Emerson Spartz Explained

Emerson Spartz
Birth Date:1987 2, mf=yes
Birth Place:LaPorte, Indiana, U.S.
Nationality:American
Parents:Tom and Maggi Spartz
Occupation:Founder of Dose
Known For:MuggleNet, OMG Facts, GivesMeHope

Emerson James Spartz (born February 17, 1987) is the founder of the viral media company Dose and the founder of MuggleNet, a Harry Potter fansite.

Early life

Spartz was born in La Porte, Indiana to Tom and Maggi Spartz.[1] [2] He is the oldest of three brothers.[2] At the age of twelve, Spartz convinced his parents to allow him to drop out of school and homeschool himself. He developed his own curriculum,[3] which his parents supplemented by requiring him to read four single-page biographies of successful people every day, which were collected from the pages of Investor's Business Daily.[2] Spartz has subsequently attributed some of his entrepreneurial success to reading these short biographies.[2] [4] [5]

Career

MuggleNet

Using the WYSIWYG site-building tool Homestead, Spartz founded MuggleNet, a Harry Potter news website and forum, in 1999, at the age of twelve.[2] [6] In fall 2006, while a junior at Notre Dame, Emerson co-authored a book, MuggleNet.com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7, which speculated on plot elements of the final Harry Potter book to be released in July 2007.[7] The book remained on the New York Times Children's Bestseller List for six months, peaking in the number two position and selling 350,000 copies.[8] [9] In June 2007, Spartz went on a tour with Ben Schoen, another MuggleNet staff member, to promote their work.[10]

In 2009, Emerson Spartz and Ben Schoen wrote another book, MuggleNet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died: Controversial Views From The #1 Fan Site.[11]

By 2007, Spartz was receiving a six-figure income for running MuggleNet and had recruited six paid and 120 volunteer staff to the site.[6] [12] [13] [14] In 2015, he stated, "As I became less motivated by my passion for the books, I got obsessed with the entrepreneurial side of [MuggleNet], the game of maximizing patterns and seeing how big my reach could get."[2] Spartz sold MuggleNet and severed his relationship with the magical brand soon after. MuggleNet became an independent brand in 2020. They work closely with their business partner, Topix Media.[15]

Dose

In 2009, Spartz launched Spartz Media, now called Dose, a company that originally crowdsourced viral web content across thirty websites.[1] [2] In May 2009, Spartz and Gaby Montero founded GivesMeHope, a website where contributors share answers to the question "what gives you hope?" in the form of anonymous anecdotes.[16] [17] The site was created in response to FMyLife.[18]

In January 2010, Spartz launched OMG Facts.[19] In 2012, OMGFacts.com received 30 million monthly page views,[3] and had 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.[20]

Spartz has launched at least thirty websites under the Spartz Media brand, all of which primarily rely on social media sites for web traffic.[2] Because these sites have increasingly operated by republishing previously developed viral content, Spartz's content strategy has been characterized as arbitrage and has been criticized for failing to license or provide attribution for copyrighted media.[2] [21]

In 2014, the company launched Dose.com. In 2015, the company changed its name to Dose and raised $25 million in venture financing, bringing its total capital raised to $34.5 million.[22] [23]

In 2016 Spartz was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.[24]

Personal life

Spartz graduated in May 2009 from the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.[25] Emerson has stated that he read one book of nonfiction per day during college.[4]

Spartz married Gaby Spartz (née Montero), his college girlfriend, in 2011.[26] They divorced in 2017.[27]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Moore. Ann. From Muggle to Media Mogul by Age 25. 21 April 2012 . Crain's. 23 April 2012.
  2. Marantz . Andrew . The Virologist . . 5 January 2015 . 17 February 2015.
  3. Web site: Gilbert. Trevor. How a Self-Taught 12-Year-Old Turned Spartz Media into a Viral Media Titan. 16 July 2012. PandoDaily. 16 July 2012. 18 July 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120718191244/http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/16/how-a-self-taught-12-year-old-turned-spartz-media-into-a-viral-media-titan/. dead.
  4. News: Harris . Melissa . Emerson Spartz talks (quickly) about creating a life without distractions . 21 October 2014 . . 17 February 2014.
  5. Web site: Fussman . Cal . What I've Learned: Viral Wizard Emerson Spartz . 6 August 2014 . Esquire.com . 17 February 2015.
  6. News: Vittor . Josh . 22 June 2007 . Wild About Harry . Bloomberg.com . 17 February 2015.
  7. News: Siegal . Lee . Children's Books . 11 February 2007 . New York Times . 17 February 2015.
  8. News: Raine . George . Potter spin-off a hit for tiny Berkeley publisher . San Francisco Chronicle . 7 July 2007 . 17 February 2015.
  9. News: Buckley . Madeline . ND Junior Writes Bestselling Harry Potter Book . 2 October 2007 . 17 February 2015.
  10. Web site: The Planet Provides Web Hosting for Harry Potter Site . 2 July 2007 . 17 February 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150217001704/http://www.tophosts.com/the-planet-provides-web-hosting-for-harry-potter-site . 17 February 2015 . dead .
  11. Web site: Creator of Most Popular Harry Potter Fan Site Speaks at Fordham University. Aug 10, 2020.
  12. News: Brady . Diane . The Twisted Economics of Harry Potter . 1 July 2007 . Bloomberg.com . 17 February 2015.
  13. Teigen . Megan . Mugglenet founder chooses Notre Dame over Hogwarts . Notre Dame Magazine . Autumn 2005 . 17 February 2015.
  14. Web site: Chapla . Shannon . Senior "Web wizard" takes Harry Potter to the Middle East . 22 July 2008 . 17 February 2015.
  15. Web site: We're Back!. Aug 10, 2020. www.facebook.com.
  16. Web site: Spartz . Emerson . Montero . Gaby . GivesMeHope . About GMH . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110816082809/http://www.givesmehope.com/aboutus . 2011-08-16 .
  17. Web site: Anjarwalla . Tas . 8 feel-good websites to brighten your day . CNN . 2 Aug 2010 . 17 February 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120809143212/http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-02/tech/8.sites.brighten.day_1_uplifting-stories-sites-happy-news?_s=PM%3ATECH . 9 August 2012 .
  18. Web site: Sullivan . Matt . Esquire . GivesMeHope.com: When Bankruptcy, Plane Crashes, and Mondays Get You Down . 1 June 2009 . 17 February 2015.
  19. Web site: Jahn . Tim . 10 June 2011 . From Interviewing JK Rowling To Inspiring Millions Every Month – with Emerson Spartz . Entrepreneurs Unpluggd . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110925102337/http://www.entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/emerson-spartz-interview . 25 September 2011 .
  20. News: Frobes. Marissa. The Observer. The Observer. 15 September 2011. 17 February 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20120817045525/http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/scene/mugglenet-founder-and-09-nd-alum-spartz-creates-online-media-corporation-1.2591232#.UDqw8kTXF0E. 2012-08-17. dead.
  21. Web site: Ingram . Matthew . When content becomes a virus, the viral scientists ultimately win . Gigaom . 30 December 2014 . 17 February 2015 . 8 August 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180808233853/https://gigaom.com/2014/12/30/when-content-becomes-a-virus-the-viral-scientists-ultimately-win/?%23038; . dead .
  22. Inverso, Emily, "Under 30 Emerson Spartz On The Trick To Tackling Viral Content", Forbes, 1/7/2016
  23. Pletz, John, "Emerson Spartz raises $25 million from Tribune Media", Crain's Chicago Business, 12/09/2015
  24. Web site: 30 Under 30 2016: Media. Forbes. en. 2020-03-26.
  25. Web site: Emerson 2.0. Johnson. Nancy. Notre Dame Business Magazine. Mendoza College of Business. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20130415231041/http://bizmagazine.nd.edu/article/3/emerson-2-0/. 15 April 2013. 16 November 2013.
  26. Web site: MuggleNet's Emerson and Gaby tie the knot!. Sep 3, 2011. Aug 10, 2020.
  27. https://courtlink.lexisnexis.com/cookcounty/FindDock.aspx?DocketKey=CABHDAABGIG0DR

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