Squarespace has a series of slick, new ads. They’re all over the place. And you’ll never believe who directed them.
Martin Freakin’ Scorsese.
One of the greatest directors of all time took a break from making three-hour, Oscar-Bait DiCaprio vehicles to helm two ads that debuted at this year’s Super Bowl.
The concept is simple: If you want to let people know you are legit, you gotta have a website.
The tagline: A website makes it real.
Fair enough. But it's a little strange, isn’t it, that I never saw these commercials on a website? I saw them on TV during the game, in my Instagram feed as ads and then again as an ad break while watching Disney Plus with my kids.
The ads garnered plenty of attention, but they didn’t need a website to do it. And no one can accuse a company with enough cash on hand to buy Super Bowl ads of not being legit.
There is something fundamentally simplistic about these ads that came to me on that third viewing after the latest Bluey episode ended: the tagline feels old.
It feels like a relic of a bygone era, where all you needed to start a business was to build a website, tell your friends about it and maybe do some link building on other ecommerce sites to get the sales rolling in.
These days, we know that content is so much more than a website.
Most importantly, there are apps. According to a 2022 survey from small business directory Top Design Firms, 48% of small businesses now have an app, a 16% increase over 2021.
Then there are the social media channels, where personal branding and direct networking to consumers combine. Many startup founders would never touch their website again if you told them they’d instead have to delete their Linkedin or Instagram accounts.
There are ads–So. Many. Ads.-that appear on YouTube videos and SmartTVs at the airport and on someone’s tablet and on Linkedin. And if you are targeting them all, they all need to be delivered seamlessly.
There is YouTube, where content creators collect thousands of subscribers and are directly compensated for their content.
There are even Smart Watches and CarPlay screens and in-app notifications, all designed to get users to click. But click where?
Maybe it's a website.
But it could just as easily not be. Here's a short list of actions you, as a consumer, are encouraged to take on a daily basis:
If you are a small business owner, there is no shortage of tools allowing you to operate without a website. You just need a way to get people interested in what you have to offer, a way to deliver it, and a way to get paid. And in 2025, depending on your business needs, this can all be done on third-party platforms.
So do you need a website in 2025?
Of course you do!
I bet you thought I was going to say no. But the answer is more complicated than that.
While I believe Squarespace is incorrect to say that "a website makes it real" as there are many types of businesses that can operate just fine without one, not having a space of your own has serious downsides.
For one thing, you give up the ability to fully own and control your own content. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube open you up to millions of eyeballs. But if you want to diversify, it often comes at a cost. You can generate millions of followers on Instagram. But if you try to sell them a t-shirt, Instagram is gonna get a cut. So will Etsy, Shopify and more. It is in your best interest to point those followers elsewhere.
Expansion becomes even harder if you want to sell your products or services in multiple existing locations. Once you put your entire product catalog on someone else's website, you may need to use an API to get it onto another. Without a central database that you control, you could be paying to move your own content.
But it is important to ask why so many small business owners avoid building websites--and what that can tell us about what a better website management strategy could look like.
The most obvious answer is money. Many founders started gaining attention using free tools like Linkedin, Instagram and YouTube. They've built a following and they're comfortable.
But that's not a problem most founders have. After all, for most successful founders, being comfortable is not a feeling they're, well, comfortable with.
The real issue is time. To build a website that truly represents the brand identity you've cultivated, that presents your business in the best light possible and that functions well across all channels and platforms takes months. And founders like to move quickly. Jumping onto social media to get the word out takes just a few minutes.
Then, there's maintenance. Much like owning a house, if something breaks, it's up to you to fix it. And assuming you don't have a pricey development team on retainer, that can mean hours and days troubleshooting.
And that's just the technical maintenance. If you host an online store or publish videos, you have to keep your website updated with those items as well. Even with a quality CMS, you could spend days just getting a few new products into all the channels where you need to put them.
As founders, we often think in terms of tasks--how long will something take? What will the return on investment of that action be? Will I eventually need to hire someone to help me with that?
Traditional CMS platforms like Squarespace would like us to think of a website as a digital store. As such, it becomes a representation of your entire brand. Many founders get frozen in place trying to decide just what a digital store that represents their brand should look like--quite a feat for a company that might have been built either completely offline or on other channels.
But some companies are starting to see websites differently; the way engineers and algorithms see them: as a collection of structured data.
The reason for this, once again, is time. Scaling content was once reserved for larger organizations with massive content libraries. But as more and more platforms began accepting structured data and low-code/no-code solutions became readily available for passing data to millions of apps and tools, founders are finding it easier than ever to make their content fast, flexible and findable, even with limited time and without a ton of employees.
While the creation of a website can happen very quickly with traditional CMS products, these platforms are very rigid, allowing you to build exactly within the guardrails of single page templates, available fields and a handful of pre-selected tools. In the long-term, founders may find themselves repeating manual work across channels, re-entering the same fields over and over across 30 different platforms, all for a single product or piece of content.
Instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, have you thought of going headless?
When pursuing the website of the future, many startup founders are selecting something called headless architecture. Check it out:
Examples of Headless in Action
These setups allow teams to repurpose content, maintain brand consistency, and localize content easily—something startups can greatly benefit from as they grow.
According to WP Engine’s State of Headless 2024, 73% of businesses have adopted a headless approach in some part of their tech stack, up 14% from 2021. Even more telling, 82% of respondents said that headless architecture enables more consistent content delivery across channels. The momentum behind headless CMS isn’t just coming from large enterprises—startups are realizing its long-term potential too.
How can it be that headless architecture has seen that big of a jump? Well, for any business with an app, for example, keeping your content and your app in perfect alignment can be quite a feat. And that’s before you build content for any of the other channels you want to deliver to. Headless can help.
To understand the benefits of embracing a headless setup, you first have to know what it is and how it will change the day-to-day of your content editors, end users, and all stakeholders in between.
A traditional CMS (like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace) is a monolithic system that manages both your content and how it’s presented.
But the downside? Traditional CMSs can be rigid when you want to publish across multiple front ends or scale content operations.
A headless CMS (like Sanity, Contentful, or Strapi) separates the content layer (the "body") from the presentation layer (the "head").
This setup is ideal for startups that need flexibility, scalability, and more control over the user experience.
|
Feature |
Traditional CMS |
Headless CMS |
|
Setup Time |
Fast |
Longer setup, more dev time |
|
Flexibility |
Limited |
Highly flexible |
|
Multichannel Delivery |
Challenging |
Built for it |
|
Content Management |
Easy for non-tech teams |
Requires structured thinking |
|
Developer Control |
Limited |
Full control |
|
Scaling Content |
Slower |
More efficient |
For under-resourced teams, the tradeoff comes down to speed vs. scalability. If you're focused on short-term ease, traditional may be fine. But if you're playing a long game and want to build a scalable content system, headless could save time (and sanity) down the road.
At this point, you may be wondering how this will change things for you or your team. If the developers handle the various front-end templates for your various channels, what is the content team responsible for? Can they still build cool landing pages for search ads and design beautiful emails and newsletters?
As I have worked in both systems for years, I thought I’d take you through a day in the life for content stakeholders in each platform type. Check it out below:
8:30 AM – Log in and check dashboard
9:00 AM – Edit a blog post
11:00 AM – Build a new landing page
2:00 PM – Collaborate with marketing
4:00 PM – SEO & housekeeping
5:00 PM – Wrap up
8:30 AM – Log into the CMS
9:00 AM – Edit a blog post
11:00 AM – Create a new landing page
2:00 PM – Work with marketing
4:00 PM – SEO & final checks
5:00 PM – Wrap up
Choose Traditional CMS if:
Choose Headless CMS if:
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But in 2025, startups can’t afford to be locked into tools that limit flexibility. Whether you choose headless or a highly-modified traditional CMS, here are the keys:
🔑 Instead of increasing headcount or hiring freelancers to handle busywork, leverage automation, integration and structured content to push content updates. You'll improve accuracy, build trust and keep costs down, all while getting to market faster than ever.
🔑 When in doubt, reduce your tasks-per-content-update.
🔑 Whatever you build, design your content system to grow with you.
And most importantly, don't lose your head!