I assume you mean Groupon suckers people out of money, not Glassmap. As far as I can tell Glassmap never charged anyone anything, so either they're really good at suckering local businesses out of money, or they weren't doing so.
I also have some issues with Groupon's business practices (mainly, in that they have taken relatively unsophisticated small businesses for a ride at times, and the early cash-out by their finance guys was shady), but:
1) Glassmap looks like a mostly-tech/design team, and are good people. They're not going to be involved in anything shady, and are moral/ethical enough that they're exactly the kind of people you want to have working at a company like Groupon.
2) Groupon actually works great for certain kinds of businesses. For someone with high customer acquisition costs and good lifetime value, and low marginal cost, it's amazing. Like, "get one free laser hair removal session for $25", works great when you then sell the resulting 5 sessions at a "special discount of 25% if you pay after the first session". It's shitty for something like an airport restaurant, and in some cases those businesses stupidly went with the daily deals because they didn't think it through.
In a few years, I suspect the daily deals model will be evolved even more, and local/mobile will have a lot to do with that.
Groupon is actually a Big Thing. You might have heard about the economy having a downturn, and tons of young people being stranded without great careers?
Well it turns out Groupon allows them to live the lifestyle the media has led them to expect, and people across the country are buying Groupons on a daily basis.
Have you checked out the site recently? For a random trip to Groupon, I'm more likely to buy something than I am through Amazon's recommendation system. It's gone from a coupon a day gimmick to a remarkable candyland of consumption.
Remember how much you liked Woot? Groupon is a bit like woot on DMT. Except old people who type 'google' into their bing toolbars bring up what they bought on Groupon yesterday, when they've never heard of Woot.
Groupon has some of the highest customer service and business satisfaction ratings in the industry. (Apple has them beat though. So maybe they are crap. heh)
They have problems, thats for sure. And while they're profitable, they aren't 'magic' profitable. But I've managed to start letting go of the bitterness that came from the fact that I could have thought of the idea, and the fact that all it took was an idea 'anyone' could have had to launch the business (no genius technical skills or miracles of operations) and begun to embrace Groupon. Coupons to restaurants out of my price range have helped me seal the deal in two relationships so far. I've bought well-received presents for family and friends from their Goods program. I see they have a Point of Sale system that seems to be appearing in more and more businesses in my area. They have a square alternative. They have an unheard-of calendaring system that helps shitty non-tech businesses schedule appointments and incentivize slow periods , and it doesn't even have competition, period.
Yeah, they should have kissed ass on Hacker news a bit more. I don't think Mason even reads this site. But in the end, aren't we a bit of a circlejerk here?
No, Groupon is a very Real Thing. They have business relationships with every business in the country they're interested in. Their competitors are dying off. The cat has sprayed a Groupon logo on as many businesses as have a Twitter or Facebook sticker in their windows. And they're in an interesting phase now. Mason may be on the way out. The founding work may have been done. The product lines may be settled. "Real" management may be on it's way in, and they have a juicy company to cut fat from and pour resources into the right directions.
Yeah, it's really interesting what happens if you sell to a company which is having tough times in the stock market in a largely-stock deal. If you had something (either tech or a great team) who could help turn it around, you could have a lot of the upside of a successful startup, with less risk.
Turning Groupon around is probably easier than making an arbitrary startup successful, too.
I guess it depends on what kind of problems you like to solve. You could probably find a bunch of scale-related or efficiency problems at a lot of faltering larger companies during a turnaround, so if that's your thing, that might be better than overbuilding an earlier stage startup.
"No word on what the purchase price was, but this sounds like one of those fancy acquisition/hires that we talk about all of the time, mostly surrounding Facebook and Google. Is Groupon about to get more hip? We’ll find out."
Congrats to the team as Glassmap, and good on Groupon for going to get some talent from outside.
But I always hate when an announcement like this ends with "... and our service will be discontinued as of..." which means Groupon wasn't interested in the business so much as the talent.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 36.4 ms ] threadEdit: Hurts cause its true.
I also have some issues with Groupon's business practices (mainly, in that they have taken relatively unsophisticated small businesses for a ride at times, and the early cash-out by their finance guys was shady), but:
1) Glassmap looks like a mostly-tech/design team, and are good people. They're not going to be involved in anything shady, and are moral/ethical enough that they're exactly the kind of people you want to have working at a company like Groupon.
2) Groupon actually works great for certain kinds of businesses. For someone with high customer acquisition costs and good lifetime value, and low marginal cost, it's amazing. Like, "get one free laser hair removal session for $25", works great when you then sell the resulting 5 sessions at a "special discount of 25% if you pay after the first session". It's shitty for something like an airport restaurant, and in some cases those businesses stupidly went with the daily deals because they didn't think it through.
In a few years, I suspect the daily deals model will be evolved even more, and local/mobile will have a lot to do with that.
Well it turns out Groupon allows them to live the lifestyle the media has led them to expect, and people across the country are buying Groupons on a daily basis.
Have you checked out the site recently? For a random trip to Groupon, I'm more likely to buy something than I am through Amazon's recommendation system. It's gone from a coupon a day gimmick to a remarkable candyland of consumption.
Remember how much you liked Woot? Groupon is a bit like woot on DMT. Except old people who type 'google' into their bing toolbars bring up what they bought on Groupon yesterday, when they've never heard of Woot.
Groupon has some of the highest customer service and business satisfaction ratings in the industry. (Apple has them beat though. So maybe they are crap. heh)
They have problems, thats for sure. And while they're profitable, they aren't 'magic' profitable. But I've managed to start letting go of the bitterness that came from the fact that I could have thought of the idea, and the fact that all it took was an idea 'anyone' could have had to launch the business (no genius technical skills or miracles of operations) and begun to embrace Groupon. Coupons to restaurants out of my price range have helped me seal the deal in two relationships so far. I've bought well-received presents for family and friends from their Goods program. I see they have a Point of Sale system that seems to be appearing in more and more businesses in my area. They have a square alternative. They have an unheard-of calendaring system that helps shitty non-tech businesses schedule appointments and incentivize slow periods , and it doesn't even have competition, period.
Yeah, they should have kissed ass on Hacker news a bit more. I don't think Mason even reads this site. But in the end, aren't we a bit of a circlejerk here?
No, Groupon is a very Real Thing. They have business relationships with every business in the country they're interested in. Their competitors are dying off. The cat has sprayed a Groupon logo on as many businesses as have a Twitter or Facebook sticker in their windows. And they're in an interesting phase now. Mason may be on the way out. The founding work may have been done. The product lines may be settled. "Real" management may be on it's way in, and they have a juicy company to cut fat from and pour resources into the right directions.
I'd stake my etrade on it.
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/grpn/interactive-chart?timefram...
Turning Groupon around is probably easier than making an arbitrary startup successful, too.
I guess it depends on what kind of problems you like to solve. You could probably find a bunch of scale-related or efficiency problems at a lot of faltering larger companies during a turnaround, so if that's your thing, that might be better than overbuilding an earlier stage startup.
"No word on what the purchase price was, but this sounds like one of those fancy acquisition/hires that we talk about all of the time, mostly surrounding Facebook and Google. Is Groupon about to get more hip? We’ll find out."
But I always hate when an announcement like this ends with "... and our service will be discontinued as of..." which means Groupon wasn't interested in the business so much as the talent.