Everyday Health shelved its first attempt to go public in 2011 and came back three years later. By then it ran a network of health websites and apps for consumers and doctors. Readers came for advice on diet, illness and medicine. Pharmaceutical companies paid to reach them. The company also partnered with well-known names in health media. When it filed again in 2014, health information online was becoming big business.

It Started as Waterfront Media

Ben Wolin and Mike Keriakos founded the business in 2002 as Waterfront Media. Its early hits included online diet programs. Over time it bought and built sites into a large health network and renamed itself Everyday Health. The bet was that health content and tools could draw a big audience. Drug makers would then pay to reach both patients and doctors.

Two Years, Then j2

Everyday Health priced at $14 a share in March 2014. It added more services for doctors and grew revenue, but the stock stayed near its offering price. In 2016 j2 Global, now Ziff Davis, bought the company for about $465 million. Everyday Health became a core part of its digital media group. Its sites kept publishing under the Everyday Health name.

Cover: The Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a basket of apples (everyday health).