Center Consoles Only (CCO), a boating media brand that Alan Blanco built starting with a $7,000 Instagram account purchase in 2016, has grown into a multi-business operation spanning content, boat manufacturing, and marketplace software, according to a profile published by beehiiv’s “Creator Spotlight” newsletter. 

Slow Ventures’ Creator Fund invested $2.5 million in the company in April, backing its expansion into BoatsOnly.com, a marketplace aimed at boat dealers and OEMs.

Blanco, who had already built an aggregated-photo boating page called “Poop Deck,” purchased the @centerconsolesonly Instagram account from Ian Scott in 2016 when it had roughly 30,000 followers. He recouped half the purchase price almost immediately through a referral arrangement with Streamline Boats. The following year, he launched a subscription content model for manufacturers and dealers, charging $250 to $1,000 a month depending on posting frequency, according to the beehiiv account.

Brian Gonzalez, a developer, joined as a co-founder to build a website, and Eric Taggart, a film-school-trained videographer, came on to shoot video. Blanco left his father’s construction business to run CCO full-time in 2018. The company’s combined following across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok stands at 1.72 million.

CCO now operates several business lines beyond its media arm: Orion Boatworks, a boat manufacturer it has run as a subcontracted operation since 2022; Open Fisherman, a drop-shipping e-commerce business; and BoatsOnly.com, which launched at the end of 2025 and combines a social network, a free boat classifieds service, a creator marketplace for brands and a software suite for dealers.

Megan Lightcap, the Slow Ventures partner who led the investment, described CCO as an “opportunity creation machine” in an interview with beehiiv and said the fund looks for creators “so deeply passionate about this space” that they build unusual trust with their audiences, joking that such creators are “sort of cult leaders.” 

Lightcap discussed the fund’s broader thesis with Net Influencer last September, outlining four criteria it uses to evaluate creator investments: founder mindset, community quality, category potential, and demonstrated traction. That framework, first illustrated through the fund’s inaugural investment in woodworking creator Jonathan Katz-Moses, extends to CCO’s audience of boat buyers and sellers.

BoatsOnly.com is positioned as an alternative to Boats Group, the operator of Boat Trader and YachtWorld that sold in a reported $2 billion private-equity deal in late 2025. Boats Group has faced broker frustration over listing fees that an antitrust suit alleged had risen more than 400% over a decade, although the initial version of the complaint was later dismissed, according to the beehiiv report. CCO’s marketplace also includes a creator hub matching boat brands with vetted creators for paid content deals, with payments held in escrow until deliverables are approved.

Blanco said the marketplace ambition now exceeds what he originally envisioned when he started posting boat photos. “This really could be the savior for the marine industry,” he said.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast