AJ (@ajlkn on Twitter) had been designing and coding website templates since the mid-2000s. He's known for HTML5 UP, Pixelarity, and various open source projects.

Time for Something Different

After years of designing templates, the work became "almost routine." AJ figured it was time to branch out. The question was what?

The Idea

"How about a site builder?" Building a Wix or Squarespace was off the table for a solo project, so AJ focused on a niche: one-page profile sites.

Two popular downloads at HTML5 UP were one-page profile templates. AJ saw them everywhere and noticed how well they worked in practice.

The Constraints

AJ set objectives: Easy to use, fast (under 5 minutes to create a site), free with optional paid plan, no signup required, mobile-friendly.

The Build

Carrd launched in March 2016. The site builder itself works on mobile - few competitors could do this at the time.

The Scale

Today, Carrd powers over 3.3 million sites built by 2.2 million users. AJ didn't think of himself as a "founder" until 4 years after launch.