# Brandon Kessler

> Brandon Kessler is the New York-based founder and CEO of Devpost, the hackathon platform launched as ChallengePost in 2009. He previously founded Messenger Records in his Columbia dorm room in 1996 and ran the independent label for 12 years. His career connects music promotion, online communities and software competitions, with an emphasis on helping creators build and share their work.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Devpost
- **Organizations:** Devpost, ChallengePost (former name of Devpost), Messenger Records
- **Education:** BA, Columbia College, Columbia University, MBA, Columbia Business School
- **Known for:** Founded Messenger Records as a Columbia undergraduate and operated it for 12 years., Founded the company that launched as ChallengePost in 2009 and became Devpost in 2015., Built a relationship with Steve Wozniak through music promotion; Wozniak became an adviser to ChallengePost.

## Career timeline

- **College years** — Worked in music-industry jobs and internships and promoted the Dave Matthews Band to radio and college audiences.
- **1996** — Founded Messenger Records in his Columbia dorm room; ran the independent label for 12 years.
- **1999** — Messenger and Seth Unger took the No One Gives a Damn About Your Band tour to college campuses to help independent musicians promote their work.
- **2006** — Encountered the Windows-on-a-Mac prize contest, an inspiration for his challenge-platform idea.
- **2007** — Completed his MBA at Columbia Business School.
- **2009** — Launched ChallengePost, a platform for public problem-solving competitions.
- **2010** — ChallengePost developed a dedicated government challenge platform; Kessler described a 60-day build.
- **2011** — ChallengePost raised a $4.1 million Series A led by Opus Capital.
- **2013** — Began focusing the company on software and technology competitions.
- **2015** — Renamed ChallengePost to Devpost; the platform included developer portfolios and a project feed.
- **2024** — Discussed Devpost for Teams and AI-focused hackathons on CRAFTED.
- **2026** — Publicly discussed internal AI learning and promoted Devpost learning hackathons and agent-based participation.

## Achievements

- Founded Messenger Records as a Columbia undergraduate and operated it for 12 years.
- Founded the company that launched as ChallengePost in 2009 and became Devpost in 2015.
- Built a relationship with Steve Wozniak through music promotion; Wozniak became an adviser to ChallengePost.
- Led ChallengePost through a $4.1 million Series A in 2011.
- Reported that Devpost powered 1,200 hackathons in 2023 in his July 2024 interview.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Announced the Devpost Hackathons Codex plugin alongside OpenAI Build Week, describing a workflow for discovering, building and submitting to hackathons from an agent.
- **2026-02** — Highlighted Devpost’s internal engineering learning hackathon, including structured LLM interactions and company-wide sharing of projects.
- **2024-07** — Appeared on CRAFTED with Dan Blumberg to discuss the music-to-software transition, AI and Devpost for Teams.

## Links

- Website: https://devpost.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kesslerbrandon
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/bkessler
- GitHub: https://github.com/bkessler

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/brandon-kessler
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-25