Making Websites Super Easy To Build, with Joseph Cohen

The founder of Universe joins us to discuss how to democratize website creation

Our guest on Means of Creation this week is Joseph Cohen, Founder & CEO of Universe!

Universe is a new kind of website creation tool. It’s a mobile-only, no-code website builder that allows anyone to create a website through a grid-like drag-and-drop interface and it powers over 400,000 websites around the globe. Universe was a graduate of Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 class and has raised $17.3M from investors like BoxGroup, General Catalyst and GV. 

This is Joe’s second startup. He started his first company Lore (which was an online classroom platform) while he was in college at Penn and later sold it to Noodle. He’s a self-taught designer and proponent of the open web. In this interview, we talked to Joseph about: 

  • How the function of personal websites has changed in the age of social media
  • If Universe is an example of disruption or if they are creating an entirely new market
  • How Universe started as an extended Instagram bio
  • The decision to add commerce functionality
  • The most surprising use case for Universe
  • And more!

Watch or Listen

We held this conversation live on Friday, September 25th. You can listen to the podcast here or watch the YouTube video here. Enjoy!


Like this?
Become a subscriber.

Subscribe →

Or, learn more.

Read this next:

Means of Creation

Assessing Clubhouse’s Post-Pandemic Future

Also: Getty Images acquires Unsplash, LinkedIn’s new creator mode, the math behind MrBeast’s businesses, and more

24 Apr 10, 2021 by Li Jin, Nathan Baschez, and Yash Bagal

Means of Creation

The Web3 Renaissance: A Golden Age for Content

Like this essay and want to support us to create more like it? Consider collecting it as an NFT!In January 1996, Bill Gates published what w

48 Dec 20, 2021 by Li Jin and Katie Parrott

Means of Creation

Passion Economy News #3: TikTok’s Creator Fund, Amazon Explore, The Edtech Explosion, and More

Read to the end for why Warner Music Group paid $85m for a meme-making company

20 Oct 6, 2020 by Li Jin and Nathan Baschez

Divinations

LLMs are the new CPUs

…but is OpenAI the new Intel?

73 Mar 15, 2023 by Nathan Baschez

The Sunday Digest

Mastery, Recommendation Algorithms, and AI Fine Tuning

Everything we published this week!

12 Mar 12, 2023

Comments

You need to login before you can comment.
Don't have an account? Sign up!

Understand AI

Get one actionable essay a day on AI, tech, and personal development

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Login