CollegeHumor, Vimeo and TeePublic founder returns to Richmond

Before the rise of social media juggernauts Facebook and Twitter, Josh Abramson was already a powerful force in the online business world, having created CollegeHumor.com at University of Richmond

Abramson, who also founded Vimeo and TeePublic, spoke Thursday night as a part of the Robins Executive Speaker Series to share his experiences and success to the University of Richmond community.

Abramson, RC '03, majored in business administration with a concentration in finance and also earned a minor in philosophy.

The event was conducted in a question-and-answer format with Nancy Bagranoff, dean of the Robins School of Business, asking Abramson various questions about his route to success.

Abramson said he had realized during his freshman year the possibility of getting into the market of creating an online business.

“It all started when some friends and I were looking at a funny video from the weekend,” Abramson said. “Then I thought it would be a good idea to put together an online database where people could share funny videos. That’s when CollegeHumor was created.”

He decided to team up with his childhood friend, Ricky Van Vleet, then a student at Wake Forest, to create a website that could allow users to upload videos and pictures for the public to see.

“At first the website was started for fun and to see what we could do with it,” Abramson said. “But it didn’t take long for it to take off and get popular. A month before my 19th birthday a company offered to buy out the website for $9 million.”

After graduating, Abramson and Van Vleet moved to New York City to join a young and growing online business market to continue working to improve the website. A year after moving to New York City, Abramson founded BustedTees, a t-shirt company, and Vimeo, a massive database for users to upload videos.

In 2006, Abramson chose to sell CollegeHumor, BustedTees and Vimeo to InterActiveCorp.

Five years later, Abramson bought back BustedTees and reconstructed it into TeePublic, a website where users can create their own shirt designs and purchase them.

Abramson encouraged UR students to follow their interests and to put themselves out there to get real world experiences.

Contact reporter Matt Davison matt.davison@richmond.edu