Photo taken by Chris Buck
By Brad Stone and Douglas MacMillan(Corrects spelling of SCVNGR).
A cold morning in Chicago in early March, Andrew Mason was on a corner of the Street outside the offices of his company to reveal his ambitious plot to eradicate this age-old human puzzle: where to eat at noon.
Mason is 30 - year - old chief executive officer of digital couponing Comet called Groupon, rejecting of Google, start blow of Super Bowl that sends emails from day deal to more than 70 million subscribers around the world. He is dressed in a heavy winter coat, a green jacket lime track embroidered with the logo together, sneakers and Red Christmas garish socks. ("Only own socks I could find," he said.) Taking the iPhone before him like a Tricorder, it connects on the new service, now called Groupon and shows two simple buttons that have the potential to transform the habits of the noon of mankind but also alter the topography of the market of billions of dollars for local trade.
The two buttons: "I am hungry" and "" I am tired.""
It is only at 11 h. Mason, click on the button "hungry", and his phone transmits its location to Groupon servers and then displays a list of transactions for restaurants nearby. Across a bridge that spans the Chicago River, the Asian fusion restaurant Thalia Spice now tests Groupon offering $20 food for $12. A block to the North, a restaurant named @ Spot coffee is hanging of a coupon for $10 to $6. Each restaurant stated that his discount is good only during business hours select this this particular day, when some of their tables would be otherwise empty.
And that, Mason stated that he draws his phone and buys $ 8 savings of Thalia Spice could consolidate on a combination of Yellow Pages, package of coupon Valpak and janitor for millions of consumers price-sensitive. "People may well eventually led to eat by what they find on Groupon and when they are," he beams.
Andrew Mason commands much attention these days. In little more than two years, keyboardist in former rock group was able to build what could be the company the fastest-growing of all time. Yes, you read that right. Business deal-of-the-day of GroupOn is set to generate $ 3 billion to $ 4 billion in revenue this year, up to 750 million dollars in 2010, according to two people familiar with the finances of the upstart. Together on a valued at 1.4 billion dollars in April, requested funding an evaluation of 3 billion dollars in November and snubbed an offer of 6 billions of dollars of Google (GOOG) two months later. The company met with bankers to discuss a potential initial public offering that it would evaluate to up to $ 25 billion, Bloomberg Businessweek has learned from two sources close to the negotiations.
"Starbucks and eBay were still from what is happening with Groupon," says Howard Schultz, Starbucks (SBUX) CEO and Board Member former eBay (EBAY) who joined the Board of Directors of the Groupon in February and has invested in the company. "I frankly have not seen anything quite like this.". They have cracked the code on a very important opportunity. ?
