Groupon's IPO made us chuckle
(CBS) - Hot startup Groupon,
the site that's given us much spending angst with their deadline-oriented discounts,
filed to raise up to $750 million on Thursday, Reuters
reported.
Right now, the service has 83.1 million subscribers and deals with 57,000 local merchants in 43 countries.
With a revenue of $713 million in 2010 (up $30 million from
2009), the site's daily deals often run from 50 to 70 percent. (Great bargains,
say subscribers.) It offers discounts on movies, travel tours, restaurants, even fire-dancing classes - and have succeeded in
getting visitors into doing so.
Now it's time to woo shareholders.
As Groupon goes public, we were delighted to see
not-so-corporate-y speak in founder Andrew
Mason's letter to potential investors. Some highlights:
"A year later, I started Groupon to get Eric [Lefkofsky, Mason's former employer and co-founder of The Point, a website he launched in 2007] to stop bugging me to find a business model."
"Life is too short to be a boring company."
"As with any business in a 30-month-old industry, the path to success will have twists and turns, moments of brilliance and other moments of sheer stupidity."
Then, a footnote at the end of the memo on, Grouspawn, a sweet arrangement Mason mentioned in the IPO. It's a foundation Groupon created that awards college scholarships to babies whose parents used a Groupon on their first date. So before you cringe at that guy you just met for using a coupon during your initial outing, think what this could do for your offspring should things work out.
