As I was traveling this past weekend I read an interesting article in United's in-flight magazine. Much of the content of the article was presented in class today, but not mentioned is how Groupon came to be. I think it's a pretty good story of entrepreneurship. Andrew Mason, the 30-year old CEO of Groupon, first created a site called The Point in 2007. The Point organizes people behind charitable causes, and once enough people have donated time or money to a project, it's undertaken. Unfortunate for charities, The Point has not been hugely successful, but Andrew Mason saw the potential market behind group purchasing...and so it he gave it a try with coupons and has become wildly successful.
There are other interesting details about the growth of the company. For example, Groupon is expected to be the only company to achieve $1 billion in sales within 2 years (priceline.com did it in 2.5 years).
Read the full article from Hemispheres Magazine at The-Tipping-Point
Interesting. I didn't know what the origins of Groupon were. It is kind of sad though that The Point didn't work out. It sounds like a good ideas as well.
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