it a beta? From there, you'll be able to click into the update if you have the correct permissions. Meaning if this is a platinum update and I am a silver member, I will not be able to click into it. I will instead receive an error message. If I am able to click into it, I'll be able to open up the entry. Read all about the information. Leave a like or a thumbs up and leave a comment down below. We went ahead and made this board to make it easier for you to find all the information that you need, and for us to make sure that it's put in one central location. This board is now live for you to check out, so go ahead and leave a comment emoji react and connect with other circle members. Happy reading and I will catch you in the chat. Circle members can check out the News and Announcements page at the link Taylor is sharing in the chat or in the show notes, and everyone give a special thank you to Taylor for showing off and also spearheading this new release. Really exciting. Now, Sarah, can we take a moment? It is my favorite part of the show. This is a segment that we call Circle Member Moments. Every month, we ask Circle Live viewers what their proudest moments were from the last month. Here are some of our favorite responses Ashley L made a custom form for a client, so they can work on collecting images for a project that they're working on, form and function. Brandi W had a kickoff meeting with an illustrator for a tabletop board game. She had a lifelong bestie are creating together your move board game players. Joe R made a client cry parentheses in a good way because she loved her new website so much. Very little. Terry, myself Yost Kay built more than 15 sites in the last year by convincing clients Squarespace is the way to go. A toast to Yost. Jack confidently pitched a large scale homegrown fundraising campaign, an auction platform using Squarespace donations and blog features, saving a nonprofit hundreds of dollars a year. I will believe the savings. Stephanie S is working with commercial business building brands for two new mixed use properties in the local beach area. Can I get an invite? Sam D started a design collective with two other women, she reports. After working for myself by myself for five years, I forgot how incredible it feels to both have and give support from other designers. I'm feeling inspired and alive again. I share that sentiment. And this month one V launched his online dental academy. How long before we can go to get a cleaning in VR? I think that's the question that comes to mind for me. Thank you for sharing your circle member moments. Please continue to share your Squarespace business wins big and small in the chat. While we go quickly to this break. Are you looking to monetize your content and earn more from your websites? Whether you're a content creator, entrepreneur, business owner, or publisher, Google AdSense helps you to earn money by displaying high quality, relevant ads from trusted advertisers on your websites and content. You can customize where and who sees the ads you want to display. While AdSense provides formats tailored to your needs and content, whether you're an online store, content based site, or gaming site, only the highest paying ads will be published on your sites, and you can boost your revenue by tapping into a large network of online advertisers who bid for your ad space. You can also simplify ad placement with high level controls or personalized settings to suit your specific requirements, like excluded areas and ad categories that you'd like to block. Creating great content takes time. Making it profitable shouldn't. To sign up for Google AdSense, visit the link g o o dagli forward slash circle live. Just a couple of wins in the comments I want to point out. Congrats to Jeremy Schwartz for 12 year anniversary working at Squarespace. That is incredible. Christie monetized a YouTube channel with under 3000 subscribers. I think that's pretty incredible. And, oh, just one more that came through. From show. I am starting on a new landing page for one of my favorite clients today on Squarespace. Of course, we love to hear that. Welcome back everybody. Thank you for sharing your wins with us. Always stuff that we love to hear. I'd love to keep that positivity going in the community. And it's great to see the work that you're doing for businesses and for each other. But let's get now to our main interview. Cody Chunky is the founder of Ghost Plugins and Pluto Studio, and last week we got the chance to talk with him about building his businesses, navigating changes on Squarespace, and finding surprising collaborations with others in the process. Here is our interview with Cody Yongqi. I want to start with this question. You have two Squarespace businesses, as far as I know, Ghost Plugins and Pluto Studio, formerly Move Labs. Which one came first and how did it lead to the other one? So back in 2013, it's kind of crazy that it's been so long, but 2013, I knew nothing without websites, knew nothing about Squarespace, and I needed a website for the side project. So I did the traditional thing. Just hired a designer to help me build a site, and unfortunately, they kind of took my money. And so I was kind of stuck in the spot of no website and needed to figure out, you know, what I needed to do. So I kind of with the DIY approach and I stumbled across Squarespace. I built my site, knew nothing about sites. So obviously, the first site was not the best looking site. And so I finished that. But after I finish that site project, I really liked the process of building the site on Squarespace, and I kind of took that experience of, someone taking my money and running and kind of built a business, and that was Move Labs and Move Labs kind of took a unique approach. No design fees, no hourly rates, flat monthly fee, and on a membership basis. And you have a beautiful website. And so I taught myself how to design code from school of YouTube and articles and things like that. And that's how Move Labs kind of started. And as time went on, it got rebranded into the Pluto studio, Black Ghost. So that's, that's the short danced version started with a brilliant idea. And also great to hear when people can take a bad experience and turn it into a good business idea. Oh, yeah, 100%. I'm really thankful that that experience happened, because it's kind of led me into the direction of life now. You gave us the history of, move labs into Pluto. When did ghost plugins come along? So ghost plugins came around when I was trying to find resources and things for code, and little things to help make my Squarespace websites look a little bit better. And there really wasn't anything out there. And so we wanted to create this really, really nice resource for a small community where they can just come grab some free code, grab some resources, and just add their Squarespace site. So I remember being invited to my first, Squarespace event over in LA, and I went, to that event, and that's where, those kind of started was kind of sharing that feedback with them. And a lot of people were really excited about it. And so we just took that idea and I kind of just ran with it. But ghost actually eventually turned into its own thing. It was supposed to just be this little side, a little side project, and it actually just turned into a full blown business as time. So which is really exciting as the Squarespace platform has evolved. Obviously, I think especially with the introduction of seven one, but I feel like post fluid engine, there's just been so much growth, so many new features being added to the platform. How have you seen what people are looking for from ghost to change over time, in terms of the gaps that you're filling in on the platform? You know, when when ghost first came around, we were still on 7.0, right. I was a bride, lover and loved bride. And so we kind of filled the gaps with what? Rinat. So certain things with that. And then as the platform evolved to 7.1, which I absolutely love, and I love Fluid Engine, some of those gaps got kind of filled. And so we kind of had to pivot to what people kind of wanted. And we gather feedback and we send out surveys, and we listened to our customer base in our visitors and things like that. So we really do have an ear to what our, our visitors want and what our customers are looking for, because we want to make sure we're the best resource for Squarespace designers and developers and also just DIY. So we have a lot of people that come in that are just do it yourselfers. They don't have it. They're not they're not an agency. They're not a designer. So, we really listen to them and that's what's important to me as well. So one of the questions that we ask when we're speaking to people who are new to the community is like, what blockers are you running into these days or what's feeling hard? I'm curious. You know, you mentioned having sometimes there's hard days. I'm curious, like what's feeling hard right now? I'm sometimes kind of bad at spacing tasks out, things out, so I'll try to get too much done in a day. I've had to really work on that. That's just kind of like a management thing. But I'm doing a lot better with that. So instead of ten things to do for the day, we'll have size. But if I get those things done, I'm going to try to get together five things done. So, that's been a little bit of a challenge for me. But again, that's kind of been kind of six two with the amazing teams that I have. The Squarespace platform obviously we talked about has evolved a lot. But, you know, there's always, always new things to be being built. How do you identify what kind of plugin you're going to build next? So I kind of take a little bit of a unique approach. I don't follow trends. I kind of do what I want to do. We kind of take the approach of we're not adding functionality to the Squarespace websites, whereas Squarespace has evolved so many amazing features. So many future amazing, amazing features. But we're here to make Squarespace websites fun. We're supposed to add a little bit of character to it. And so that's always been kind of our approach. We never really follow the trends or what other plugin shops are doing. Template shops are doing. We do our own thing and we do it really well, and that's always been the goal. So, if we have a great idea, we will share betas with our customers and our visitors to get, feedback. And if they love it, then we'll we'll move forward with that. Or sometimes we'll just release stuff because I think it's cool. But and, you know, my decisions on that haven't really been proven wrong. And so we just roll with that. It seems like, impervious strategy. But I want to know, have there been times when the initial feedback led you to think this is something we can't release right now? Like what's what's an example of something like that where the feedback maybe wasn't so good? Oh, there's a there's always times where, where feedback is not always the best. But we don't take it personally. We're here to make the best product that we can or the best community we can. That's why we stuck with Squarespace since the beginning. We don't use anything else. So when those kind of situations happen, sometimes we go back to the drawing board. We work on new things. Sometimes we just decide, hey, you know, they're not really looking for that. And we will kind of close that chapter on that product. But that product hasn't been released. It's, you know, MVP. It's right at the beginning. You know, we don't we don't take it personally. Very rarely do we stop making something. But yeah, usually usually we just go full force. We take that feedback and we make it better before we release it. What advice would you give if someone. Because like I said, I talk to people all the time where, like, I think I want to start a plugin shop. What advice would you give to someone who was thinking about doing it themselves? So this advice would apply to everyone, whether it's a plugin shop, template shop, agency, freelance, whatever it is, beyond authentic. Find something that's authentic to you, unique to you, branding wise, product wise. And that's going to be more beneficial than following the trends or trying to copy something someone else is doing. That would be my best advice. That is that is exactly what I did since the very beginning. I did something unique with my books a brought on ghost plugins, and then of course, we've turned into pseudo studio as time went on. But their unique, their unique concepts and their unique, businesses and I think that's one of the huge factors on why they're so successful within this community. Can we talk a little bit more about what Austin Authentic means to you? What is that? Your personal branding? Is that the product of SEO research? Is that just following your instincts? I think it's a mixture of, like, a ton of different things. One branding when you go to go is there's no other plugin shop out there that kind of looks like us just has its own little fun, fun little branding. We use, you know, playful words here and there. It's a fun it's a fun business. And with Cluedo, it's a unique concept. It still follows that branding. Similar to ghost, the black and white kind of esthetic. But also just the product offerings themselves. They're unique. So we have a couple plugins that are very unique to us. Like we have something called Doodle Pen. People can draw on the site with a it's really fine. A lot of schools use it, a lot of artists use it. But I think at the end of the day, do something that you really, really enjoy is part of that authenticity. When you do something, when you're chasing, you know, a chat, you kind of get a out of that element of that authenticity. It's not really it's still unique to you, but there's something missing. And so that's always been my focus, is making something that's really unique to me, that I can really add a and just push that to at the end of the day. Of course, we're running a business, but I want to make sure that we're running a business that's unique and not copying someone else. Hope you found a new one anywhere else. It's like ghost is growing year after year. Is chasing that authenticity part of the reason behind the pivot from move to ghost plugins to Pluto Studio? I think that authenticity definitely plays a part, but times change, right? Squarespace has even evolved over the years, and I've had moved since 2013. Now it's, you know, 2025. So, it was time for a little bit of a change. And as the business grew, the service grew. Things changed on that business end. But it's also kind of nice to have a new little refresh on the branding. It kind of gives you a little bit of, a little bit of a push and excitement. It's like, okay, cool. This is an a new again, we've gotten brand new with that new site. So I think that kind of helps as well, with that authenticity, as things change, you want to make sure that you also change. So I imagine that applies not only to the authenticity to the brand, but I, you know, staying kind of like on top of or ahead of change. I'm curious. Services releases new features all the time. I imagine some of them are duplicative of plugins functionality that you've built. I'm curious how you kind of respond to that. From like a business perspective. Honestly, if Squarespace releases something that a plugins are already doing and it makes the plugin obsolete. I'd love it because at the end of the day, that's making Squarespace better. You know, there will always be little gaps and little things here and there that people need help with, whether it's with code or, you know, templates or service, those kind of things. But as Squarespace evolves, that really strengthens our business. So I'm not I never get, like grumpy about it. If something replaces a plugin, I just I'm like, this is great. This is great. This is a great feature and I love it. And we just move forward with it. So we're, like you, very committed to our members. Members of the circle community. And you're our customers. But I think we're also thinking of you in terms of the beta testers and the people who give us honest feedback about things. As a person who's deeply entrenched in building on Squarespace and thinking about how Squarespace changes. What's something that you want to see come out next? Oh, that's a good question. I think a lot of the features that are coming forward from, you know, circle and that release tracker, there's a lot of cool things on there, especially on like the commerce side, because even though ghost, uses commerce. So the studio is also a commerce based business. We do subscriptions. So, a lot of those features that are improving the commerce side we're really excited about. It's not just one thing. It's many, many things. You know, we didn't really use in, invoicing on Squarespace until zero, and that's one of like one of the best new features we've used. And we love it. So we're excited to see the commerce side really, really grow on that end. So let's shout out for the new Recurring invoices feature. Absolutely. Love to see it. Say I am. I'm very excited about the recurring invoice. That's we want to I want go back to this thing you said before about not following trends and you're following your instincts. You seem to have such a strong business instinct. You've said that it's never steered you wrong. Maybe it doesn't steered you wrong, but have you ever doubted a decision that you've made? Maybe sometime in that 48 hour period that you're staying awake and we're putting a lot of time and energy into this project? Well, I remember when I was redesigning ghost. When you look at something for so long, you start to doubt it. And I was looking at, you know, the ghost redesign. I was like, oh, this doesn't look accurate. And so I had to kind of take a little bit of a break in my eyes, a rest. But I've had some moments like that, especially with the redesign. I'm 24 hours in, I'm like, oh, I don't like it. What am I doing? I take a little break and I come back. I'm like, oh, this looks great. This is awesome. I just push through. So those little breaks definitely help. There have definitely been times where we're building a product or we're kind of thinking of new ideas and we get it started, and then we're like, yeah, I'm not really we're not really feeling it. And we kind of, you know, either put it on the backburner or we kind of just retire right away. But, we usually at least try to give it a chance. Even if there's a little bit of doubt. Because if I would have doubted the redesign, ghost wouldn't look the way that it looks now. Same thing with Pluto. There were four designs before the official one. So, you know, I'm okay with putting a stop to something to make sure that it is the best thing that it can be at the end. That's really important to me. I don't want to release, a, you know, mere ten of product or a mere kind of service. I'm curious how your team or, I guess, how Ghost and Pluto would look differently if you were still the only team member. I think I'd be probably in the same spot I'm in now, except just more stressed and just doing a lot more work. But like I said, I love what I do. I love ghost, I love Pluto. And I don't think that would have ever changed. Maybe my trajectory would be a little bit slower. Without all the amazing talent and the team that I had. But, you know, I think I'd still be in the same spot in terms of loving Squarespace, having ghost and having Pluto. I love your passion for Squarespace so much. I feel like it kind of mirrors how much internally we're always obviously like, rooting for the product. I, I think we have a lot of circle members who, you know, are like, I don't really want to grow my team. I don't really want to grow my practice because I like, like how comfortable it feels now. But maybe they're feeling some of those feelings of like, okay, I know if I keep doing this at the pace that I'm doing, I'm going to get burnt out. I'm going to get stressed. How do you kind of weigh the tension of like, I feel comfortable with, like, I think this is actually best for me. I think I had to just take a step back and realize that I was getting that burnout. I was getting that stress. And if your business is thriving or your business is growing, that's a good problem to have. But you need to solve that problem. And solving that problem is finding people that you trust to help you with those things, so it can grow again and again and again. You know what's really interesting is that's actually something that we've kind of heard on ghost plugin side. People always ask, hey, I need help with this. I need help with this. Do you offer. You know, customer requests. And we actually offer a white label option on Pluto specifically for Squarespace, and it's called Pluto White label. And so we have, you know, our team dedicated to help with the tasks website builds, custom development and that kind of thing. So we have kind of introduced that because I know that's something that is really important for a lot of growing agencies and designers, but they don't want to bring on a full on team that they have to be responsible for. But it kind of gives them a little bit of a, a way out to get a little bit of that stress off their shoulders and help when they need it. So it's built in team. Yeah. Yeah. You basically have your own little dedicated team for the project that you, you need help with. And you know, ghost has a great reputation. And that reputation and no slides over into Pluto because that's part of the ghost family. And so we're really excited to offer that. And so far people have been loving it. And it's been great. Like one thing I've noticed in the stuff you've been saying today is a lot of good ideas come from a fresh perspective. Like you've said, I need to take a step away or I needed to take a break. Is there anything right now that you can sort of feel yourself needing to get another perspective on? Right now I'm pretty good. Anytime I need a perspective, I come to my team. I trust their input. I trust their perspective. And at the end of the day, they're really the, the backbone to the businesses as well. They help with a lot of stuff, and I trust them. And we've built a really, really good relationship. All my team. So, you know, I have my little team over at meals. I have my team at Ghost and Pluto and we're just like one little fam. So their perspective really, really helps a lot. So that's great. So you'll, what's the talk about that a little bit, that process is that, you know, and maybe how that's changed is whereas before you were working with a team, you just had an idea. You tried it for your instinct. Now, how often are you thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't. I shouldn't just follow through on this on my own. How often are you actually bringing that to your team for feedback? Oh, we share a feedback with each other on everything, and some of my team also have their own agency and their own freelance stuff. And that's not even ghost related or Pluto related. And they'll still share their projects with me. Like, what do you think? And I'm happy to provide my feedback and help them out, even if it's not related to my businesses specifically. It's really good to have fresh eyes on things. When I was, you know, doing the rebrand with with Pluto and and move and ghost redesign. Their perspective helped a lot with that process, because I was staring at something for so long that I started to doubt it. So it's really good to have those fresh eyes on things and with people that I trust. Even those within the community are types that maybe I can work in on this. What do you think? And not give me honest feedback and that's great. So, shout out to them. They know who they are. So, I have some really great friends, in Squarespace world. But, yeah, just just getting name names. Who are who's who's who do you go to for who do you trust in the community? Who's who should we be trusted? So special shout outs to, you know, Chrissy Price, Will Myers. They are the two first friends. I made his first community, so I'm really close with them. And they are honestly the best at providing feedback. They will not hold back. They will give me honest feedback. But also saying they'll send me stuff in and out and feedback to them. So, you know, I love that. So I think we have a lot of circle members who, you know, see a lot of the friendships that folks who have been around for a long time have made and has strong they are and how much they influence their businesses. I'm curious how you first built those friendships with Christy and Will and and with others. And kind of if you have any advice on how people can go about building their own Squarespace centric relationships. So with, will, jumped on a little podcast with him and his wife, Wren, back in the day, this was maybe like five years ago. So that's how we met. Christy too. We've had zoom calls and, done a little podcast with, her and, well, they have the somewhat useful podcast, which is great. But also I've made some other great friendships in Squarespace community. And I'm going to be honest, I just messaged, I'm like, hey, this is funny from ghost. I love what you do. I just want to be your friend and I want to talk. Let's see what's going on. So, it's cool that I can just go straight to it and just be like, hey, I want to see what you're up to. And I respect your works. And, you know, things just happen like that. I love that I feel like people don't know this. Maybe they do, but on the, circle forum, if you see someone that you want to be in touch with, if you click on their profile, you can just send them a message so you can find someone's website and fill out their contact form and all this stuff, whatever. But we're just pals, you know, ours peers. So you can just send anyone you want a DM on the forum. And I think that's especially great. We've been doing a lot of, more fun posts on the forum, like I think Taylor recently did. What's your go to snack while you're eating? It was one today. That was. Who is the circle member that you've worked with recently? I mean, I know that that's like not the same thing as snacks, but it is a the responses are very fun. Yeah. Equally fun, equally fun. I don't know. And I think I like snack both, so I'm not going to lie. The best one recently was, like, tell us about your pets. That one had a lot of engagement. But, all that to say, I think there's both very tactical questions on the circle forum like help me do code for this specific thing. And there's also fun conversations happening that I think are really nice entry point for people who are like, I want to connect to the other people in the community. How can I do that? Also, obviously the circle of after parties are a great way to come and meet fellow circle members. Thank you for that. You're welcome. I imagine also part of really connecting with any community is that authenticity. You know, knowing that when someone reaches out to me named Cody from Ghost Plugins, already I'm going to know the reputation of ghost plugins. Maybe I didn't even know that there was someone named Cody behind ghost plugins, but I know the name and the reputation that you've built is based on the authenticity that you have developed over years of doing something that you love. So that's sort of going back to what you were saying before. I think that it's really essential you started your Squarespace business after realizing working in Squarespace is something that you were passionate about, and that passionate has that passion, has brought you friends, a community, and a burgeoning business. Honestly, Squarespace has definitely changed my life since that first interaction with that designer, that kind of, you know, quote unquote scan me. Glad that they did. At the end of the day, as well as that situation was it really led me in a direction in life that I'm really excited about and I'm really happy with. So, you know, obviously we have five great businesses and I've made some really great friendships and life lessons and things like that. So, yeah, that authenticity definitely helped grow within all those areas, which, you know, I'm really happy about the what would you say to someone in our community who maybe doesn't trust their business instincts so much, maybe has lost some of that passion? They know that they still want to be doing this, but they don't trust themselves in the same way that you do. There have been times where I've kind of doubted myself at things, whether that's, you know, business or I, for whatever, whatever comes my way. But you got to just kind of push through. Also, if you're kind of doubting your business, get honest feedback from people, whether that's friends, family, if you know, you know how you have, like, let's say you have another job that's outside of the Squarespace world. Ask your coworkers over there. You know, they're probably going to be really supportive. Ask anyone that you trust in that is in your corner, and I guarantee that that's going to kind of push you in the right direction. But sometimes you just got a question. You just got to see the, it's hard work pay off. And then within that time, you're going to you're going to get that boost and you're just going to keep going. You're kind of going. We do have a, project feedback category on the forum where you can post, sites that are either in progress or that you're finished for a client and get feedback. That is, I feel like very underrated place of the forum. I every time I see someone post there, they get the most like constructive but kind feedback. And I find it. Yeah, just really like uplifting for our community knowing that you know we all I think what makes our community really great, the circle community, is that we don't view each other so much as competition as we do, just fellow community collaborative, you know, people that we can collaborate with. And I feel like the feedback requests, section of the forum is the perfect example of that. And it sounds like Cody kind of, you know, relied on some of your fellow Squarespace peers to give that to you. And it's cool that that's just become part of the natural fabric of our community. I think you you touched a topic that I think is really important to is especially when you're releasing digital products, is collaboration. We just did a collaboration with Becca from Inside the Square. Another shout out. I also love her. And we released a template together and it was a collaboration template. And it was just so much fun with so much fun to do. So those collaborations also can kind of boost you in the right direction on, if you are feeling burnt out or you're just not quite sure, I would kind of get your creative, creative side flowing again. So that's definitely another thing I would recommend is if you have a project, collaborate with another Squarespace designer on it, or get feedback or kind of bring them on and it gives you a whole new perspective and it kind of just gives you new ideas and new creative, creative ideas. And it really does help a lot. What a great way to put a button on this conversation, Cody. Thanks for hanging out, jamming with us. I'm so glad that you were able to, be burned by that person so many years ago so that you can come and talk to us today. Way to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Thank you so much for having me. I loved being here. I appreciate everything that you guys do for us in, in circles. Thanks, Cody. That's something I think anybody in business can learn taking a negative and turning it into a positive. Let's take a quick break now, audience, gather your thoughts, come up with some questions, take the opportunity to talk to an expert, or perhaps a colleague. Put those questions in the chat, because when we come back, we'll have Cody Yongqi here for a live Q&A. Many content creators and website owners experience inappropriate and off brand ads appearing on their site. With Google AdSense. They can better manage their ads themselves and have more control over the type of ads that appear next to their content. For example, a vegan blog can block all adverts for meat products and instead plays complimentary adverts on their site. AdSense allows content creators to customize the placement, amount and layout of ads on their website, which is really important as there is often a lot going on on their pages to begin with. With the automation feature, content creators can be hands off while trusting that the ads being shown are not only making them money, but are actually useful to their audience. To learn more, visit the link g o o agli forward slash circle live. And we're back. And we have with us a very special guest here live Cody Yankee. How's it going? Going great. How are you guys? So great, so great. Very energized after that conversation with you. Yeah. Yeah, I know, it turned out really great. I'm so excited to be here on the live Q&A and answer questions. I'm super excited and we're all thrilled to have you here. Viewers, please keep those questions coming in the chat for our guest, Sarah, what questions are we seeing in the chat so far? Yeah. So I think you addressed this one a little bit, in the chat, but maybe we can just elaborate. Live question from Jeremy famously has been a crisis for 12 years. Jeremy says I'd be interested in hearing from Cody, on what his business operations team looks like. I'm thinking of roles that are not design or developer, but things like bookkeeper, CPA, payroll, legal in particular. How did you find and that these kinds of service providers. So my team over the years has become very diverse. There are different types of roles that I have within each individual business. You know, of course we have designers and I have a great developer, and some other people that help with the logistics of the business. But outside of the businesses, the tax accountant, have legal to make sure everything's, you know, up to snuff. And also, I do support local businesses here as well in terms of, like, accounting and things like that. So big variety, smaller teams for each individual business in terms of designers and developers. But, outside of that, yeah. Good support. Good support. Awesome. How many team members would you say or like on your team versus our folks that you contract out, that maybe you're also supporting others so internally that are like part of Ghost and Pluto and move we're looking at around, you know, a good 8 to 10. So I do have like, you know, my Vas in my actual assistants in person as well. I count them on, on my team as well. They are my right hand people. So, yeah, small team, but a strong team. Awesome. Question from Christy, who received a shout out in the interview. Christy says Cody, I use your plug ins all the time, especially the button styles. I'd love to know what are a couple of your personal favorites? So a couple personal favorites. We have one called Confetti Pop. When you submit the, you know, the contact form, block it, pop some confetti, which is just a fun, interaction for visitors to see once they send the message. We of course I did. You know, I mentioned Doodle Pen on on our interview. So that's one of my other favorites, but we have a lot of free ones as well. We have a lot of, free ones that change the cursor to an emoji. Kind of update the mobile menu. So there's, there's a lot of variety. Cool. Those are sounds super fun. Question from John. What do you think about AI being able to generate code and how it can help? Have you started to incorporate AI at all into any of your workflows? Honestly, not really, because I have such a great developer development team. They're super smart and I really appreciate their talent. I do know a lot of shops do use AI, to build things, but at the end of the day, if something happens, you have to fix it with AI. And what if I can't fix it? You don't really know what's going on. And I in my my opinion, it kind of puts you in a future position where things can break. So when you have a dedicated team that you can work one on one with and build something that, again, is authentic to you, not generated by AI, that proves beneficial for the future. You kind of future proofing yourself a little bit. So that's my stance on AI is great for a lot of things, but when it comes to custom development code, and custom things just in general like that, I kind of try to shy away from it because I want to make sure that I maximize the talent that I found within our community. Yeah. It seems like a good rule of thumb if you can't, modify it or edit it or any way you probably shouldn't be asking AI to build it for you. Question. Another question from John. What do you think about digital product licenses as you think about selling a digital product? How do you ensure that people aren't just giving it away? Do you have terms about that? How have you structured that? So we do have terms for our digital products. Each term is a little bit different based on that product. So super plug ins they're unlimited license templates. We have a single use license. It does get a little bit tricky to kind of manage that. You know, the internet world is huge. So we do have some things on our end that help us track that to make sure that it's not being abused. But I definitely recommend offering an unlimited license. That way you don't have to have the headache of trying to track it down and things like that. But also at the end of the day, it's going to happen. That's just the that's just the digital world, right? So you can't be frustrated by that. Just build a really great community that's always going to support you and that's going to outweigh the negative that comes with selling digital products. Another good plug for the value of community. Question from Miriam. How do you keep ideas fresh for new templates? For websites. So, like I mentioned, in our interview, collaboration is really great because you're getting a whole new perspective and a whole new direction for that template. So, you know, we have our upfront template with backup from inside the square, and she provided really great feedback and really good direction on the style and the, the appearance. And we still wanted to make that template kind of match her branding as well, because it's a collaborative effort. Right. So, collaboration really, really helps a lot. But also I kind of I don't go to other sites for inspiration. I kind of just start with a blank canvas, and I know what I like and kind of just build from there. So, and also, you know, Squarespace 7.1 Fluid Engine has so many, features and possibilities with that, that setup that you can create something really, really great. Love it. That's gonna have to be our last question. Cody, thank you so much for joining us today. Live. Thanks for the interview. Thanks generally for collaborating with us. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time. And, thanks for everyone who hung out with us today. Yeah, we'll have to have you back again. Let's not wait so long next time. I would love that. I would love that. we will be back with Circle Live next month. Just a note. Next Circle Live. The live show will happen on a Thursday instead of our usual Wednesday. until the next Circle live. This is Sam Z and I'm Sarah G reminding you don't be a square. Update your fav icon today. Goodbye everybody.