Josh Abramson (born 1981) is an American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

Jordan Crook
“CollegeHumor Founder Josh Abramson, Boomi Founder Rick Nucci Join FirstMark Capital,”

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

, September 17, 2013. and co-founder of the comedy website

CollegeHumor CollegeHumor is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles. Aside from producing content for release on YouTube, it was also a former humor website owned by InterActiveCorp ( IAC) until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the websi ...

.Pui-Wing Tam
“By Accident or Design, Selling T-Shirts Is Big Business on Web,”
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', May 4, 2005.Jessica E. Vascellaro
“CollegeHumor Co-Founder Tries on Old Threads,”
''

'', May 15, 2011.Rebecca Mead
“Funny Boys,”
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', January 24, 2005. He was one of the principal owners and founders of Connected Ventures, whose properties also included

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

and BustedTees,Margaux Laskey
“Gabrielle Finley and Josh Abramson,”
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', April 30, 2010.Jeffrey Gangemi
“Buying Sites with a Built-in Audience,”
''

Bloomberg Business ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'', September 11, 2006.Streeter Seidell
“I Waste People’s Time Online. How? Don’t Ask Me,”
''

'', April 20, 1980. and the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the

crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

T-shirt design company TeePublic.John Koetsier
“Kickstarter for T-shirts: CollegeHumor and Vimeo founder Josh Abramson launching social T-shirts,”

VentureBeat ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. History The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, a ...

, March 13, 2013.Vanessa Grigoriadis
“A Message Tee for Every Mood,”
''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'', March 20, 2013.

Career

CollegeHumor

Abramson and

Ricky Van Veen Richard Rafael Van Veen (born December 14, 1980) is an American entrepreneur and the Head of Global Creative Strategy at Facebook. Van Veen co-founded the comedy brand and humor website CollegeHumor and the video sharing website Vimeo. He was als ...

co-founded CollegeHumor in 1999 when they were both freshmen in college,Jillian Goodman, J.J. McCorvey, Margaret Rhodes, and Linda Tischler
“From Facebook To Pixar: 10 Conversations That Changed Our World,”
''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'', February, 2013. Abramson at the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

and Van Veen at Wake Forest. They began by posting silly photos of themselves as well as jokes, links, and other amusing material they collected from emails circulating among college students. Within three months the site was receiving over 600,000 visitors per month and $8,000 in monthly revenue. In under a year they received a buyout offer from an Internet company called eFront for $9 million, most of which would have been financed with stock shares. Abramson and Van Veen refused the offer and continued to grow the company themselves. In 2001 they added

Jake Lodwick Jacob Lodwick (born July 25, 1981) is an American software engineer, serial entrepreneur and investor, best known as co-founder of Vimeo. Education and early bio Lodwick was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland and attended college at the Roc ...

, a student at

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...

, and

Zach Klein Zach Klein (born ) is an American entrepreneur and investor, and currently the CEO of Dwell. He co-founded DIY.org, and is best known for co-founding and designing Vimeo. He created the Cabin Porn phenomenon, which was initially an online project ...

, a friend of Van Veen's from Wake Forest.“Business at Collegehumor.com Is No Joke,”

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

, June 15, 2006. By the time the group graduated from college the site had earned more than $100,000 and the partners still owned 100 percent of their business, which at that time was attracting 2 million viewers a month. The group moved the company to

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

briefly before settling in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 2004, where they set up shop in a 4,800 square-foot loft in

TriBeCa Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

. By 2005 the site was receiving 6-8 million unique visitors each month and was generating over 5 million dollars per year in advertising and T-shirt sales. In 2006 Abramson and company sold 51% of Connected Ventures, CollegeHumor's parent company, whose properties include CollegeHumor, Vimeo and BustedTees, to

Barry Diller Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is an American businessman. He is Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. Diller was inducted into the Television Hall of ...

’s

IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC Inc. is an American holding company that owns brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet. The company is incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in New York City. Joey Levin, who previously led th ...

for a reported $20 million.Anthony Ha
“T-Shirt Crowdfunding Site TeePublic Funds 22 Designs In Its First Week,”

, March 22, 2013.

BustedTees

Abramson and company created BustedTees in 2004 as a forum to sell T-shirts marketed on CollegeHumor. BustedTees was included in the 2006 sale of Connected Ventures to

but in 2011 Abramson bought the company back. BustedTees later spawned TeePublic. It was included in the TeePublic sale in 2018.Jason Feifer
“Should You Compete With (and Potentially Kill) Your Own Business?,”
ntrepreneur, April 10, 2019.

TeePublic

Abramson launched TeePublic in March 2013 with the aim of creating a self-sustaining community of T-shirt designers and T-shirt lovers. The T-shirt designs are submitted by artists, designers, and celebrities, and are curated through crowdsourcing. In October 2018, TeePublic was acquired by

Redbubble Redbubble is a global online marketplace for print-on-demand products based on user-submitted artwork. The company was founded in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia,

, a global online marketplace based in Australia, for US$41 million. Victoria personal ''LAB'' teamwork with collaboration

Venture Capital Financing

Abramson has invested in several early-stage tech companies, including

BarkBox BarkBox is a monthly subscription service providing dog products, services, and experiences. BARK serves over 2 million dogs monthly through BarkBox and Super Chewer subscriptions and retail distribution. On December 17, 2020, Barkbox, Inc. and N ...

, a subscription e-commerce and content company for dog-lovers, AmberJack, a booking platform for fishing trips, ManagedByQ, an office management platform, and Shinesty, a retro clothing company, among others.Alyson Shontell
"BarkBox Raises $1.7 Million From Resolute.vc, Lerer, RRE And Others To Become The Ultimate Resource For Dogs,"
''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'', July 9, 2012.Jordan Crook
“Amberjack Reels In $500K To Let You Book A Fishing Trip,”

, April 6, 2015. In 2013 Abramson joined venture capital firm

FirstMark Capital FirstMark Capital is a venture capital firm based in New York City. FirstMark invests in early-stage technology companies, frequently as the first institutional investor. Notable investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Shopify, DraftKings, Upwork, ...

, the New York-based firm behind major companies like

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

and Shopify, in a venture partner role.Nicholas Carlson
“FirstMark Capital Just Hired The Star Entrepreneur Behind College Humor, Vimeo, and Busted Tees,”
''

'', September 7, 2013.

Personal life

Abramson grew up in Timonium,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, a suburb of

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. He and fellow CollegeHumor co-founder

were friends since the sixth grade and attended

Dulaney High School Dulaney High School is a secondary school in Timonium, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The school serves a generally upper-middle class suburban community, with students from Timonium and surrounding areas in Baltimore County. Dul ...

together.Warren St. John
“Sophomorically Incorrect,”
''

'', July 24, 2005.Chris Richards
CollegeHumor, Popular Comedy Web Site, Crosses Over to MTV,”
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', February 7, 2009. Abramson resides in New York City. In April 2010, he married Gabrielle Borden Finley. In 2022, he opened a wine bar in Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abramson, Josh 1981 births Living people Businesspeople from Maryland CollegeHumor people People from Baltimore County, Maryland University of Richmond alumni