Code Queen: The Story of Becca Harpain and Inside the Square
This month is our 8th year business anniversary and we're celebrating with a series called Into the SQSP Metaverse: 33 Portals Through Web Design And Entrepreneurship. This is Portal #3.
The California sun was setting as Becca Harpain sat hunched over her laptop, her fingers flying over the keys. She was deep in the digital trenches of Squarespace 7.1, the platform's latest version that had sent shivers of anticipation and trepidation throughout the web design community. But Becca was not daunted. Instead, she was thrilled by the challenge.
For years, Becca had been a Squarespace entrepreneur, a self-proclaimed CSS super nerd who spoke the language of computers with fluency and flair. She had a knack for transforming web pages into breathtaking digital canvases, and she was about to do it again. But this time, it was different. This time, she was not just redesigning a website. She was reshaping her destiny.
“I want to become a lot more of a resource than just a one-off. I want to make it easy for people to narrow down what they need.”
Becca's journey into the Squarespace metaverse began in a small town deli across a startup company. Tired of smelling like turkey, she had taken the job as a phone operator at the startup, which eventually led her to the world of online marketing. With ten keywords and a hundred dollars, Becca dived headfirst into Google Ads, kickstarting her career in the digital realm.
Years later, she was managing a global marketing campaign, dealing with six-figure budgets, three languages, and multiple countries. But as thrilling as it was, the fast-paced world of marketing began to wear her out. She longed for the creativity of art, the joy of design. So, she pivoted, teaching herself CSS and starting to build websites for clients.
Becca's pivot led her to create Inside the Square, a platform where she shared her CSS knowledge with the Squarespace community. Every Tuesday, she would post a new video or article, sharing her insights and tips. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and Inside the Square quickly gained traction.
But Becca wasn't satisfied with just sharing her knowledge. She wanted to empower others to become experts themselves. Inside the Square is Becca's brainchild, her gift to the Squarespace community. With a wealth of free CSS tutorials and the launch of Custom Code Academy, she is on a mission to democratize web design, distilling years of experience into a comprehensive and accessible course.
“I’m a very high energy person. I like to channel that energy into a lot of different directions. Picking one path and focusing on it has been a really big part of Inside the Square”
As Inside the Square continues to grow, Becca is excited about the future. She's redesigning her website, organizing her content, and creating cheat sheets for those who want to dip their toes into CSS. She's also nurturing her community, fostering collaboration, and helping her students become experts.
Through all her trials and triumphs, Becca remains committed to her mission: to empower Squarespace entrepreneurs to become CSS experts. As she charts her course through the Squarespace metaverse, Becca's story serves as a beacon of hope for aspiring entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that with passion, creativity, and a bit of code, they too can etch their mark in the digital universe.
Listen to her story here and check out her new podcast Think Inside the Square.
