Ryan Spoon

SVP, Digital and Social Content, ESPN

Ryan Spoon is currently the Senior Vice President of Digital and Social Content at ESPN. He was previously named Senior Vice President of Product Development in July 2012. In this role, he is responsible for digital product development across all screens, including ESPN.com, ESPN Mobile, WatchESPN, ESPN3, Fantasy, and Social Media. Prior to ESPN, Spoon was a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners and specialized in early-stage consumer internet, social media and e-commerce investments. At Polaris, Spoon was a director or observer at companies like WordPress, ShoeDazzle, LOLapps, ReadyForZero, Wantful, Formspring, Offline Labs, and Movity (acquired by Trulia). Additionally, Spoon was responsible for leading Dogpatch Labs, an early-stage incubator that was home to companies like Instagram, TaskRabbit, TurnTable.fm, LOLapps, Recurly and Shareaholic. Previously, Spoon served as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development for Widgetbox (now Flite) – a platform for brands and publishers to create dynamic, shareable ad units. Prior to that, Spoon spent 2003-2007 at eBay Inc focused on internet marketing, user acquisition and social products – most recently, he launched and managed eBay’s US Classifieds business. As a collegiate swimmer for Duke University, Spoon founded beRecruited, an online recruiting platform for high school student-athletes and colleges coaches and universities. beRecruited was acquired in 2007 by RVS Ventures.

Articles by Ryan Spoon

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI Automation for Startup Operations

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations

In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...

New York Tech Week Mucker Sessions Recap

2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions

Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...

Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Alex Velinov

How to Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Tools with Alex Velinov

Delivering high-quality customer support can be one of the most resource-draining parts of a startup. The good news: we’re at a turning point where founders can use AI tools to...

Zero → 100: The Exact Steps We Took to Close Our First 100 Paying Customers

Zero → 100: The Exact Steps We Took to Close Our First 100 Paying Customers

Going from zero customers to 100 in just four months sounds impossible—unless you’re a founder willing to roll up your sleeves and hustle relentlessly. I’m Gaurav Bhattacharya, co-founder of Jeeva.ai,...

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