Seth Blank

Current

Founder and CEO at DBIX Corporation
President at Blank Slate Consulting, Inc.

Past

Director of Operations at Advomatic LLC
Adviser / Investor at Simpli Hosting, Inc www.simpli.biz
Operations Contractor at Self Employed

Interim Chief Operating Officer at InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc.
Chief Operating Officer at Simpli Hosting, Inc www.simpli.biz
Senior Systems Engineering Consultant at Simpli Hosting, Inc. www.simpli.biz
Vice President of Trading Systems at Visual Trading Systems, LLC
Chief Technology Officer at RocketReview Incorporated

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Education

University of Michigan
Stuyvesant High School

Recommended

29 people have recommended Seth

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Websites

Seth Blank’s Summary

I am a seasoned executive with over 8 years of hands-on experience building and growing successful companies.

At my core, I love running businesses and am passionate about leading teams to build profitable and scalable solutions to complex problems.

My experience has been with startups in many fields: education, finance, technology, and web 2.0, to name a few.

When not serving in a general management capacity, I have primarily served as an executive overseeing IT Operations or business development focused on architecting distributed 24/7 high transaction environments with 100% customer-facing uptime.

In addition to advisory roles, I have also been called into several companies (generally former clients) as a fire-fighter to deal with technical, legal, vendor, and client issues.

If you need help growing your business or thinking through your IT strategy, contact me!

Seth Blank’s Specialties:

Business management, IT Operations, business development, branding, vendor negotiations, purchasing, team building, problem solving, hiring and training staff, defining goals priorities and process, project planning, project management, scalability planning, datacenter architecture, software architecture, customer communications and retention.

Seth Blank’s Experience

Founder and CEO

DBIX Corporation

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

November 2007 — Present (2 years 1 month)

Co-founder and CEO of DBIX Corporation. We are in the prototype development and seed funding stages of enterprise grade database technologies for manipulating, rearranging, and auditing vast quantities of quickly changing data.
President

Blank Slate Consulting, Inc.

(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)

July 2007 — Present (2 years 5 months)

Blank Slate Consulting Inc., specializes in helping startups scale both from business and technology viewpoints.

BSCI's mission is to help its clients dramatically improve their bottom lines by improving operations and customer experience, scaling infrastructures, aligning job roles and responsibilities, and creating new products and services from existing systems.

Key accomplishments for our clients include:
• Bolstered revenue by leveraging existing infrastructures to offer new services
• Increased personnel efficiencies by reorganizing personnel and job responsibilities, hiring and training new staff
• Streamlined operations by re-architecting systems infrastructures and automating tasks

Current and former clients include:
• PastFuture Inc. (gdgt.com)
• Werkadoo
• Justin.tv
• Wotan, LLC
• Advomatic LLC
• Several stealth mode startups
Director of Operations

Advomatic LLC

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

July 2007 — November 2007 (5 months)

Advomatic (www.advomatic.com) is a partnership run by Aaron Welch and Adam Mordecai. Advomatic primarily develops websites for non-profit and politically oriented advocacy groups.

Aaron Welch (founding partner and COO) took a leave of absence from Advomatic to take the role of Internet Technology Director for the Chris Dodd for President campaign; Aaron personally asked me to come aboard with the mission of ensuring the quality all current services and growing Advomatic's Hosting operations.

Some past and current recent clients are:
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Living Liberally
• YearlyKos Convention
• TPM Cafe
• airamericaradio.com
• democrats.com
• personaldemocracy.com
• techpresident.com

I still retain a relationship with Advomatic and help out on an as-needed basis with existing and new clients, services, and projects.
Adviser / Investor

Simpli Hosting, Inc www.simpli.biz

(Internet industry)

February 2007 — November 2007 (10 months)

Simpli Hosting Inc. one of the leading colocated and dedicated server providers in the Bay Area, was acquired by Silicon Valley Web Hosting in September 2007, although I remained an adviser through November.

I worked with Simpli on an advisory basis after I left as COO through Simpli's sale in Q4 2007.
Operations Contractor

Self Employed

(Internet industry)

March 2007 — July 2007 (5 months)

As a self-employed Operations Contractor I have had the pleasure of working with several leading internet based companies providing varying levels of support and advice, from business development to hiring and training staff to systems architecture and administration help.

Current clients include:
• Wotan, LLC (http://www.wotanllc.com/ http://www.kayuda.com/)
• Justin.tv (http://www.justin.tv/)
• Several stealth mode startups
• Several hosting companies
• Previous employers
Interim Chief Operating Officer

InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc.

(Internet industry)

April 2007 — May 2007 (2 months)

InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc. is a hosting and bandwidth services provider with several datacenter locations through the United States as well as a limited international presence.

This was a 6 week contract as an Interim Executive tasked with:

• Increased personnel efficiencies by reorganizing personnel and job responsibilities, hiring and training new staff
• Verifying, modifying, and creating operational procedures as needed to reinforce these new positions and to fill lack of prior policy
• Reviewing current business practices and recommending modifications as needed
Chief Operating Officer

Simpli Hosting, Inc www.simpli.biz

(Internet industry)

May 2006 — February 2007 (10 months)

Simpli Hosting Inc. one of the leading colocated and dedicated server providers in the Bay Area, was acquired by Silicon Valley Web Hosting in September 2007.

• Expanded business with large clients through new service offerings and infrastructure upgrades
• Dramatically decreased customer complaints and system outages by hiring and training new staff
• Reduced costs and support overhead by selling shared hosting and renegotiating vendor contracts
Senior Systems Engineering Consultant

Simpli Hosting, Inc. www.simpli.biz

(Internet industry)

November 2005 — April 2006 (6 months)

Simpli Hosting Inc. one of the leading colocated and dedicated server providers in the Bay Area, was acquired by Silicon Valley Web Hosting in September 2007.

• Advised on datacenter migration and complex systems issues
• Set up special offerings for new clients
• Aided in emergency situations
Vice President of Trading Systems

Visual Trading Systems, LLC

(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)

October 2003 — February 2006 (2 years 5 months)

Visual Trading Systems, LLC is the IT Services provider of Capital Market Services, LLC, one of the foremost Foreign Exchange Brokerages in the world.

• Increased operational efficiencies and dramatically reduced system failures by architecting fully redundant datacenters, migrating 100+ servers, and setting up a NOC for monitoring and support
• Improved systems scalability, availability, and security by leading team of driven operations professionals and contractors
• Boosted client acquisition by 40% as a result of system stability improvements
• Saved over $600,000 through vendor negotiations and staff role restructuring
Chief Technology Officer

RocketReview Incorporated

(Information Technology and Services industry)

2000 — 2004 (4 years )

RocketReview Incorporated, founded by the co-founder of the Princeton Review, is an SAT preparation company which offers automated essay grading and test preparation books.

• Established company’s technical presence by overseeing the patent process and digital media creation
• Programmed first version of RocketReview’s flagship essay grading software
• Grew business by working with vendors and clients, improving software, and negotiating with strategic partners

Seth Blank’s Education

University of Michigan

Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics 2000 — 2002
Stuyvesant High School

Mathematics, Computer Science, English 1996 — 2000

Recipient of Gold Medal in Computer Science, highest honors in the department.

Activities and Societies:

Captain, Computer Science Team