Transcript

Advice Line with Anthony Casalena of Squarespace

0:11 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show. Who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Anthony Casalena, the founder and CEO of Squarespace. Anthony, welcome back to the show. Pleasure to be here. It's great to have you on. You were first on the show back in 2019. You told us, of course, of course, about Squarespace's origin story. And all the things that you you learned growing the Squarespace. You founded it in two thousand three as a twenty one year old kid, as a college student. I remember some of the stories about

1:06 g racing up and down I ninety five and changing physically, changing the servers out and all this craziness. Um but basically it started because you had a frustration. You won' y you there wasn't anything really to build websites that was easy. And good and and you basically built the software for yourself and then A friend saw it and said, I'd pay you two hundred bucks to use it and and that's kinda how it was born. Yep.

1:30 That's right. It's it's an absolutely amazing story. And of course we will put a link to that original interview in the uh podcast notes in the show description, so please check it out. Um it's just an awesome story. Since you were on, Anthony, um, you've taken the company public. It then hit over a billion dollars in revenue, and then last year.

1:52 It was bought up by a private equity group. Uh yeah, we we we took it private. Yep. Amazing. So private again. Mm-hmm. And all this time you stayed on as CEO and and chair and uh and You know, just out of curiosity, by the way. How has it I mean

2:07 You're a founder, right? You you built this thing, you took it public, now it's private again. But I guess Uh you kind of have Bosses, right? I mean guess shareholders are bosses. But now you've got bosses again. Is that make things more complicated, does it really not change things a whole lot for you? No, I mean running a company you always you always have a boss, be it even if you owned a hundred percent of it yourself, your customers would be your boss. And so

2:34 Um, nothing has really changed for me or the company in a day to day. I mean we We could have uh you know, remained public. We we we thought it was a little better to do the private move, but we were fine. Uh, to do either one. So no, my day to day is pretty much the same. Tell me a little bit about how you think about

2:51 Expanding the business. You are I I just full disclosure doesn't matter because it's a great story. You g I you don't mean not even know this, but you guys advertise on how I built this. Yes. Um and you know, you offer it's not just you know, you start out building websites, but now it's like your full full package e commerce site. You offer tools for uh small businesses to basically run their business online. Yeah, we we offer a complete set of tool for entrepreneurs and small businesses and others to to get online. I mean

3:21 What started with A publishing product centered around websites and blogs that evolved into portfolios and more. Uh now encompasses great e commerce tools, not just for physical sellers, but people selling services. Uh, we have other companies under our umbrella, like Acuity, which Helps people sell time. It's a scheduling product. We uh acquired

3:43 the assets from Google Domains. And so we met were one of the Um by brand, probably the the third biggest domain registrar uh out there. We're one of the biggest website builders. Uh, one of the biggest resellers of g uh business email through Google Workspace. And so We play in a lot of different lanes that um help people get online and You know, I think it it's actually a funny thing, and and maybe there'll be some AI questions at some point, but

4:09 You know, what we do is more relevant than ever because this is how normal people participate in the web and SEO, what we call AIO, which is optimizing for answer engines, is how people uh get found still. And so um we continue to do very well. And um It's just kind of a pleasure to be servicing millions of entrepreneurs. Yeah. f very fast changing era of technology around AI, right? And now more and more people are using chatbots to to do search, right? That they might have gone on Google before and now they're they're going on chat or

4:42 Perplexity or whatever. Um, how does that change the the what it means to have a website, right? Like your business, you got your website is your storefront. Um How do you stay relevant? When That's how people find out about you more and more.

4:57 Well, that's that's one way people find out about you and and I think that the website ends up being more relevant than ever for a number of reasons. One being it's where the answer engines are finding their information. You know, they're crawling the web and using either old data or or modern data or or or more relevant data. to give you the answers they give you, and when they don't have the answer to a real time question. They go to the web. And so it's being used in both their index and it's also being used

5:25 Um for real time interactions and then You know, most of the interactions with a small business being contacting them, submitting a contact form, booking an appointment, purchasing a product. That's still happening with some kind of direct interaction with that customer and we We facilitate that interaction, whether you start it on a search engine or an answer engine or a social network or anywhere else. And so we're really happy to be positioned as we are in this in this era.

5:50 I know you've got AI tools already, um to help, you know, basically build out uh websites, designs, and this happening very, very fast, right? I mean what would y what would may be available in a year from now Like you you may not even be able to fully anticipate that, right? What what does that mean for for your business and how it sort of fits into that, into th this sort of brand new world of of of AI tools. Yeah, I mean it it's been a phenomenal tailwind for us. I mean, we're not particularly worried about the You know, the idea that people could code a website

6:23 Where they couldn't code a website before because people haven't had to code websites for two decades using Squarespace. You know, we have AI and what used to be called machine learning, frankly, enabled into every aspect of our product. And in fact, our blueprint AI product, which is the primary way you would get started with Squarespace if you just click get started. was named, you know, one of Time's hundred best uh inventions of the year uh just last week. So we've got it everywhere. And Um From optimizing your site for SEO and AIO to

6:54 Helping you generate uh imagery that works for you. Um you know, we've got AI enabled and you know, probably fifteen, twenty plus touch points in the product right now. Wow, it's awesome. It's an awesome story. Again, I highly recommend you guys uh take a listen to Anthony's story and and the Squarespace story, because it is really, really cool and crazy story. Um Anthony you ready to take on our take on our first caller? I sure am, let's do it. All right, let's go. Uh welcome to the advice line. You're on with the founder of Squarespace, Anthony Casalena.

7:23 Uh, please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, hi guy, hi Anthony. Um my name is Bob Zukowski. I'm calling from Newtown, Connecticut. And I'm the founder and CEO of Custom Sleep Technology Incorporated. Uh CST is a technology company uh that combines artificial intelligence with our own proprietary software. To design and build a mattress that is specific to each sleeper's unique body characteristics.

7:53 Wow. Well, okay. Uh thanks for calling in. So you m so These are custom mattresses. This is not off the shelf mattress that you just like add a pattern to like somebody you what you like. It's like going to a tailor, you measure somebody and then they Then then you take all that data and you build a mattress with that in mind from the ground up. Yes.

8:16 So on our website we have Uh a questionnaire. We call it a body profile questionnaire. And once that's complete Uh that gives us the information of the about the physical characteristics of the sleepers. And from there, AI mathematically designs the mattress, and our software delivers those designs instantly to the

8:37 potential customer and then it's followed up with an email with a complete proposal. Wow, okay, so you enter, you input the information, your height, your weight and different things. And and then you get a proposal for a mattress. And and how much roughly are the do the mattresses cost? Uh So queens are, you know, in the thirty eight hundred range, kings are in the forty five hundred range.

8:59 Got it. And are they I mean, is the is the material any different from from other map. latex, is it foam, is it w what's in there? Well we use exclusively Talela latex. Because it comes in multiple densities.

9:18 We can utilize the different densities to support the shoulders and hips separately. So our goal is really to take pressure off The various pressure points align the spine. And when you do that

9:33 uh and you get the body in the right position Then the sleeper has the greatest opportunity of achieving high quality REM and slow wave sleep. I mean, how how did you get into this? This is a very complicated business. We've done Temper Petica on the show. We've done some other mattress brands like Casper and I it's not this is not easy. So how how did were you in this business before?

9:56 Well, I used to work for the company that manufactures the latex. And my job was to work with the major mattress brands. to incorporate Talalay into their products. And I came to believe that uh their number one priority was not how their customers slept.

10:15 But that their masters wouldn't fail in the field. And then I started doing my own research, uh pressure mapping uh my friends and family. And I learned that weight distribution is completely different depending on your your physical characteristics, your sleeping position, your height. And I realized using the eight different densities of latex that I could build a mattress.

10:43 That is personal to the individual sleepers. Alright, quick question and I wanna bring Anthony in. Can you make a mattress that is that that works for two people, like'cause you know, I share a bed with my wife, so I and and if we have different measurements, can you do that in one mattress? Oh, absolutely. That's that is one of the things that separates us from the rest of the industry primarily.

11:06 is that your design is for you and your wife's design is for her. Got it. Okay. I mean and uh what's your question for us today? Well my question is w we're not well suited for the traditional big box retail channels. So I'd like to get your thoughts on taking a different approach. Uh, should we consider partnerships or license agreements with wellness tech companies or fitness organizations or even professional athletes.

11:34 To grow. Consumer awareness for the brand. Anthony, this is like one guy in Connecticut starting a mattress brand that's innovative and interesting and I just I love it. I'm cheering you on even before I know all the details. They won't bring you in. Yeah.

11:52 Okay, well I'm on the website. And I'm a website person, so I'm just gonna go out and say the site looks a little dated. Um But I I think maybe the licensing unless you have an interest in it yourself and Kind of getting out there, branding this.

12:06 Not making flashy's the wrong word, but y you gotta make me like Oh, wow. Like this is I know, like you gotta kinda catch me with the branding or something. So yeah, I agree. I think I mean listen. And by the way, we're talking about w if if it's Anthony buying a mattress here, Bob, we're talking about the we're talking about the Swedish, that one that's like, you know, a hundred thousand dollar mattress. That's what he's buying. That's what he's doing. He's getting the like by the the tiny little elves in, you know, some some Nordic town making them by hand. Yeah, but I'm saying I'm gonna say I'm gonna say this though.

12:39 I am a little th thanks for pigeonholing me there, but like I I am a little uh Uh I am a little skeptical though, when in the materials are like and it's horsehair and this and the horses are from here, I'm like Why does that make a better mattress? I I'm kind of unaware of why that should be true. So I am susceptible to Uh what I would call like more of a a a scientific message than a Like

13:05 Rich materials message. So I think there's a there's a world fee for for For people there who who don't want to necessarily pay more'cause the mattress and I would consider myself part of this. And I'm very uh very into the branding, but like I don't need it to be like made of gold fibers. I I think that would probably be very bad, actually. Uh because that doesn't make a mattress better, I don't think, you tell me. If you knew, right, like we know, I know that Bob, who's been in this business for decades, knows how to do this. Yeah. But uh and and you're right, listen, and Bob, I again

13:36 I uh this is tough. It's tough. I know you don't have time, but uh you know, maybe you should go on Squarespace and redo your website, okay? It's easy. Maybe get the AI agents. I I think I think we need a little web help. I need to go here and be like, you know what? I am gonna spend three grand on this thing. I trust this guy because see, I can talk to you here and say that, but your website not everyone's gonna talk to you. Your website's what's talking to people and and and how you and so You need to You know, you need to basically make it so people could can say, Yeah, I'll do that. The the other thing in terms of like

14:15 licensing or working with you know, some interesting brats. I think that could be a cool idea, especially If you can samh integrate some of the technology, you know, there's obviously there's eight sleep that measures your sleep. And could you could you put an eight sleep on top of this mattress? Is it would it could it be designed for could you work with aura rings, you know, or or or whoop, which we've done on the show. Um I I think that's an interesting thing to explore because look Your small brand

14:43 You're looking to compete with there's temper Pedic and and and dial is mattress and all these things, but you're offering something very, very different. Very custom, very specific. And it can be scaled. We we we know it happens. Pe people scale these things, but uh you know, you're And so it may make sense to try and reach out.

15:04 to some of these brands and say look This is who I am, this is what I've been doing. I know this business and I know it really well and I've got a really terrific killer product. We just don't have the scale.

15:16 out there and we need You know, we want to work with a partner. And maybe that's maybe that's the angle for the licensing that some of these brands are gonna say, look, here's our off the shelf stuff. It's not customized for you. But if you want something custom and they'll mark it up maybe to Three times what you're pricing it out. You know, and you could be the technology behind that, but you're un under that brand umbrella.

15:38 You can kind of deliver the technology to people, help them out. Without having to go from zero and and build a brand. Yeah. Build a Bramford, zero. Yeah.

15:48 And I've got information about you, Bob. And I know that you can do thousands of configurations. Different densities. What and you mentioned this latex Uh what was latex you that you use again? Talolite. I don't know what that means. I know that I know that latex is a really good

16:10 thing for mattresses unless you have a latex allergy. But but Tallalae, what does that mean? Because that's gonna be explain the whole brand to people, right? It's like

16:26 Personalized sleep system, well, eight sleep says that and you know Temper Pedic says that other people say that. You're saying something different. It's like We make a mattress for you specifically. And that's different.

16:40 uh value prop here. Right. And we can modify it. Over time. So we build it to your existing body profile. And then we can change it over time.

16:51 Tell us that from the get go. Mm-hmm. Right, Anthony? Anthony K is gonna be your personal customer service agent. Just call him up. He's gonna walk you through the process. I gain a hundred pounds I call you, I lose a hundred pounds I call you. We just keep adjusting. That's right. That's how we do it.

17:10 That's awesome. All right. The company's called Custom Sleep Technology. Robert Tzukowski. Thanks so much for calling and good luck. Thank you, thank you both for your time. Thank you. Good luck. Yeah. So you're sleeping on horse hair now, Anthony, is that? No, no.

17:24 No. I'm not susceptible to these horse. I said the opposite. I said I said I'm not sure those make better mattresses. I think that there's certain Places where the branding takes you that Don't really translate into Anything that's better for sleeping. And so I'm kind of I'm I'm uh allergic to that stuff a little bit.

17:45 Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Anthony Casalena. He is the founder and CEO of Squarespace. We are taking your calls. So let's bring in our next colour. Tell us your name, where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business. Hi Guy, hi Anthony. I'm Stacey Bernstein and I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California, and I am co-founder of All Better Co, and we are reimagining Mom's first aid kit with Better For You, Better for the Planet, Daily Skin Health Essentials.

18:40 Awesome. Thanks for calling in. Welcome to the show. So thank you. So All Better Co you sell First aid kids are like band-aids and I don't know, like Yeah, that's the goal ultimately is um for us to create these one to one products. Like for right now, we have our don't scratch that pen, which is an award winning our proprietary formula, which is uh a replacement for hydrocortisone, right? So anti itch, anti inflammatory, the same way you'd use hydrocortisone.

19:09 We don't want you to do that, we want you use our product instead. Nice. And and where where are they being sold right now mainly? So we're D to C Amazon and we're in about a hundred plus retail locations across the country, including Airwan, um a few um resorts and and we're we're really kind of actually testing these channels and see where we live best. Um tell me how the idea came about.

19:32 Yeah, so I come from brand. Um I uh have brand background in creating immersive experiences for families and I've always really spoken to families. And during Covid, uh My co founder called me one day. My my daughter suffered from major major mosquito bite reactions. And it got so bad the only thing that was working for her were prescribed steroids. And that's just not intended for everyday use. And my co founder has kids that deal with eczema and sensitive skin as well. So we were kind of like on the same page and We kind of joke that, you know, we solve the world's problems in the parking lot as moms do. And um we decided when we couldn't find what we were looking for for our children we would make it ourselves.

20:15 Tell me a little bit about how you guys are doing so far. What I mean, what are your give me a sense of your sales. Yeah, so again, since we um we came out pretty strong out of the gates D to C and as a bootstrap company just really being scrappy, a lot of organic seeding, getting our product into as many people's hands as possible and really um just gaining some brand equity. And then when we kind of knew what that was like and we decided to try retail and so we went out. Just the two of us, actually, you're looking at our sales team right here. And just started um knocking on some doors through email. And

20:51 Um, when we went into retail, we took a little bit of a hit on our margins, right?'Cause once you're in retail, you there's a little bit of a dip. But so far we're at about um two hundred thousand uh lifetime sales. Amazing. And um before I forget, tell us what your question is. Sure, absolutely. So as I said, we're a bootstrap female founded brand and we are bringing clean beauty standards to the first a dial. It's not the sexiest category out there, and most people don't even realize what they're using could be doing more harm than good. Um, plus we're up against legacy brands like Neosporn and Band-aid. So, how do you get consumers to rethink something that's been in their cabinets forever? To buy it before they need it.

21:34 And to understand why our products Or better. All right, awesome. Uh I wanna bring you in, Anthony. Um All better co. First aid kits, reimagined.

21:46 What do you think? I mean Questions first of all for Stacey or or thoughts. I mean it sounds like you've got Um A a good amount of early traction, right? I mean you got two hundred K in lifetime sales. And I I guess the balance is between, you know, do you lean more into retail or are the online DTC channels the thing to lean into? Is that sort of it, or is there like a third place that

22:09 Might be promising. Yeah, I mean our three main channels, right? Are D to C, which we imagine that will always maintain because I think that um uh really having connection with our consumer is important. We're two moms. We're um we are family driven and so that's really important. But we see our primary channels as E-commerce brand um like a Thrive Market or Amazon, and then retail, mass market. I mean, I think the ultimate price for us is a uh mass retailer like a target, or um, you know, we're definitely going down the natural path, grosser route.

22:42 It's just really expensive to be into retail. A quick question. Who are your Are your customers like you and your co founder? I mean, do you think of your customers as moms who are gonna have these in their bags or their purse or whatever or or do you think m more broadly? Um I think that's a really great question. And um it's funny when people ask us who our demographic is, we say

23:06 Anyone with skin? Uh, I would say though, our primary target audience, we are definitely speaking to moms. We feel like Moms are the original influencer, right? They're the gatekeepers to their communities. And um, and yes, we make all of our products thinking. Three steps ahead, as we believe moms do, right? So everything we make is in a travel size. Um, we think about um our dispensers and how we're like for example, our our pen or our cream is not in a tube. It's actually in a lip gloss dispenser. And so the idea behind it is that you're there's not as much waste.

23:39 A child or any person could put it on with one hand. Um, and it's really you can pack it on the go. And then I feel like there's a halo effect. Once you get to mom, right, you're getting to her friends. She just has this social currency. And so Um, but we have a lot of like Gen Zers and young people that love our products again, because of that travel nature that we're thinking about everything with ease. And it's better, right? We're committed to making everything um chemical free and as clean as possible. Got it. Building on the um that travel nature idea, one of the places that I

24:14 Have recently discovered a couple of brands that I wouldn't have known about are actually the the uh hotel partnerships. They had put them they had put certain brands in the rooms. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually became like big buyers of certain brands via that where kind of a free sample, but kinda selected. And if I have an affinity towards the hotel chain You know, thinking about like hey uh you know, let's try that out. Or even like I mean

24:37 Hopefully you're not hurt at the hotel, but like I don't know, take it. Right, and case and then that way you kinda Uh. Or giving it out in a non cheesy free sample sort of way. Um and it's related to travel. I I don't know, is that

24:51 Yeah, absolutely. I think like um those big brands, like especially the family brands like a Hilton or a Hyatt, we're currently in about six different four seasons properties, which is a little bit, I think. Which I think is actually a little bit more premium than we want our brand to be. Um, we're in some auto camps, which is a really, really cool like um uh mobile park resort type of place. Uh Absolutely. I think you kind of nailed it, right? Like we have products that people might not pack, but then they they need'em in an urgent situation. And I guess the question is how do we

25:26 We continue to seed product, put it as many places as we can, but it's that idea, right? You might not buy the hydrocortisone or um something to relieve that itch until you need it. But Um, or our bandades, bandages, most people don't know that a huge percentage of current band-aids or bandages on the market. А фу а Фревер Кимикол.

25:49 Um PFA's They are sitting in our landfills. So it's like these types of things to that people probably don't even like think about on a daily basis. And А соціалій сомач вотінь турбос. But we're not thinking about what we're putting on our body, our skin, which is our body's largest organ. I I think that uh that

26:10 All of that is really compelling. And I think when people hear about those things, it does inform their choices. But I I keep thinking back to so many brands we've done on the show and what it comes down to is convenience. and price and effectiveness, right? Efficacy. And so You clearly have have have all three of those, right? You have a product that works, that people like, and I think really it's it your you've got beautiful branding, it's a great name. But educating people about that's gonna take a lot of time. To me, it seems like this omnichannel strategy is really critical. The direct to consumers harder, Anthony, can you could talk about that, right? Even with Squarespace, even with all of the things that the tools that are available to to people. There's just more noise out there, and I feel like

26:54 having an omni channel strategy where you can get this in as many places as possible, especially airport shops where people are traveling quickly. If I go to the air if I go to the airport, I forgot shaving cream, I'm gonna spend ten bucks on whatever I can buy at that store. And I feel like here in San Francisco there's some great stores at the at the airports, gift shops. I feel like that's really it's it's gonna sell itself simply'cause it looks good. It's got a great name. And then maybe

27:24 w on the product over time you can think about simple ways to s to explain that story, you know. Um plant based, chemical free, better for you, whatever you want to say. That you can quickly uh trans you know, sort of transmit to to consumers on the label, because that's really where people are going to find out about it. Yes, they'll find out about it from influencers and from other moms. That's just going to take more time. So I feel like you really

27:50 n you really want to focus on getting it into as many places as possible where it where people make convenience purchases. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I guess that was maybe my question too. It's like where where is that purchase? Is it a convenience purchase? Is it an impulse purchase? Is it when when do people have this kind of purchase in their mind on their minds? Like is it part of another Cycle? Yeah, I mean it's so interesting because the truth is, because of our branding in a really weird way, we can live so many places, right? We can live at the cash wrap as an impulse purchase.

28:22 I love I love the idea of airports. That would be like huge for us, no doubt. I think that's Really great observation. Thank you. Uh, and maybe that's it. Maybe it's like just getting more people to find out about us when they need us. And then when they go home, they're reminded, hey, I need to replace those band-aids with what I found from All Bettercoat when I was traveling. And maybe that's the switch that like needs to be flipped right there. Yeah, and I think your branding lens itself, I'm taking a look at the website now, I think it looks great. And I um it lends itself to not being like a

28:56 I know how to put this like a sterile medical purchase. Like going and buying like Neosporin or something. Feels different than buying what you have because of how you're positioning it. And I'm I'm sort of wondering what that enables you to do that like Neosporin can't do. You know what I mean? Because that's like

29:16 Yeah, it's a perfect example because if you speak to any dermatologist, they're actually gonna tell you that neosporin is the one thing they don't want you to use. it actually causes more harm than good and and there are more people um allergic to it than we think about. So that's a perfect example right there. I just think that's an uphill battle for now. You're two you do if you had twenty million dollars to to s to spread that message, that's one thing. You've got a great brand, you got great branding. You gotta focus on just it's a good product. It's like method, you know, method soap. They didn't say, hey, it's organic and plant based. It was. They just said it's a beautiful bottle and it works well.

29:51 I I really feel like you that's what you want to lean into. If you wanna send that message I don't see it on your packaging. I see better bandage, I see a bamboo bandage. I see biodegradable, latex free. I don't see that message that you're and the but then you go on the website and it says You know, uh, sensitive to skin and and so I feel like

30:13 You can use the packaging a bit better to just add some of that stuff because better bandage isn't enough. It's tell me why. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. Uh this is This is better than Neo Sport and obviously you don't want to get in a lawsuit with them, but y you know, uh better than the you know Better for you than the leading Uh, you know, anti whatever

30:37 Bacterial brand or whatever it is, you know, something like that. We don't use chemicals or something like that. But I do think that you want to just have a couple of s I think R X Bar nailed it. It's like Four eggs, you know, six almonds. It was all the macros. You see that on like pints of ice cream, this idea of just simple macros. Take what you see in food with Seven grams of protein, ten grams of fiber, whatever. And apply that to what you're doing.

31:03 And I I I'm I'm gonna echo what you're saying. I like I'm on the I'm on the side looking at the products. I don't get the I wouldn't have known. a lot of what you're saying there about like, you know, uh alternative products and what the negatives might be. Like I don't I don't get the education part from from a glance at this and I'm I might have appreciated that'cause I've actually never even heard anyone say that. So you know, um it's interesting. Just look at food. I I'm holding I don't know this brand this is a brand of bars here, Keto Bar. It says seventeen fat, two grams of car net carbs, twelve protein. This is a thing that food is doing really well. And I think simple messages like that could work. We gotta run thank you for uh calling in Stacey, the brand is called All Better Co.

31:45 Good luck, we're we're cheering you on. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Congrats. Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the Advice Line. Right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm with Anthony Casalena. He is the founder of Squarespace, and we are taking your calls. And Anthony, are you ready for our next call?

32:26 I sure am. Alright, let's bring in our next caller. Uh hello, you welcome to the device line. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, please. Hello, hi Guy and Anthony. My name is Mahak Mohan. I'm calling in from New York City. I am the co-founder and CEO of Kahani, which is a personalized recovery companion for eating disorders. Awesome, welcome to the show. Um thanks for calling us. So this is an app that helps people in recovery from eating disorders. And tell me what what it

32:57 Does and why tell me a little bit about it. Yes, so My co-founder and I actually when we were when I was at Stanford Business School, and we kind of partnered with some of the leading clinical psychologists to think about how we could make recovery more accessible, meaning how do we apply evidence-based therapies in a bite-sized format that's then able to be personalized to an individual's unique. Patterns, triggers, and behaviors. And that way you can have a 24/7 companion because recovery isn't just happening at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday.

33:31 Awesome. Wait, but we we met before, haven't we? We did. Yes. We did, yeah, through Adam Grant. Okay, I remember you now. Yeah The so so okay, so this is cool. So you've got this thing. And it's it helps people get through eating disorders and tell me a little bit about where it is now. I mean I

33:49 'Cause you guys will recently launch this, right? In the in the the last year. Yeah, so I think right after we talked, we closed our pre seed round, which happened at the end of June. And so now we're chugging along, building the second version of the app. And uh this is kind of a reimagined landscape where we're sort of sitting in between Uh, this happy medium of being gamified and engaging, as we know lots of consumer apps must be, um, but also not too clinical focused. And so we want to create this. beautiful blend of skill based progression so that you actually feel like you're recovering. And it's not too much on the gamification side, like there are a lot of apps like that these days. So we're about to launch and that actually leads into my question around the App Store, um, which is our biggest milestone, is we're about to come out of private beta in the next uh couple of months. We're about to l launch on the app store. And so I was really curious to learn more about most unique go to market strategies to be able to create the most effective launch uh specifically for our target demographic.

34:52 And just briefly, how how will this this will be a subscription model? You you you will pay monthly to use this? Correct. Got it. Okay. So now you are about to launch the app store, you're looking to figure out how do you get people to be aware of it, right? There's um millions of apps out there, right? How do you

35:10 How do you get people to adopt this? Um Anthony, I wanna bring you in here'cause we got pr probably l s lots of questions. Uh and also m some thoughts on how to do that. So The challenge uh is obviously that there's millions of apps out there and then there's also

35:28 Uh fatigue related Two apps I think that Yeah, I don't have the stats off the top of my head, but I I feel it personally myself. It's like Kind of a lot for me to install a a a new app. Um, obviously, you know, if somebody gets targeted as yours, I think there'd be

35:43 maybe uh less resistance to, but I I guess I would I would say this. If Imagine it wasn't even an app. Where do I find it?

35:54 And does it need to be an app? Does it have could it be a website that then leads you to an app once you use it. So Imagine it wasn't an app Because I'm actually not somebody who's ever um

36:05 Uh been successful or really launched a lot of a lot of things in the app store that weren't related to another thing. H how do people find it? How do they how do they um How do they find it? Mm-hmm. So this is a really interesting question because to your point, um

36:22 Like many things, recovery is not linear. And so motivation can wax and wane. So we started to think about less so of the demographics of the type of person who might use this, and more so of the psychographics of the type of individual who's motivated and in that place in recovery in which they're looking for extra support. This is likely someone who's been through. Lots of different treatment centers. They've been through higher levels of care, come back down, cycled through, and now they're really focused on recovery because they've a probably a bigger goal, something of a life change that's occurring. So there are two kind of parts of this. dynamic that we've thought about in terms of where people might find the app. One being when you might come off of a treatment center or a higher acuity level of care. And two, maybe when you're in um an outpatient setting. So you have a current therapist or a dietitian But that's not good enough because you're spending a lot of time on TikTok in between sessions, you're spending a lot of time um, you know, in your day to day, maybe your work is really stressful. And so there's a real opportunity to target um our users have actually probably found us through lots of community engagement. So

37:26 You're also in the place in recovery in which you are not in denial. So that's a big piece because maybe they're in a community group like Facebook or in a TikTok um chat. Yeah. Make I wan I'm curious, and I think I asked you this when we first met. Um, not on the show. But we I remember we talked and I said, You know, I don't know about this. I'm a fifty year old man. So

37:47 Uh and I think you had mentioned to me that m many of your potential customers are women and women in a certain Age. Demographic. Is that fair to say? Yeah, so this was actually one of the most interesting things we learned in our first pilot, which is what motivated us to keep building this out is Um

38:04 Initially, you think of a gamified sort of you know fun, cutesy, engaging app, and you think maybe teen women would be the most likely to use something like this. And sure, we do have lots of teen women using this app. But what we learned is that based on the psychographics and the type of engagement and retention data we were seeing. It was actually women in their thirties and forties who ended up being the most engaged because they weren't in denial of an eating disorder. They were looking for recovery. They tried a lot of things before, and they were probably in a moment of life change. Maybe it's a wedding, a job change, uh finishing a graduate degree, and this is becoming now um a Not recovering is a big hindrance to achieving those goals. I know you've got you just went through

38:49 Do you have more th uh roughly fifty, sixty hundred users total? Um, yes, we have about a hundred users who've tested this out. We saw a twenty three percent symptom decrease in four weeks with super users who used it for more than seven minutes a day. Some people seeing sixty to seventy percent decreases in symptoms in that time span. They have to be your early ambassadors. That's that is where you're gonna build this out. It's gonna be slow but then fast, which is They I mean, I wonder if you can build a closed

39:20 community on Slack or Circle or these places because they These are your ambassadors. I have a friend who is sciatica, okay? And I said, Hey, he's gonna do all kinds of expensive physical therapy. I said, Great, do that. He's the thing about surgery. Sa try this out too. There's a A guy who does all these amazing videos on stretching, I've been using it for three years. He I I I tell people about this all the time because it has transformed my flexibility. And uh

39:48 And that's where you are gonna really it's if if you're saying hey Twenty three percent you know, decrease or increase outcomes. Those are your ambassadors. Can you incentivise them? Sorry, Anthony, go ahead. So my question's sort of building on the vein you're in. So without knowing the app, was the method or the things developed in the app Based on a known

40:09 uh protocol that a doctor's developed or something, or is it something you guys have discovered and you are the Authority that you know is the the the person, you know, um talking through this. And I I guess the that where that would go is You know, if it's based on some known branded method.

40:29 Okay, obviously that's your angle. If it's not a known branded method. That maybe makes you the storyteller for this method. And you know, could you be that um that personality that people are gonna look to to to to to You know, know that story.

40:44 Yeah, so that is a really um a a really interesting element of what we're doing is we are leveraging studies that have been done in hundreds of clinical trials uh where there's evidence of CBT, so cognitive behavioral therapy, DBT, and you know some other forms of evidence based therapies that have all worked in different veins for uh for treatment for eating disorders. And so we've basically curated All of these exercises and broken them down into deeply personal applications into someone's current lived experience. So what they've got in their current day to day routine, how can we apply these therapies so it's actually relevant.

41:24 Like they would do homework wise in between therapy sessions. So we're not creating anything new, but we are creating a new implementation, let's say, of it. Really? w I would imagine one of the ways to get this into people's brain space is to target, you know, tar targeted ads. I mean you there are people who are gonna be searching for you know eating disorder uh help and

41:48 So there are ways to target those people, but we know that customer acquisition costs have just skyrocketed over the last five years. And you you you know, you don't have ten a a tw thirty, fifty million dollar ad war chest. Yeah. You do wanna experiment with some of that, but I also wonder whether Some of your users might be willing to go public and allow you to create

42:10 Some social media content with them telling their stories. Yeah, we actually had one person from our pilot, uh, our first pilot post a really long TikTok video on how she was able to use Kahani and uh some of the impact it had on her, and that we were looking for more people to help us build out the second version. And because of the TikTok algorithm, we actually ended up getting maybe five or six organic inbounds. And I didn't even know this had been posted because I didn't have a TikTok at that time. And so it was really interesting getting emails saying, I found you on TikTok. I'm like, No way, I don't have a TikTok. So it's really interesting to uh see that. And so it that is, I think, the the hope. Um, it is that is I think a bit of a demographic split on maybe our younger participants would be more willing to do that. I don't I haven't seen excitement from our older participants to do that, and they are our more highly engaged ones. So hopefully that might change, but that's certainly something we're Trying to play around with a little bit more.

43:08 I mean some combination of those vulnerable stories. that can relate to people authentically and maybe spread virally. is I think great. And I like the numbers you used. You were like, we got five. That's amazing. So you can get ten. Then you can get twenty, right? You didn't say like how do we get a thousand? Like, you know, I I'm I'm a big fan of that sort of snowball.

43:30 um spreading and and you encouraging the mechanisms of Why it has spread. But again, the the vulnerable stories are I think what everyone wants to kinda hear and search for. For sure. The uh app is called Kahani Mehek Mohan. Uh thanks so much. Good luck and uh turn you on. Let us know how it goes.

43:48 Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I I you know, I think that it's like A tr I mean again, you know this. It's a the best form of marketing is word of mouth because if if somebody you know is using it, you trust them and they're like, This is really good.

44:04 I'm not gonna yeah you know, I'm not gonna recommend something to somebody, especially if it's expensive. Or a you know, commitment of you know, cash up front that that Unless I really think it's great. And and also the ability to talk about how it actually authentically helped you is gonna be better than any paid marketing you could ever do. Yeah, it's interesting because I I, you know, uh admittedly, I don't know what the total addressable market is here, because I don't you know, I'm lucky I don't have one, right? I don't have any sort, I don't know anybody who does. Maybe I do, I don't know.

44:34 But it's a it's an interesting idea and I you know, if and listen, she's smart she's a smart uh entrepreneur. She uh and so clearly there there's some something to this. Anthony, before I let you go, I wanna ask you one question, which is now that you have you know, you've gone public, you now you're private again, you've you've running a hugely successful business. Um Start out as a little you know little website software and now it's the full full package e commerce, you know, business. Um If you could go back to you, you know, this programming nerd and you know twenty two year old kid and you're like, Hey, Anthony

45:11 I'm coming back from the future and I'm telling you this was gonna happen, but but just so you know, I wanna give you some advice now. Because this is important for you to know. Wha what what do you think you would be able to say now that you know all this stuff? I think the thing Everyone says, you know Follow your gut, right? And sometimes

45:31 You do, and sometimes that takes a while. And I think that I would look back and go, you know, what decisions Do I always delay on? And I'm always looking back and going I wish I had done that faster.

45:44 And I wonder Well I have never gone to those decisions and gone, Wow, I went too fast on that one. Right. Like why does it always error in one direction? Yeah. And what does that mean?

45:55 And I think I try and watch out for that stuff now. And realize that sometimes I never move too quick on certain things. And just just kinda keep that in mind. And it's like you could have just gone faster. You knew what to do. I love it. All right, it's great advice. It's Anthony Casalina, founder and CEO of Squarespace. Anthony, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Yeah, real pleasure. Thanks to thanks for having me. I'm honored. So fun. And by the way, if you guys haven't heard Anthony's original how I built this episode, you've got to go back, check it out. We'll put a link to it in the show notes, the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

46:28 Somewhere Along the way. I get like a call on my cell phone from like a customer. Guys like hey uh Is Squarespace okay?

46:36 So I call the data center. I'm like, hey, can you reboot This server. And it doesn't come back. And it wasn't coming back. Completely crash. Wow.

46:45 And I was like, I gotta go to New York right now. And I just drive to New York and I'm like having a panic hack the whole way up because I'm like it's screwed I lost all the data. Saga. That little experiment's over. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com.

47:04 Each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, the issues, or questions you'd like help with. and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery dot com. Or call us at one eight hundred.

47:36 433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Sam Paulsen with music composed by Ramteen Areblui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce, and our audio engineer was James Willets. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Niva Grant, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Katherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line. on how I built this lab.