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LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

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Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

#2

Post by ready_set_go »

If only they had beat Groupon to an IPO and been the ones to raise a warchest before the market realized these businesses were a terrible idea.

Once this funding runs out they will probably be a great bargain basement acquisition for a handful of companies.

I feel really bad for the hard working employees who were counting on the stock options =(

Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

#5

Post by tomasien »

I know some of Living Social's original investors, and I approached them for an investment in my startup about 8 months ago. Part of our pitch was that daily deals solve and amazingly valuable problem in an inherently not-valuable way, and although our system would take less of a straight line, it would and already WAS solving the problem for a small subset of businesses in a more valuable and vastly more sustainable way.

They ultimately passed on the investment, our last gasp to survive, because "Living Social was obviously their flagship, and they didn't want something who's core value proposition was that Living Social was doomed, which is obviously isn't." That's very close to a direct quote.

This doesn't make me happy. I hope Living Social figures it out. They realized Daily Deals were doomed even before Groupon did and tried to work out other revenue streams. I hope this report isn't even true. But God damned if I didn't tell'm so.

Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

#7

Post by signed0 »

ericz wrote: post #4

Can someone speak to the reliability of this site? Or provide a corroborating source?

The Washington Post & Reuters corroborate the statement that Living Social received $110 million in funding, though neither says anything about stock options.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/livingsocial-...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-livingsocial-id...

Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

#8

Post by rtfeldman »

tomasien wrote: post #5

I know some of Living Social's original investors, and I approached them for an investment in my startup about 8 months ago. Part of our pitch was that daily deals solve and amazingly valuable problem in an inherently not-valuable way, and although our system would take less of a straight line, it would and already WAS solving the problem for a small subset of businesses in a more valuable and vastly more sustainable…

Whether or not they privately thought you were right, openly betting against one's own companies is rarely a prudent move for any investor.

Re: LivingSocial: Employees' and Founders' Common Stock Now Worthless

#10

Post by timdorr »

tomasien wrote: post #5

I know some of Living Social's original investors, and I approached them for an investment in my startup about 8 months ago. Part of our pitch was that daily deals solve and amazingly valuable problem in an inherently not-valuable way, and although our system would take less of a straight line, it would and already WAS solving the problem for a small subset of businesses in a more valuable and vastly more sustainable…

Do you think Daily Deals are a fundamentally flawed concept?

I tend to think there's nothing wrong with them other than an over-saturation of the market and a prevailing attitude that says all you need is a sufficiently large mailing list to win. But that's just my outsider's view.

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