Reformers: Blaine Vess, Founder & Former CEO at Student Brands

Blaine Vess is the Founder and Former CEO at Student Brands, an education technology company that operates multiple direct-to-student businesses. Blaine Vess founded Student Brands in his freshman dorm room in 1999. After slow and steady growth for the first 5 years, Student Brands hit an inflection point that saw tremendous user and revenue growth, much of which was due to a business model pivot and an unconventional M&A strategy that Blaine executed. By 2017, after 18 years of operating the business without raising any outside funding, Blaine decided to sell Student Brands to Barnes & Noble Education for $58.5M. Below are some of Blaine’s key insights and lessons learned that he shared during the interview, which can be implemented in your own business.

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Reformers host Andrew Oved is the Founder & General Partner at Reformation Partners, a pioneer in early growth equity. The firm invests in the best capital efficient enterprise and consumer companies at their point of breakout and supports their growth through profitability, future financing rounds, and / or exit.