Showing posts with label Andrew Mason. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andrew Mason. Show all posts

Thursday, May 05, 2011

18 Months Ago GroupOn Did Not Exist

Groupon logo.Image via Wikipedia
Reuters: Grouponomics: 18 months ago, Groupon didn’t exist. Today, it has over 70 million users in 500-odd different markets, is making more than a billion dollars a year, has dozens if not hundreds of copycat rivals, and is said to be worth as much as $25 billion. What’s going on here? There’s obviously something clever and innovative behind Groupon — but what is it? ...... “Groupon doesn’t do anything that four of us with a phone couldn’t do” ...... the more people Groupon signs up, the more targeted its deals can be ...... the idea that coupons only become activated once a certain minimum number of people have signed up for them. This is essentially a guarantee for the merchant that the needle will be moved, that their effort won’t be wasted. With traditional advertising or even with old-fashioned coupons, a merchant never has any guarantee that they will be noticed or make any difference. But with a Groupon, you know that hundreds of people will be so enticed by your offer that they’re willing to pay real money to access it. That kind of guaranteed engagement is hugely valuable, and more or less unprecedented in the world of marketing and advertising. ....... one sector, which I think is Groupon’s biggest: restaurants. ....... Before Groupon came along, there was no effective way for merchants to reach consumers in their area, while excluding everybody else. If you’re a neighborhood restaurant, you don’t want to entice people who live miles away: you want to reach locals. And while Groupon isn’t quite there yet — especially in New York, where a restaurant more than a few blocks away can feel like a schlep — it’s orders of magnitude better at targeting than anything which came before it. And it’s improving every day. ........ one of life’s great mysteries is why the New York Times is spending tens of millions of dollars building and promoting its easily-circumventable paywall, when it could have built a first-rate Groupon clone instead. The NYT has the exact home addresses — and the associated email addresses — of hundreds of thousands of well-heeled newspaper subscribers in a rich city of tiny neighborhoods. It also has a sales force which talks to local businesses regularly. It should own this space in New York City, instead of ceding it to arrivistes from Chicago who have much less specificity as to where exactly their subscribers live ........ when a few hundred people have signed up for your deal, you get a huge amount of mindshare from them. Many will redeem the Groupon very quickly, but a lot of them will wait a while, thinking about you in the back of their minds all the time ....... Groupons provide an important nudge to jolt people out of their day-to-day habits and try something new ....... By forcing people to pay for their Groupon, restaurants lock in new customers in a way that old-fashioned coupons never could. ....... a Groupon is a commitment device ...... very good at driving traffic during slow periods ...... he timed its Groupon “to create a surge of business in an otherwise soft couple of months after the holidays.” ....... 66% of merchants offering a Groupon said that the offer was profitable for them in and of itself — not including any subsequent repeat business from new customers. ....... diners spending their Groupon at a restaurant averaged a check 80% greater than the face value of the Groupon itself. ...... if that Groupon helps you to discover a new neighborhood gem where you go on to become a regular, then that’s a genuine and highly valuable service that it has performed, no matter how much money you spend on your first visit. ....... social media is at heart a fantastic way for companies to compete on quality rather than marketing glitz. ........ the best way to get great word-of-mouth is to deliver fantastic service. For a small company or even a large company which is great at what it does and never does any marketing per se, social media is a godsend. ........ Groupon’s CEO, Andrew Mason, attributes his company’s success not to the genius of the idea itself, but rather to Groupon’s ability to execute — to keep both consumers and merchants happy. ...... more than 95% of merchants would run their deal again or recommend Groupon to a fellow merchant. ...... enormous amounts of effort into ongoing customer service, rather than just putting four sales guys in a room with a telephone and putting them on commission. ...... Groupon itself, as much as its merchants, is counting on repeat business. And that comes from having a positive reputation which can spread like wildfire over Facebook and other social networks.

Friday, April 15, 2011

GroupOn's Legacy: Cute Email?

Groupon logo.Image via Wikipedia
BusinessWeek: This Tech Bubble Is Different: Groupon, which e-mails coupons to people, may be the fastest-growing company of all time. Its revenue could hit $4 billion this year, up from $750 million last year, and the startup has reached a valuation of $25 billion. Its technological legacy is cute e-mail.
GroupOn is a great example of a company that has used fairly simple technology to build an amazing company. The wealth GroupOn has create is very legitimate.

And you thought the inbox had gone stale. For most people their inbox is still their most prized web possession.

But it's not even the inbox. GruopOn has hired thousands of salespeople. The action is not on the computer screen. It is offline. It is in face time.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Google, GroupOn: Integration Will Be Key

Marissa Mayer at LeWeb 2009 / Day 1Image by earcos via FlickrThis is not a merger, this is an acquisition, but it feels like a merger. Granted this is no AOL Time Warner - thank God - but it feels like a merger more so than the YouTube acquisition felt. The YouTube acquisition felt like an acquisition, a big acquisition but still an acquisition. This feels like a merger.

Google, GroupOn: Marissa Mayer's Stalking Of Andrew Mason

Marissa MayerImage by jdlasica via FlickrAndrew Mason first spotted Marissa Mayer at South By Southwest. He did not think much of it. He did not think someone like Marissa Mayer might actually know who he was. Only two years before he had been eating Ramen noodles. He could still feel the taste of Ramen in his mouth.

Google, GroupOn: Google Just Got Offline

Marissa MayerImage by ifindkarma via FlickrThis is Google getting offline. That is a big jump. I hear GroupOn has a salesforce. Google has not had that. This is Google now getting high touch. High tech is no longer enough. Online only is no longer enough.

Google went offline before it went into hardware. That's significant. A company like Google getting offline also shows how mainstream the web has become. The term In Real Life no longer applies. What do you mean in real life? The web is as real as it gets.

Local, social, mobile, global.

Google, GroupOn

Image representing Andrew Mason as depicted in...Image via CrunchBaseThis is great for Google. But was this great for GroupOn? Why did GroupOn not seek an IPO route? That is the question I find myself asking.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Model Job Offer Scam Threat



from Tammy Thomas tmiy12345@gmail.com
to Paramendra Bhagat
date Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 4:57 AM
subject Re: Model Job Offer!
Nov 19 (3 days ago)

You must be very foolish and stupid for you posting the info of the company at http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/11/model-job-offer-scam.html...