UCSB alum Spencer Frey has always wanted to run a business. As a kid, he opened a lemonade stand. When he got older, he mowed lawns for some extra cash. Later in life, he took on jobs like tutoring and swimming lessons. While seemingly trivial, each gig brought him one step closer to his goal.
Finally, in 2022, he and his business partner purchased SponsorPitch, a sponsorship sales platform that allows seamless connections between brands and sellers. In short, the platform provides data on thousands of brands so that sellers — anyone with an audience such as events, nonprofits, or sports teams — can browse a list of brands and discover who they want to work with. Similarly, brands can use the platform to assess the right sellers.
Frey works out of Santa Barbara, where he has lived for 11 years. The 31-year-old is originally from New Jersey, but when I asked him if he was from Santa Barbara, he laughed and said he “wished” he was. After graduating high school on the East Coast, he packed up his bags and drove across the country for a month, “kind of for the California dreaming,” he joked. While driving along the 101 freeway after visiting a friend in San Francisco, he “almost stumbled across Santa Barbara.” He said that he immediately fell in love with the city.