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How did a music major wind up founding the fastest growing start-up in history? In our very first Why Didn’t I Think of That? ® Podcast, Bob Smith and Greg Anastos look at the story of Andrew Mason and his tech start-up Groupon, an online daily deal service.
What they do:
A coupon business that brings groups of people together.
Inspiration:
When Andrew Mason developed a website that bring together groups of people for causes and fundraising, he quickly saw the potential of group power. One year later, he launched Groupon -- a Group Coupon Business.
About the business:
Groupon.com serves major city populations with daily bargains at unbeatable prices. If enough people sign up for a deal, discounts can range from 40 - 90%. Businesses win by getting traffic for goods or services, consumers get huge discounts, and Groupon gets a percentage of the sales. Now that they've gone public, Groupon is worth nearly $20 billion, just four years after launching.
Jake Zien was a 17 year old with a quirky idea for a flexible power strip. Ben Kaufman was a 19 year with a start-up and a vision of harnessing ideas just like Jake’s.
Now, thanks to Kaufman’s invention crowdsourcing site Quirky, Zien and other inventors like him are seeing their products go from sketchpad to store shelf faster than they can say “perpetual royalties.”
In the latest episode of the Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast, Bob Smith and Greg Anastos sit down with thinkofthat.net blogger Benjamin Christopher and discuss the first of their Axioms For Entrepreneurs, “Re-think Your Industry.”
The Why Guys explore how companies like Netflix, Apple, Xerox, and General Motors were able to look at their industries, and their companies, in a new light.
Amazon.com Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says that they’re “the only tech company with low margins.”
Low margins is an understatement. The company is losing money on every single Kindle Fire tablet they sell. But it’s all part of Jeff Bezos plan to conquer the Universe. He may or may not succeed, but one thing’s clear: With the Kindle Fire, he has single-handedly created a low-end tablet market where there was none, and for that reason alone, he’s about to change the tech industry forever.
The road to Groupon’s initial public offering has been long and tortuous. But it’s finally over. Sure, they’re still losing money and getting negative press. But now they’re also worth more than $15 billion dollars. In fact, it’s the biggest IPO by an Internet Company since Google went public in 2004.
The question now is: How long will the party last?
Since launching last year, Silicon Valley tech star-up Particle Code company has been the subject of much industry buzz. So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that this one year old company, itself the byproduct of an acquisition, was acquired by competitor Appcelerator, for an undisclosed sum earlier this week.
Lucky for us, Particle Code co-founder Galia Benartzi was kind enough to speak with Why Didn’t I Think of That® earlier this month about her company and the revolutionary technology behind it.
