It's a pleasure to see someone take the stand and go against the rash of blog posts and articles against Groupon.
The main point of this article is that Groupon has value in connecting the online and offline world. Even if people use Yelp to decide on a restaurant, or search Google to figure out where it is- those companies never get profits from that because the restaurant never knows what sent the customer.
Groupon is able to monetize the online to offline sale by clearly letting the business see that Groupon brought in a customer.
He also says that while the daily deal structure might be risky/dead they can easily pivot to other online to offline connections like instant deals to your phone while walking by a restaurant.
Personally, while I think that monetizing the online to offline transaction could be a huge business opportunity I don't know if I am willing to risk money on watching Groupon make the pivot. If daily deal as a model is crumbling (which many people have blogged about), then you are betting a whole lot that the database of merchants and customers can be leveraged in a new business model.
Yes, Groupon has potential value. My strong objection is to the fact that they are going public before proving that value. It used to be that you couldn't go public until you had at least 3 quarters of profitability. Sometimes our elders are indeed wise.
I don't think he implied that. And I agree with his sentiment - for those of us who haven't made up our minds on Groupon, it's nice to see a view from the other side.
The main point of this article is that Groupon has value in connecting the online and offline world. Even if people use Yelp to decide on a restaurant, or search Google to figure out where it is- those companies never get profits from that because the restaurant never knows what sent the customer.
Groupon is able to monetize the online to offline sale by clearly letting the business see that Groupon brought in a customer.
He also says that while the daily deal structure might be risky/dead they can easily pivot to other online to offline connections like instant deals to your phone while walking by a restaurant.
Personally, while I think that monetizing the online to offline transaction could be a huge business opportunity I don't know if I am willing to risk money on watching Groupon make the pivot. If daily deal as a model is crumbling (which many people have blogged about), then you are betting a whole lot that the database of merchants and customers can be leveraged in a new business model.