Kessler Likens His New App to ‘Visual Twitter’

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The CEO of a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm with ties to the Mahoning Valley has launched a new social media app.  

The new app, MEL Talk, is essentially a “visual Twitter,” says Brian Kessler of SBL Venture Capital LLC.  The platform allows users to pose a question via video, and others to respond with their own video.

“It has an entirely different feel than Instagram, which is very mono-dimensional,” Kessler says.  “It’s much more interactive and personal.”

Kessler says it took about three years to perfect the new app, and he used students from Youngstown State University to help develop the product.  

“We launched it just this week,” he says.

The app can be downloaded through the Apple store, Kessler says. As of now, the platform is only available for apple devices.  Advertisements for the app are now on Facebook.

Kessler, whose company Riviera Creek Holdings LLC is the sole medical marijuana cultivator in the city, is originally from Boardman.  

“I’ve always been an inventor,” Kessler says.

To date, he’s invented and brought to market about 2,500 different products, he says.

Initially, the beta version of the platform boasted just “a couple hundred users,” Kessler says. The idea is to build a community that could attract hundreds of thousands of participants.

“It’s been really fascinating,” he says. 

Pictured: A screenshot of the MEL Talk app.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.