Ryan Spoon

President

2023 - Current

Partner

2014

SCN Ventures is a three-person partnership that invests directly in early and mid-stage technology companies and as a limited partner in venture capital firms. SCN focuses on investments in consumer, commerce, sports, and Web3. Examples of investments made either individually or through SCN include: • Companies: Hims & Hers Health ($HIMS), Athletic Brewing, ShopShops, Manscaped, Deblock, Avante Art, MyFitnessPal ($UAA) • Funds: NextPlay Capital, Social Leverage, Patron, Multicoin, Scribble Ventures, Dragonfly

Advisor

2022 - 2023

Chief Operating Officer

2021 - 2022

Sorare is the leading NFT-based sports game across global football, NBA and MLB. Joined as employee ~25 and hired to expand the business globally and open the US office (the team was previously all in Paris). The team grew from ~25 employees to ~200, split between Paris and NYC. As COO, was responsible for revenue, product, engineering, design, content, and customer support Launched the new Sorare App (March 2022), Sorare: NBA (July 2022), and Sorare: MLB games (Oct 2022)

Chief Operating Officer

2020 - 2021

BetMGM is the leading operator in US igaming and top-three in sportsbook. BetMGM is a private JV between MGM Resorts ($MGM) and Entain ($GMVHY). As COO, was responsible for all areas of operations: product, technology, design, customer support, payments, and fraud management.

Senior Vice President, Digital & Social

2018 - 2020

Responsible for ESPN’s extensive digital content and editorial efforts and for driving ESPN’s performance, engagement, and monetization both on and off-platform. Ryan and his team oversee the creation of content for ESPN digital and social channels and manage the execution of ESPN’s social strategy, content, and shows. ESPN'S digital properties are the world's leading and most successful online sports service - boasting the number one sports website and app, as well as the number one sports media publisher in social engagement across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snap.

Senior Vice President, Social Content & Digital Video

2017 - 2018

Senior Vice President, Digital Product, Design & Audience Development

2016 - 2017

Responsible for ESPN's digital experiences across web, mobile, OTT, fantasy/games, digital video, and social. In 2012, ESPN trailed Yahoo! in total reach and in fantasy players. ESPN Digital quickly became #1 in sports digital - and by a very wide margin. By October 2021, ESPN's digital audience had grown by over 400%, ESPN was #1 in usage (bigger than #2, #3 and #4 combined), #1 in mobile (2.5x bigger than #2 and accounted for nearly 50% of all mobile sports minutes), #1 in fantasy, and #1 across social (All category records). ESPN was recognized as Best in Digital Sports Media by Sports Business Journal in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2019

Senior Vice President, Digital Product & Design

2012 - 2016

Founder

2000 - 2012

As a varsity swimmer at Duke, I founded beRecruited as a freemium recruiting platform for high school athletes and collegiate coaches. beRecruited helped 2,000,000+ high school athletes connect with NCAA coaches and teams. beRecruited was acquired in 2012 by Raine Group as part of a high school sports rollup alongside NCSA College Recruiting.

Principal

2009 - 2012

Joined Polaris in 2009 to grow our early-stage practice and specialized in early-stage consumer, social media and e-commerce investments. Was involved as a board member or observer in: WordPress, Recurly (acquired by Accel-KKR), ShoeDazzle (JustFab), LOLapps (6waves), ReadyForZero (Avant), Wantful (Nordstrom), Offline Labs (Postmates), and Movity (Trulia) Led Dogpatch Labs, our early-stage incubator on Pier 38 in San Francisco. Dozens of companies made their home and launched in Dogpatch Labs, including: Instagram (acquired by Meta), Remind, TaskRabbit (Ikea), TurnTable.fm, LOLapps (6waves), Formspring, Rapportive (LinkedIn), AdRise (Tubi), Cardpool (BlackHawk), Movity (Trulia), Chartboost (Zynga), etc.

Co-Founder

2008 - 2009

InGameNow is a real-time social network aimed at connecting sports-fans around live games, favorite teams, and breaking news. Fans can interact with other users through the InGameNow live platform and receive real-time alerts through chat. messenger, and SMS bots.

Vice President, Marketing & Business Development

2007 - 2009

Reaching nearly 100M users and serving 1B impressions each month, Widgetbox was the leading platform for web publishers and marketers to create, share and distribute widgets. Widgetbox ultimately focused on customizable ad-products, rebranded as Flite, and was acquired by SNAP in 2016.

Founder

2007 - 2009

sfEntrepreneurs is a young entrepreneurs organization based in the San Francisco / Bay Area. Our members collectively invest in the organization, development, and operation of the businesses we choose to pursue. As an organization, we self-incubate, fund, and grow the team's ideas into businesses. And while the organization is a side project for all of our members, collectively we are able to achieve rapid innovation.