61: Designing Your Future: Building a Thriving Template Business with guest Kate Scott
In this episode of ThinkInsideTheSquare, we’re diving deep into the world of Squarespace template design with the brilliant Kate Scott. As your host, I couldn't be more thrilled to bring you this conversation. Kate's expertise in creating and selling Squarespace templates is truly next-level, and her insights are guaranteed to spark your creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. From her unique design process to her savvy business strategies, Kate generously shares the secrets that have made her a standout in the Squarespace community.
Whether you're a designer looking to expand your offerings or a business owner curious about the world of templates, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways that will revolutionize how you think about Squarespace design. If selling templates aren't a part of your business goals, it's interesting to hear about a different and creative business model built around supporting our Squarespace community.
Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and equipped with the knowledge to take your business to new heights! 🙌
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[00:00:00] With the exception of a few of us professional designers who started with the blank screen, pretty much every Squarespace website out there was built on a template. A lot of the templates that we encounter come from Squarespace itself. They have an amazing team of designers, and they make really interesting and innovative templates built around Squarespace features.
[00:00:29] But you've probably encountered quite a few custom templates. Templates made by Squarespace experts and designers that really push past the parameters of those built in features that we all have access to. Templates that create something really unique for a specific audience. There are quite a few amazing rock stars out there in the template world.
[00:00:49] And one of them is my guest here today on Think Inside the Square, Kate Scott. Kate Scott has built an amazing career creating templates for her Squarespace customers. [00:01:00] She's very creative and innovative, and I really love her design style, but the way that she sets her customers up for success is what really fascinates me and why I wanted to have her as a guest here on Think Inside the Square.
[00:01:12] And you might think that creating and selling a template is as easy as designing a site and putting it out there for your audience. But there is so much more that goes into the process, and that's what we're going to get into in this interview today. For a transcript of this episode along with the links to any resources mentioned, visit insidethesquare.co/podcast
[00:01:30] the term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace, Inc. This content is not affiliated with Squarespace, Inc. Now without further ado, Kate Scott, welcome to Think Inside the Square. Now I am familiar with you and your career, but not all of my listeners are. So let's go ahead and pull back to the beginning before we dig into the template stuff.
[00:01:51] Tell me a little bit about your experience as a website designer. .
[00:01:54] Before I was a Squarespace
[00:01:57] designer, I was a content creator on WordPress, [00:02:00] and I had actually thought about becoming a web designer for a number of years.
[00:02:04] But I never did specifically because I hated designing on WordPress so much. It was clunky, and you know, one wrong line of code and you get the white screen of death. So when I started a new marketing business in 2018, I decided to make the jump to Squarespace for my own website and I completely fell in love.
[00:02:23] And when my very first marketing client asked me to build her a new website, I thought, sure, why not? And that's actually how I ended up becoming a Squarespace designer. I'm So, it's not so much that I was drawn to Squarespace as a web designer, Squarespace is what inspired me to become a web designer because it's such a fantastic platform for me to work with as a business owner.
[00:02:43] It's what inspired you to become a website designer. I like that a lot. So, I'm curious about your history here, since you said 2018, that means you've worked on version 7. 0. So I'm curious, like, throughout your career, specifically with Squarespace, what do you think was one [00:03:00] of the most innovative changes that you've worked with?
[00:03:02] Maybe your favorite feature, or yeah, just the most innovative change that Squarespace has made that's had an impact on the way you design. I've been on
[00:03:10] Squarespace long enough to experience 7. 0, 7. 1, and now Fluid Engine, and I do think that Fluid Engine has had the biggest impact. It was definitely a rocky transition, I do feel like I have to acknowledge that, The rollout was a complete mess.
[00:03:26] But Squarespace has made a lot of improvements in the last two years and it's really a fantastic platform now.
[00:03:33] Totally agree with you. As much of a headache as it is for me to have to update all of my tutorials when they make a big change, the fact that Squarespace is always innovating is what makes it a fantastic platform, right?
[00:03:44] They're constantly changing and making cool things for us to work with. Keeping that in mind, knowing that they're changing stuff all the time, I want to know a little bit about your template process. What it's like to really start designing a template? Where do you start? And maybe just kind of an overview on the design [00:04:00] process in general.
[00:04:01] I always like to start a
[00:04:02] project with whichever part of the process is most challenging for me. So I'm a natural strategist. That's what I'm best But design is something that I really had to work hard to become good at. And brand design is particularly challenging for me. And so that's what I start with.
[00:04:19] I curate images for the template on Pexels and Unsplash, and then I pull colors directly from those images to create the color palette for the template. Then I choose the fonts, and only when I have All of that together will I start to think about the strategy of the template. I decide who this template is going to be designed for, what pages need to be included, what sections will go on each page, and then I start designing mock ups in Figma.
[00:04:45] And once the mock ups are done, I'll hand those off to my senior designer, Rochelle, who will build them out in Squarespace. And of course, I used to do that part myself before I had a team. And then I'll do a final run through before launching the template, just to make sure that everything is perfect.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] Now, again, this is my process, which is based on my strengths and weaknesses as a designer. So if design comes naturally to you, but you struggle with the strategy part, then you may want to start with that and do things in a different order than I do.
[00:05:15] I love that you said who this template is going to be designed for, because I really want to get into the concept of how you figure out the niche or the perfect audience that you're creating your content for.
[00:05:25] But, before we do that, you talked about using Figma, and then you talked about the mockups and adding them to Squarespace. Now, I understand that you do have more people on your team, but you used to be a solo producer just like me. Now, I myself am in the process of trying to find and hire people to help me run things here inside the Square.
[00:05:43] But I know a lot of my listeners are still doing this on their own. So I'm assuming you've had a lot of tools to help you. Give me a quick rundown on the software that you can't live without when it comes to your template creation process.
[00:05:56] I use Figma to design the mockups for each template, [00:06:00] and the reason why I think mockups are such an important part of the design process is because they allow you to zoom out and see the strategy and flow of each page from a board's eye view.
[00:06:10] And that just makes for a better design. I also use Canva to share template graphics with customers so that they can edit the colors of those graphics to match their brand. So what I'll do is design the graphics in Adobe Illustrator. Or sometimes Figma, if it's a really simple graphic, export it as an SVG file and then upload it to Canva.
[00:06:31] Cool. Okay, so we've got Figma, Adobe Illustrator, which I do not have a lot of experience with, but I'll look into And then definitely Canva. I'll be sure to link to these in the show notes. And to those of you listening right now who are curious about Figma, I have been thinking about having a Figma training and offering that as a new workshop here inside the Square.
[00:06:51] If you want to check out the Figma training, Drop a comment if you're checking this out on the blog or on YouTube or send me a DM at thinkinsidethesquare on [00:07:00] Instagram if you want a Figma training. I'm definitely considering creating one of these in the next couple of months. I think that could be a lot of fun.
[00:07:06] All right, so let's pull back and get back to templates here, Kate. I want to talk about how you decide who to create a template for. Give me a little bit of insight into your process for identifying a niche or a specialization and then designing content for them. I'm really curious about this process.
[00:07:23] I like that you said niche or specialization because yes, it is important, but targeting a specific niche or industry is just one way to narrow down your audience.
[00:07:33] You may have a very unique design aesthetic. Your templates may come with a specific set of features that are different from anything else on the market. But generally speaking, you will see smaller template shops targeting a sort of broad industry, and then they'll create individual templates around a specific niche within that industry.
[00:07:52] For example, I have a student who designs templates for the health and wellness industry, and she has specific templates for fitness [00:08:00] coaches, natural health practitioners, nutritionists, etc. I do want to add a word of caution though. It is possible to niche down too much, and I have seen this before. I had one student who created a template for business owners in a specific country who spoke the language of that country, and when I looked at the data, there just weren't enough Squarespace customers in that country to make reliable sales.
[00:08:24] So, it's important to strike a balance when niching down, but obviously you want it to be usable for a wide variety of businesses. And the key to that is to make sure that you include things that lots of different businesses would need. So, for example, I designed my Sparhawk template for photographers, but it has all of the pages that you would need if you were pretty much any type of service provider.
[00:08:46] It also has a shop for people who sell digital or physical products. It has a sales page for course creators. So, I cast a broad net when deciding which pages to include in that template so that it would satisfy the needs of [00:09:00] many different industries. And it's been used by people in just about every industry you can imagine.
[00:09:06] I'm glad that you mentioned that flexibility. It's pretty important to remember that no matter who you designed it for, the people who want to use it will end up using it. So definitely important to make sure that it can still be applicable to other businesses, even if that's not what you had in mind.
[00:09:20] Now, you did give us a word of caution where some people might niche down a little bit too much. And I'm curious if there's any other glaring or common mistake that you see designers make when they're getting started with their own template store. Fill me in on that. I
[00:09:35] think one of the biggest mistakes designers make is focusing so much on the design of the template that they neglect the customer service and customer relationship that comes after you make the sale.
[00:09:47] And I think part of the reason designers neglect that is because they're a little afraid of it. One of the most common concerns I hear from designers who are thinking about starting a template shop is how much time they're going to have to spend [00:10:00] on customer support. And the truth is that you won't have to spend very much time on it at all.
[00:10:05] If you come up with a plan for how to manage support and manage that relationship before you launch the template. So it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The more worried about it you are, the more you'll avoid it, and then it will become more of a problem than it really needs to be. So, take the time to think that through and come up with a plan.
[00:10:25] What educational resources will you provide to customers? What will your support policies be? How will you communicate with customers after the sale, and can you automate that? Those are all important things to think
[00:10:36] about. So in addition to being a template designer, you also need to be a customer service rep, two very important roles that you'll need to fulfill when you create your own template shop.
[00:10:48] Is there any other specific area that you think people would really benefit from focusing on when they're ready to start selling templates? Nobody wants
[00:10:57] to hear this, but marketing. [00:11:00] Marketing is incredibly important, and not just for selling templates, but for selling basically anything online, including services.
[00:11:07] So I know that's probably not the answer that people want to hear, but it's the truth, and that's just the nature of running a business.
[00:11:16] That is so true Kate. Marketing is such an important part of running literally any business. It's something I struggle with here inside the square if i'm being totally honest.
[00:11:26] I've got to really step up my marketing game and maybe that's one of the first roles that i'll hire for who knows. But anyway Marketing is so important, and part of marketing isn't just the strategy of selling, but also pricing. So give me a quick rundown here. Let me know about how you decide how to price a template.
[00:11:44] I did some research before we started recording, and it looks like template pricing is just all over the place. So give me the insider scoop. How do you decide what to charge for a template that you've designed? So
[00:11:56] when I first launched my Skill with Templates course, [00:12:00] I made a list of all the factors that go into determining the price of a template, and I used them to create a quiz so that my students would be able to plug in all of the unique features of their templates and get a solid pricing recommendation.
[00:12:14] But no matter how much I tweet that quiz, it never came out with a price that I would actually recommend. Pricing is as much an art as it is a science, and it's a surprisingly complicated science. You have to consider the number of pages included, the delivery method, the niche you're targeting, how good the design is, which is very subjective, what kind of support is included, and so much more.
[00:12:37] Now, if you want some general guidance on what kind of pricing the market will support, we do have data on that thanks to Omari over at SQSP Themes. He conducted a huge survey last year to create the first ever Squarespace Template Industry Report. Thank you, Omari. And that report showed that templates priced between 100 and 500 make up the [00:13:00] overwhelming majority of the market.
[00:13:02] Now, that's a good general guideline. That said, my highest priced template was just under 1, 000, and I have students who sell templates for anywhere from 97 or more. all the way up to over 1, 500. So that answer is probably not as clear as people would like, but that's why I give personalized pricing advice to students in my course, because truthfully, it is kind of complicated.
[00:13:28] It is complicated and I'm so glad that you mentioned that study. I didn't know about the template industry report that Omari created. That is awesome. I will track down a link to that and put it in the show notes for sure. You can find those show notes at insidethesquare.co/podcast This is episode 61.
[00:13:45] So that'll be insidethesquare.co/podcast/61
[00:13:50] Now you just talked about your template course, which I know you're going to be releasing to the world again here pretty soon. And I'm sure a lot of people listening here are very curious about it. I'll [00:14:00] include some information in the show notes.
[00:14:01] But as a successful template designer, I'm curious, why did you decide to create a course about selling Squarespace templates?
[00:14:10] One day, I was checking my email and saw that another Squarespace designer had booked a strategy session with me. And in the intake form, she basically said, I don't know if you would be willing to do this, but I have questions about how to run a template shop.
[00:14:24] Can you help me? And before she came to me, she had asked another template seller the same thing, and that person had said no to her request for one reason or another. And I thought, why not? I'm not into gatekeeping or industry secrets or whatever. So that got me thinking, huh, I wonder if other people want to do this but need help.
[00:14:44] I sure could have used some help when I first started out. And so I decided to create the course. And at the time that I made that decision, there were no other courses on this topic and almost no information online at all. So I just went for
[00:14:58] it. I just went [00:15:00] for it. I think that is the motto of every successful entrepreneur I know, whether they're aware of it or not, Kate.
[00:15:05] I just went for it. It's awesome. All right. So I have a lot of people in my audience who I know are curious about templates. So I'm going to ask on behalf of my audience, who's eager to learn from you, where can we learn how to build a successful Squarespace template shop? You can go to my
[00:15:21] website,
[00:15:23] katescott.co and I will be hosting a live masterclass on how to build a successful Squarespace template shop on October 7th at 12 p.m. Eastern Time.
[00:15:33] It's going to be a fun event. I'm going to give you a high level overview of the strategy involved in building a template shop, but also practical, actionable tips that you can implement right away.
[00:15:44] You can sign up at katescott.co/live-masterclass
[00:15:49] Again, that's katescott.co/live-masterclass
[00:15:54] And if you're listening to this after October 7, you can still visit that URL. It will redirect you to a [00:16:00] page where you can sign up for the replay.
[00:16:02] . So much, Kate. And for everyone listening, I will link to that masterclass in the show notes.
[00:16:08] And if you're listening to this after October 7th, that link will redirect to the replay, so you're still good to go. Kate, thank you so much for being a guest here on Think Inside the Square. It was an honor to host you on this podcast. And to all of my dear listeners, thank you for tuning into this episode.
[00:16:23] It was definitely a specialty episode about a different business model that you might not be aware of. In the world of Squarespace, there are so many different types of businesses that support our community. Kate here is working on creating templates for her clients and now teaching other designers how to build a successful template based business the way that she did.
[00:16:43] Now, I, myself, I focus on sharing education and information for our community. Information that can help you not only create an amazing website, But also build a strong, sustainable business.
[00:16:54] If you're not already on my email list, sign up at insidethesquare.co/email
[00:16:59] And make [00:17:00] sure you subscribe to this podcast wherever you happen to be listening to this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. And until next time, keep designing, keep innovating, and most importantly, have fun with your website. Bye for now.
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💌 Join my email list: insidethesquare.co/email
🖥️ Kate Scott's website: katescott.co
🙋♀️ Kate's template masterclass (affiliate link): katescott.co/live-masterclass
📸 Pexels stock photo website: pexels.com
🌊 Unsplash stock photo website: unsplash.com
🛠️ Figma design program: figma.com
📑 Squarespace Template Industry Report by Omari at SQSP Themes: https://www.sqspthemes.com/industry-report
