Groupon Final
Enviado por noelita_1991 • 19 de Diciembre de 2012 • 409 Palabras (2 Páginas) • 284 Visitas
I. Situation
Timeline
Groupon, a website offering deep discounts through mass purchase, evolved from
Founder and CEO Andrew Mason’s first website, “The Point,” which was launched in November
2007. Deploying a similar concept of group persuasion, The Point was about social action and
stressing the idea that “…every problem has a tipping point of public frustration that will force a
solution. If enough people want a problem to be solved, they will solve it.” (47) People were
asked to give money as a group once a ‘tipping point’ had been reached showing that they were
taking a stand. The Point failed to attract enough advertising revenues to stay in business, but it
reinforced for Mason and his investors how powerful group action can be. (47)
Andrew Mason and his team launched Groupon in November 2008 in Chicago to focus
on collective buying power. (18) They saw that by using the framework of The Point, they could
help other city-dwellers obtain affordable access to goods and services without overwhelming
them by the sheer number of choices. Groupon started out offering one deal per day. During
2009 and 2010, Groupon experienced rapid growth and was soon serving over 150 markets
domestically and over 100 additional markets internationally. (47) The seemingly overnight
success of Groupon drew attention from many different industries and those that wanted a piece
of the daily-discount-deal pie. During the same period of 2009-2010, Groupon saw several
competitors and copycat firms appear including LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, and the new “Deals”
section on Facebook. (47)
Groupon began to attract interest from investors and others in the business world. In
April 2010, Groupon together with Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm, raised
$135 million in new capital to help solidify “that social buying has rapidly matured into a real
business.” (47) Groupon used the new capital to acquire its German clone, CityDeal, which
doubled Groupon’s global reach. (47) By August 2010, Groupon was valued at $1.5 billion and
...