How Thread Caravan Built a Global Workshop Business on Squarespace

Caitlin Garcia-Ahern launched Thread Caravan in 2014 with a clear purpose: to close the distance between traditional textile artisans and the people drawn to their work. Rather than building another fair trade product brand, she built something harder to replicate—immersive travel experiences that bring small groups directly to weavers, dyers, and makers in places like Guatemala, Morocco, and Peru.

Before the first pilot trip even ran, Caitlin built the Thread Caravan website on Squarespace. She had no background in coding or design, no budget to hire specialists, and a brand that needed to earn the trust of strangers considering international travel. She needed a platform that could present Thread Caravan with the visual depth it deserved while handling the practical side of running a service business. Squarespace did both.

Twelve years later, that same foundation still runs the business. Trips sell out. Press requests now come to them. Thread Caravan has been featured in Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, Forbes, and National Geographic. Sales have grown 274% over two years, driven almost entirely by organic discovery. More than 90% of revenue comes from the experiences themselves. And the team behind all of it? Two people.

From the first search a potential traveler makes, to booking, payment installments, waitlists, and post-trip newsletters, everything runs through Squarespace. As the platform has grown, so has Thread Caravan—adding integrated email marketing, waitlist management, and flexible invoicing tools without ever needing to stitch together other software.

We interviewed Caitlin to talk about how a two-person team scales a premium service business globally, what it takes to earn the trust of a stranger for an international trip, and how running everything on one platform has let them stay focused on what matters.

What inspired you to launch Thread Caravan?

I created Thread Caravan because of a gap I noticed between traditional artisans and the people purchasing their work. While fair trade brands were becoming increasingly common at the time, something still felt missing: the human connection. The Thread Caravan model centers on experiential education rather than simply producing goods, all while honoring traditional textile arts and the communities that sustain them.

Why did you choose Squarespace as the digital home for Thread Caravan? What problems were you looking to solve? 

Thread Caravan is inherently an artistic project, and a central goal of our website has always been to share the stories of our artisan partners in a meaningful, visually engaging way.

When I built the site, I had no background in coding, graphic design, or ecommerce, and no budget to hire specialists in those areas. I needed a platform that combined strong visual appeal with creative flexibility, while also being intuitive for a beginner to use, and capable of supporting our ecommerce needs. Squarespace offered an intuitive, design-forward solution that allowed us to present our brand in a way that felt elevated and aligned with our mission. 

When I launched the site in 2014, Squarespace stood out as the best solution for those needs. Even 12 years later, I still believe it offers the best balance of design, functionality, and ease of use for what we do.

What has changed most in your business since switching to Squarespace?

We’ve been using Squarespace since the very beginning. I actually started building our site before we hosted our first pilot trip. As the platform has expanded its features, we’ve been able to adapt and streamline our operations. For example, when Squarespace introduced its integrated email marketing tools, we transitioned away from a separate email platform in favor of the Squarespace tool. Changes like this have allowed us to simplify our workflow and manage more aspects of the business in one place.

How has the platform’s design helped you build a credible brand to attract your ideal clients?

Design is a tool that can be used to leverage trust, while communicating intention and quality. Squarespace’s templates and customization tools allowed us to create a polished, editorial feel that reflects the depth of our work. That credibility has been essential in attracting a values-aligned community.

How do you use Squarespace tools to win and onboard new business? 

Several features have been especially important in helping us reach and maintain new clients. The built-in SEO tools, for example, have been incredibly valuable, with a significant portion of new clients discovering us through online searches. I don’t consider myself a SEO expert, but the Squarespace platform makes it very accessible and easy to use, even for beginners.

We also rely on Squarespace’s analytics tools, giving us insight into how visitors navigate the website. This information helps us make thoughtful design decisions to improve the overall user experience.

More recently, we’ve started adding trip waitlists directly to the pages of our sold-out trips. This is something we used to manage manually, so having it integrated into the site has made a big difference in helping us track interest and stay organized.

How has Squarespace helped you streamline client management and day-to-day operations?

We use the Squarespace platform to manage a wide range of client-facing and operational tasks, including trip reservations and payment processing, initial client information intake, waitlist management, brand and visual consistency, ongoing engagement through newsletters, and more. 

Centralizing these functions in one platform has greatly simplified our workflows. We spend less time switching between tools and more time focusing on meaningful work. Even small efficiencies, like seamless content updates and integrated analytics, have made a significant impact over time.

How have Squarespace's financial tools, such as flexible checkout options, streamlined the way you get paid?

Offering a variety of payment options has been a real advantage for our customers. While many still choose to pay by credit or debit card, others appreciate the option to use Apple Pay or PayPal. Having that flexibility helps reduce friction in the booking process and makes it easier for people to complete their trip reservations.

We also provide custom payment plans using the Squarespace invoicing tool. To reserve a space on a trip, clients submit a full deposit, and the remaining balance can be split into installments based on their preferred amount and schedule, with the total due 60 days before the trip. We send out custom payment links using Squarespace’s invoicing system. It has been a simple and effective solution, and one that many of our clients utilize and are grateful for.

Beyond that, we use a range of other financial tools on the platform, including discount codes, reimbursements, and detailed quarterly and annual reports. I especially appreciate the ability to visualize sales data through graphs and track changes over time. Recently, I reviewed our annual sales over the past 12 years, analyzing year-over-year percentage shifts and reflecting on what we did differently each year that may have influenced growth, or, in the case of the pandemic years, decline. 

What has been the biggest advantage of running your business on one connected platform, rather than using multiple tools? Can you share any data points that support your growth using the Squarespace platform? 

Our admin team is very small, just two people! While we both value organization, our backgrounds are in the arts rather than tech, so intuitive and integrated tools are key.

The biggest advantage of using a single, integrated platform has been how streamlined it makes our operations. Squarespace allows us to manage multiple aspects of the business in one place, saving time and reducing complexity. That efficiency frees us up to focus on what we do best: creating meaningful, in-person experiences that honor and celebrate traditional art. 

How have your customers’ expectations evolved? 

As AI makes it easier than ever to present polished, visually appealing products or experiences, I believe Thread Caravan’s clients are looking beyond the surface. They’re seeking experiences that feel transparent, ethical, and intentional.

At the same time, as more craft-focused tour companies have emerged in recent years, it’s become even more important for us to clearly communicate what sets Thread Caravan apart.

Together, these factors have encouraged us to be more intentional in our messaging and more thoughtful in how we present our work online.

Can you share a moment when you realized your business had reached a new level of growth or legitimacy, and how your website played a role?

I remember hosting a Guatemala trip about two and a half years after starting Thread Caravan and realizing that I didn’t have a direct connection to any of the travelers. They had discovered us through press, social media, or word of mouth, not through my immediate community. That felt like a real turning point. While you expect support from people you know, interest from complete strangers signaled that the concept was resonating on a broader level, and it gave me the confidence to keep going.

During that period of growth, I know the website played a crucial role, specifically in how it communicated our vision and intentions. It helped us present our trips in a way that made people feel comfortable enough to travel internationally with us. That level of trust is something I feel honored to have earned, and we take it very seriously.

Another clear growth moment came shortly after, when press outreach began to shift. In the early years, I was acting as our PR lead, reaching out to arts publications and sharing about what we were building. Around year three, that dynamic changed, and journalists began coming to us. Since then, we’ve been featured in reputable publications like Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler, Forbes, National Geographic and more. I believe our website played an important role in that shift, helping us communicate a strong sense of professionalism and clarity that made the brand more visible and compelling to the press.

Looking ahead to the next phase of your business, what are your biggest goals?

For us, growth isn’t about scale. It’s about sustainability, integrity, and maintaining (or improving) quality of experiences and our long-term relationships.

One key goal is to find more funding for our Artisan Exchange Program, an initiative we created to provide more equitable access to travel and learning opportunities while fostering meaningful intercultural dialogue.

What advice would you give someone launching a business today?

I’ve been giving the same advice since starting Thread Caravan. I think it’s an important one, though not everyone wants to hear it: not everyone should start a business! Some people are naturally suited to the responsibilities of business leadership, while others thrive as supportive team members. 

Before launching a business, I recommend doing a deep self-assessment. Understand your values, your strengths, and your social tendencies. Are you better suited as a leader in a possibly high-pressure position, or do you excel as a supportive team player? Both roles are equally important, and knowing where you fit can help prevent unnecessary friction.

For me, business ownership is about creative expression and problem solving: identifying a niche that can genuinely benefit people or the planet, and building it thoughtfully, staying true to your values while remaining flexible enough to adapt as needed. These are the key elements.

 How Squarespace supports service sellers

Squarespace is designed to make it easier for service sellers to grow a business without growing their overhead. For businesses built around experiences, travel, or any offering where the product is the people and places involved, the platform brings booking, payments, client communication, and marketing into one place.

If you sell services and want to run your business more efficiently, here are some of the Squarespace tools that can make a real difference:

• Booking and payments: Let clients find trip details, pay a deposit, and reserve their spot directly on your site. Flexible payment options including installment plans, invoicing, and digital wallets reduce friction at checkout and help convert interest into confirmed bookings. 

• Mobile-optimized design: A clean, professional website built on Squarespace works seamlessly across devices. For service businesses where a significant share of clients book from their phones, that experience matters.

• Built-in SEO and AIO tools: Get found by the right people without relying on paid acquisition. Squarespace's built-in SEO and AI visibility features make it straightforward to optimize your site for search, even without a technical background.

• Email marketing: Capture client interest and stay in touch with your audience using integrated email tools. No separate platform required.

• Squarespace Premium: For service sellers ready to scale, Squarespace Premium offers the lowest credit card processing rates available on the platform through Squarespace Payments, capped ACH fees, a dedicated account manager for hands-on support and ongoing optimization, and advanced features including multi-site management and optional single sign-on for teams managing multiple websites or brands.

Running a service business well means staying focused on the experience you deliver. Squarespace handles the operational layer so you can do exactly that. Get started at jgxxmj.com/services. 

Lead photo by Paula Harding.