Quote

There are over 2,000 direct clones of the Groupon business model. However, there's an equal amount of proof that the barriers to success are enormous. In spite of all those competitors, only a handful are remotely relevant.

The popularity of Groupon has almost rendered the group-buying element of it obsolete, because we're able to deliver so many customers that the merchants are very happy with even the smallest number that we can provide.

Groupon is a great concept packaged in a superb name, but the concept of group discounts is not new.

Groupon's model: Getting the group discount rate first, finding the group second. The daily deal goes out and, if a minimum number of people sign up, they can all share in the group rate. Vendor gets customers, customers get a discount, Groupon gets a cut.

Groupon has some interesting assets.

A lot of what Groupon is generating is demand for something people didn't know they wanted.

Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.

Groupon, as you probably are by now aware, is exactly what it sounds like: a daily-deal site offering group discounts. Maybe you've seen that done before, but certainly not like Groupon, which has executed with an energetic sales force and engaging copywriters, many culled from the Chicago comedy scene.

If it's one thing we do really well as a company, it's that we take big change slowly and deliberately and bring the community along with us.

We're very much in the people business in that there are two important groups you have to work with: customers and employees.