Founder & Managing Partner
Jan 2003-Jan 2014
Pittsburgh, PA
- Budgeting, Planning & Innovation: Founded and managed a DVD rental store with over 9,500 members and a staff of 2-6 employees, curated an eclectic inventory of more than 18,000 movies, and creatively maintained and operated a successful retail business within a 250-square-foot space inside a coffee shop.
- Project Management: Managed small team of external software developers and a designer for development of Pittsburgh’s only interactive video rental store website.
- Wrote HTML and most of CSS for website; and innovated basic web strategy using Agile software development methodology to implement custom, full-featured content management solution — which was coded in PHP, SQL, JavaScript and Perl — including real-time product availability status, member rental histories, ratings/reviews, automated new release RSS feed, user-generated wish lists, blog integration (WordPress), etc.
- Regularly communicated with user community to understand how members used our site; translated customer requests into formalized technical requirements, communicating to development team via Base Camp; participated in gap analysis to find solutions to fill voids, included exciting new functionality, and evaluated potential workarounds; and performed feature acceptance testing prior to deployment.
- Business Development & Marketing: Generated innovative local and national partnerships; grassroots marketing programs, video podcasts, and an amateur athletic club; and publicity campaigns, consistently earning us awards and media coverage.
- Pittsburgh Magazine Best of the ‘Burgh 2010, Pittsburgh City Paper “Best place to rent movies that isn’t the Internet” (2008); and Pittsburgh City Paper Best DVD/Video Rental Store (2004)

Related Articles
- “Internet movie sites expand on yesteryear’s fan magazines” (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Aug 22, 2004)
- “DVDs | A Little Off-Center” by Mike Shanley (The Pittsburgh Metropolitan, March 2006)
- “Business as Usual: Inspiring Political Thought, Fostering Community” by Bridget Colvin (New People, February 2006)
- “VanBuren: Celebrating the magic of the lost movie rental store” by Tom VanBuren (2008, Pitt News)
- “Police, investigating press release hoax, raid Bloomfield Avenue business” by Chris Potter (January 11, 2011, Pittsburgh City Paper)
- “Silk Scream Film Festival to bring new horrors” by Merritt Wuchina (October 23, 2011Pitt News)
- “The Last Waltz, or Requiem for a Dream” by Dean Brandt (3/26/2013)
- “Be Kind, Rewind” by Dave Haeselin (May 19, 2019, Public Books)




