Good.
Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
11–20 of 256 posts
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#12Will Groupon founder Brad Keywell's newer venture, Uptake, face a similar outcome? A recent Forbes article suggests he's better at starting a company than running it.
Is this it? Looks ridiculous.
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#13Interesting when taken in the context of yesterday's Unit Economics post. http://blog.samaltman.com/unit-economics I have never seen Silicon Valley so willing to invest in companies that have well-understood financials showing they will probably always lose money.
Groupon was a deliberately calculated scam once it started getting huge investment though. Investors are always willing to burn the long term (the public) if they can pop the short term (themselves).
[citation needed]
Seriously though, the Groupon deal wasn't always ideal for every company, but how do you justify calling it a "deliberately calculated scam?"
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#14Looks like businesses have collectively realised that groupon is a miserable deal and it's finally caught up with them, after having been running on fumes [1] for a couple years now. [1] http://blog.bodellconsulting.com/2013/03/01/groupon-a-bad-de...
Isn't this kind of thing beneficial if run with more reasonable margins and a subscription model for customers?
Basically, the customer subscribes to the service and gets discounted meals at the cost of not being able to choose the restaurant himself.
Restaurants can use the service whenever they expect to have empty tables, allowing to still profit for them, but with a reduced profit margin.
I'm not sure if it works for restaurants in particular, but it should work for businesses that cannot easily change supply levels, aren't selling something that is completely a commodity and ideally where varying suppliers is enjoyable for customers.
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#15Looks like businesses have collectively realised that groupon is a miserable deal and it's finally caught up with them, after having been running on fumes [1] for a couple years now. [1] http://blog.bodellconsulting.com/2013/03/01/groupon-a-bad-de...
Is it running on fumes? They still have significant revenues and loyal customers and a million sales people.
It's not running on fumes. It would have been more accurate to say that it is growing more slowly (and as of the last few quarters, has seen its growth flat-line).
2012: $2.33b in sales
2013: $2.57b in sales
2014: $3.19b in sales
Their biggest problem is the inability to achieve profitability on $3 billion in sales after so many years in business. They still have $1.1 billion in cash however, and have reduced their bleed rate to a benign level.
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#16I'll be honest, I know Groupon and its ilk are terrible business, but as a user of the service I've had lots of fun exploring activities and restaurants that I literally would never have bothered with or known about. In the last few weeks I've taken a Scuba lesson, a Horse Riding lesson, an intro to art class, found a couple new amazing sandwich shops. I took an amazing trip to Ireland for something like 50% off the lowest rate we could find, and it forced us to explore virtually the entire country since the package had us in different castles every couple nights. I've visited some oddball museums I hadn't bothered with before.
I would have probably not done almost any of these things, or been more judicious in what I went to. I've found some new things that I'll be returning to, and some things that I won't.
As a customer, these kinds of services are amazing. And really all they're doing is centralizing good deals. A less "grow fast and explode like a Unicorn" business model would probably make it work better for participating businesses.
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Groupon was a deliberately calculated scam once it started getting huge investment though. Investors are always willing to burn the long term (the public) if they can pop the short term (themselves).
[citation needed] Seriously though, the Groupon deal wasn't always ideal for every company, but how do you justify calling it a "deliberately calculated scam?"
things like http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2011/10/groupon-ipo-in... or http://www.thinktrade.net/ipo-fraud.php or http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-20/groupon-lo... or http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2012-04-04/groupon-ipo...
(edit: we're talking about groupon the corporate entity, not the product(s) they offer.)
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#18Interesting when taken in the context of yesterday's Unit Economics post. http://blog.samaltman.com/unit-economics I have never seen Silicon Valley so willing to invest in companies that have well-understood financials showing they will probably always lose money.
Groupon was a deliberately calculated scam once it started getting huge investment though. Investors are always willing to burn the long term (the public) if they can pop the short term (themselves).
If it was a scam they would have cashed out at the top.
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#19I'll be honest, I know Groupon and its ilk are terrible business, but as a user of the service I've had lots of fun exploring activities and restaurants that I literally would never have bothered with or known about. In the last few weeks I've taken a Scuba lesson, a Horse Riding lesson, an intro to art class, found a couple new amazing sandwich shops. I took an amazing trip to Ireland for something like 50% off the…
Lots of things might be great for consumers, but for businesses it just doesn't make sense. Besides what I've read, I've heard from business owners/clients who try "group" discount services, but walk away feeling that it did little to help their customer growth long term.
Would you be willing to pay more for those same experiences?
Re: Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
#20Have any of the groupon competitors reached critical mass? I realize that a large number of "me-too" competitors were started when Groupon exploded, but it seems to me a "groupon that doesn't suck" could be a pretty good business.