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COMPANY PROFILE ............................................................... 4

Leadership Team .............................................................................4 Company Overview ..........................................................................5 Fast Facts ........................................................................................5 History and Development .................................................................5 Industry ............................................................................................7 Competitive Environment .................................................................7 Product ............................................................................................8 Sales and Marketing ........................................................................9 Business Activities ...........................................................................9

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Company Profile Company Name: Spoon University

Location: New York, NY

Founded: 2013

Website: www.spoonuniversity.com

Holding Type: Acquired by Scripps Media in 2017

Company Size: NA

Estimated Valuation: NA Industry: Lifestyle, TV

Leadership Team

Mackenzie Barth CEO, Co-founder

Sarah Adler CTO, Co-founder

In her role as CEO, Mackenzie Barth works the front end of Spoon, utilizing her combined background in communication, marketing, and psychology from Northwestern University as well as her experience in public relations and audience research.

Sarah Adler takes the lead on technology from the Spoon site to the training and analytics tools used for internal operations and connecting with Spoon’s vast contributor network. She gained experience in design and worked to integrate journalism and technology while attending Northwestern.

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Company Overview Spoon University manages a foodie digital media blog network made for millennials by millennials. Co-founded at Northwestern University as a student club producing a local foodie magazine, it has grown into chapters at 450+ college campuses, all led by students. The students contribute articles with support and training from Spoon University headquarters, which has grown to a staff of around two dozen, including editors, video production specialists, community managers, and tech developers.

Spoon University is on a mission to make food make sense.

Spoon’s mission to simplify food for young adults resulted in a cult-like fan following. Spoon has transcended the digital experience with events and dining/cooking activities on campus. Spoon University relies heavily on social media to get articles shared virally and to grow readership and develop an editorial leadership training program called “Secret Sauce” to manage their 5,000+ contributors, optimize the content produced, and build loyalty from the inside. With a highly engaged, loyal, large, and growing readership base, the company has strong potential for monetization through sponsored content to promote food brands to millennials.

Fast Facts • Graduated from TechStars’ 2015 four-month-long accelerator program with $3 million in

first-round seed funding and a network of mentors

• Operates out of a New York City headquarters with a core staff of 24 across five departments: Community, Editorial, Marketing and Social Media, Video, and Sales

• Publishes 75+ articles a day across all chapters

• Onboards all contributors with a program intended to refine skills and facilitate career development

History and Development Spoon University cofounders Mackenzie Barth (not a foodie) and Sarah Adler (total foodie) started the company as undergraduates at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 2012. After moving to an off-campus apartment, Barth and Adler were faced with meeting their own food needs, day in and day out, for the first time in their lives. While there were already many food media outlets, none targeted college students—who are uniquely lacking in time, experience, and resources.

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“Spoon University…is the everyday food resource for our generation, on a mission to make food make sense. On our site, you can find the simplest recipes, the most obvious hack you can’t believe you didn’t know, and the best restaurants around campus that you haven’t found yet.” Sarah Adler, CTO & Co-founder, Spoon University

Knowing that they couldn’t be the only students struggling with this issue, Barth and Adler started a campus-wide publication that gave their peers a place to come together to explore food in a community and learn from each other. In the fall of 2012, they recruited a team of about one hundred fellow students who took on roles as writers, photographers, videographers, editors, and marketing specialists to produce and promote the magazine around Northwestern. Soon, Barth and Adler were receiving requests from students at other colleges to help them establish a Spoon chapter at their school. By their senior year in spring of 2013, Spoon University had successfully launched at three other universities in the U.S.

Exhibit 1: American University’s Chapter Website Source: SpoonUniversity.com

The Spoon University cofounders spent the summer after graduating from college testing their business model, building an online platform, and generating interest at other schools. By that fall, Spoon University had established headquarters in New York City, officially launched their site, and continued establishing chapters nationwide.

As Spoon University wrapped up their first year, the community had grown to thirty chapters around the globe. In January 2015, they announced their acceptance into Tech Stars New

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York, one of the top accelerator programs for startups in the country. By the end of the four- month-long program, Spoon University had developed a network of mentors, validated the company’s concept, and begun their seed funding, which would amount to nearly $3 million by the end of the round.

Industry Since the opening of Whole Foods a generation ago—taking organic, fair trade, and sustainable produce mainstream—a growing awareness and appreciation of food has revolutionized the industry. Food is increasingly being seen not just as a source of nutrition, but also as a way to improve health and impact the world. Fresh, locally grown food is now a multibillion-dollar industry. Although it might seem like Spoon University is a publication company, its revenue is generated through leveraging a reader’s data and selling it. The increasing digitalization of our world has and continues to fundamentally change the consumer landscape. This created a struggle for companies to connect to millennials and generation Xers in a way that they find meaningful and effective. Big Data is one of the newer industry segments, experiencing incredible growth for the value it could provide for companies facing these issues—companies that want to develop a better understanding of today’s consumers.

Competitive Environment With the intersection of increasing food obsession nationwide and the rise of personal blogs and user-generated content, Spoon University is up against a variety of media sources barraging consumers with food articles, blog posts, how-to videos, and photos on every social media platform. While more traditional food media outlets, such as the Food Network, Epicurious, and AllRecipes, have their place as industry models, millennial-centric platforms like Buzzfeed, Food52, and InsiderFood are targeting on-the-go students and young professionals alongside Spoon. Food Network Food Network is a “lifestyle network, website, and magazine that connects viewers to the power and joy of food.”1 Since launching as a cable TV network in 1993, Food Network has become one of the food and lifestyle industries’ biggest names. While the television channel still lands in the top twenty most watched networks in the U.S.2, their magazine and online blog have helped the company take hold as an industry model for popular and trusted food brands.3 Food Network maintains their success by distributing through more traditional media channels. The network is available in over 100 million households in the United States and in more than 150 countries globally.4 Their website averages nearly 10 million unique monthly visitors, while Food Network Magazine has 1.4 million annual subscribers.5

1 About FoodNetwork.com. 2016. www.foodnetwork.com 2 Michael Schneider. Most Watched Television Networks: Ranking 2015’s Winners and Losers. December 28, 2015. tvinsider.com 3 Business Wire. Food Network Burns the Competition in the Race for Food Fan Loyalty. May 19, 2016. www.businesswire.com 4 About FoodNetwork.com. 2016. www.foodnetwork.com 5 About FoodNetwork.com. 2016. www.foodnetwork.com

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Since 2011, overall millennial TV viewership has dropped 38%, demonstrating that this demographic has largely turned off the television to stream through alternative outlets and spend their time elsewhere.6 Against these odds, however, Food Network has remained one of the few networks to increase their millennial audience in the last five years. While the number of millennials watching the Food Network remains relatively small, the growth trend demonstrates that the company is providing content this young generation increasingly demands. Buzzfeed Targeting a similar demographic to Spoon, Buzzfeed produces editorials and recipes through Buzzfeed Food, as well as how-to videos through Tasty. In February 2016, Buzzfeed—as well as its two food media subsidiaries—all ranked in the top ten media companies of the month. Tasty, Buzzfeed’s user-generated blog that most closely competes with Spoon, ranked number two on the list, only behind National Geographic. In terms of the number of fans and followers, Tasty had over twenty million more followers than the next highest fan base on the list, which happened to be Buzzfeed itself. Furthermore, the engagement for Buzzfeed Food, which ranked fifth on the list, had increased by 50% since the previous month. While this jump is likely due to greater usage of videos across social media platforms, particularly Facebook, these high engagement numbers with Tasty and Buzzfeed Food demonstrate the growing engagement with food media.

Product Spoon University Spoon University is an online community of crowdsourced food tips, blog posts, healthy recipes, local menus, and how-to’s. With a presence in over 250 chapters across U.S. college campuses, each chapter is a unique organization that caters to a specific campus, but all of them work closely with the New York City headquarters. Spoon University contributors go through an onboarding process and receive training on how to write headlines, use Facebook to promote their content, and manage analytics tools to see how well their contributions are performing. Typically, chapters are headed by two or three student managers. These volunteer chapter executives generally take on the roles of Editorial Director, Community Manager, and Social Media Manager, mirroring the makeup of Spoon’s HQ organization. Several Spoon chapters also have a videographer that produces original video content. In addition to onboarding, the New York HQ team starts their mornings with a content brainstorming session. They assist chapter contributors by providing leadership guidance, organizational structure and change management, training, and ideation for new articles and editorial review before publishing. The HQ editorial managers oversee the chapter contributors’ content creation process through several stages of editorial review and feedback before ultimately publishing. This structure is designed to support Spoon’s high-volume, rapid turnaround process to publish 75+ articles per day across all chapters. Spoon City

6 Traditional TV Viewing: What a Difference 5 Years Makes. July 5, 2016. www.marketingcharts.com

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Even after graduating and settling into a full-time job, Spoon’s college chapter alumni want to continue sharing their passion for food and engaging with others with the same interest. Realizing that desire, Spoon created Spoon City for college graduates and young people. Similar to Spoon University, Spoon City is a community of food lovers in cities across the globe who come together to eat, cook, photograph, Instagram, and explore.

Sales and Marketing The Internet has dramatically impacted the journalism industry by increasing publishers’ competition for both readership and advertisers. For example, the print-centric cost structure of many newspapers is apparently obsolete, as new online-only publications built for internet economics are capitalizing on these asymmetries. This further emphasizes the importance of marketing for companies like Spoon. While many peer companies may be providing compelling content around food, Spoon attempts to set itself apart by utilizing its vast contributor network of 5,000+ loyal, highly engaged college students. Spoon’s model of “For millennials, by millennials” allows them to better connect to their consumer base since their product is created by people of similar demographics and interests. Another reason for Spoon’s success is that contributors see it as an educational platform to develop their skills in preparation for the job market. While a passion for food may have brought students to their site, the chance to refine their skills, network, and gain exposure as writers, editors, photographers, videographers, and marketers is what encouraged them to work as productive contributors. Additionally, students are incentivized to start chapters where there aren’t any, because many value entrepreneurial and professional development aspects that go into establishing a Spoon chapter.

Business Activities In 2017, Scripps—owner of Food Network cable channel—acquired Spoon University. While the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, the plan was for the Spoon team to continue their daily activities, existing as a separate division and reporting to the head of Scripps Lifestyle Studios. This acquisition is seen as a strategic repositioning of Scripps, as it strives to reach younger audiences and strengthen their online presence. “Spoon University captures the grassroots passion for food and community that is so important to millennials today,” Kathleen Finch, chief programming, content, and brand officer at Scripps Networks Interactive said. “Food Network has become a significant force n digital and social food storytelling over the course of the last year, and this acquisition will provide us with the opportunity to build content, community, and brand as we seek to accelerate our strategy in the sector.”7

7 Food Network Owner Acquires Millennial Food Hub Spoon University. May 4, 2017. www.thedailymeal.com