BV

Blaine Vess

Investing in Early Stage Startups | Sold Student Brands for ~$60M | Now Actively Building a New Venture

Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

Skills

Start-ups
Film
Television
Web Development
Video Production
Entertainment
SEO
Producing
Management
Web Applications
Entrepreneurship
Marketing
Social Media
Video
Viral Marketing
Outsourcing
Online Marketing
Film Production
Web Marketing
E-commerce

Education

Work Experience

  • Founder

    2011

    Immeasurable is a family office that creates and invests in technology-driven companies. We're also investors in a variety of funds in the US, Southeast Asia, and China. Select startup investments include Human Interest, Albedo, Turion Space, clicOH, and Fathom Video.

  • Founder

    2012

    Freedom Fighter Films invests in film and television and is now completely dedicated to investing in projects that spotlight North Korean freedom and human rights issues. Beyond Utopia - Co-Executive Producer (Sundance 2023) Assassins - Executive Producer (Sundance 2020) Where's My Roy Cohn? - Co-Producer (Sundance 2019 // Sony Pictures Classics) Ms. Purple - Executive Producer (Sundance 2019) XY Chelsea - Executive Producer (Tribeca 2019 // Showtime) Blowin' Up - Executive Producer (Tribeca 2018 // PBS) The Devil We Know - Associate Producer (Sundance 2018) The Price - Co-Producer (SXSW 2017 // Samuel Goldwyn Films) Gook - Executive Producer (Sundance 2017 // Samuel Goldwyn Films) Trophy - Co-Executive Producer (Sundance 2017 // CNN Films) I Am Sun Mu - Executive Producer (DMZ Docs 2015 - Opening Film // Netflix) Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story - Executive Producer (Outfest 2015) I'm Married to a... - Co-Creator / Co-Executive Producer (VH1 Series 2012) Flipping Miami - Co-Executive Producer (A&E Pilot 2012)

  • Co-Founder & CEO

    2016 - 2017

    My co-founders and I launched Solve to help travelers get through immigration and customs quickly when traveling internationally. Solve was a part of Y Combinator's Summer 2017 batch and it was acquired by Blacklane. It is now known as Blacklane PASS.

  • Co-Founder & Chairman

    2015 - 2017

    I co-founded what's now known as Student Brands as a college freshman in 1999. We never raised any funding and Barnes and Noble Education (NYSE:BNED) acquired the company for $58.5 million in August 2017. My co-founders and I initially ran the business from our dorm room, and then our house. We learned PHP and coded everything ourselves for the first eight years of the company’s existence. In 2007, we crossed $1 million in revenue, with high net margins, as two guys working out of a house. The next year we crossed $3 million and the next year we crossed $5 million, and it kept growing from there. We had no formal team other than three overseas web developers from about 2007 to 2011. In 2011, we decided to go bigger with the business, so we got an office and started building a team. By 2014, we had a team of about thirty people in Los Angeles and our websites and apps were reaching over 2 million daily active users. In addition to serving the English-speaking world, we launched popular websites in Brazil, Russia, France, and the Spanish-speaking world (Mexico, Columbia, Peru, etc.). We also acquired over ten competitors and adjacent businesses. In early 2015, I hired a President for the company. I appointed him CEO at the end of 2015, and I took a Chairman role at the company. That year, we launched our Bangalore, India office and built a team of about forty people there. About two years later, we were acquired by Barnes and Noble Education. The websites and apps we created continue to reach millions of students around the world.

  • Co-Founder & CEO

    1999 - 2015

2005 - 2008

  • New Media Marketing Consultant

    2005 - 2008

    I was a full-time consultant to the head of New Media Marketing and a part of the team who executed the viral marketing campaigns for films like "Wedding Crashers," "Snakes on a Plane," and many others. I developed internal web applications, helped manage outside vendors, and contributed to marketing plans.

  • Web Developer

    1997 - 2005

    I started as an IT consultant for one of Technotribe's corporate clients when I was 16 years old. I eventually learned to code and developed PHP/MySQL web applications for various clients.