07.10.2004:Praise for the founder of Squarespace

An excerpt from a July 2, 2004 article at gazette.net

by C. Benjamin Ford
Staff Writer

---

July 2, 2004

Anthony Casalena is one of the budding entrepreneurs at the University of Maryland's Hinman Campus Entrepreneurship Opportunities program. Casalena's new business, Squarespace, offers a Web design software program he wrote.

University of Maryland's business program teaches
college students how to be successful entrepreneurs

In many ways, Anthony Casalena is like most technology entrepreneurs: He saw a problem and developed a solution that customers would want to buy.

Casalena didn't like the software available for nonprofessionals to design their own Web sites. Bloggers still wanted to put up decent-looking sites, even if they didn't have Internet design skills. So he wrote a software program for them.

He formed a business, Squarespace of College Park, to produce and market the program. He lined up $1.5 million from venture capitalists.

And, like other business owners, he has struggled to line up new venues to sell his product while keeping his costs down.

There is one big difference, however, between Casalena and most high-tech entrepreneurs: Casalena is only 21, a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park.