Groupon, Inc.
Company: Groupon, Inc. Chicago, IL
Company Description: Founded in Chicago in November 2008, Groupon is a daily deal website that features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in more than 500 markets and 45 countries. Groupon sends subscribers a daily email with an incredible deal in their city. The deal becomes active after a certain number of people buy the deal, ensuring it's worthwhile for both the customer and the business.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Fastest-Growing Company of the Year - More Than 2,500 Employees
Nomination Title: Forbes: "Groupon, The Fastest Growing Company Ever"
Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved since January 1 2010 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes. Begin this section with the following two lines: Year over year revenue growth (%): Year over year employee growth (%):
At the beginning of 2010, Groupon had an impressive 124 employees, today that
number is more than 7,000.
Founded in Chicago in November 2008, Groupon is a shopping website that features
a daily deal on the top goods, services and cultural events in more than 500
markets spanning across 45 countries worldwide. Groupon (a combination of
group+coupon) was derived from the collective action organization, The Point
(www.thepoint.com - also founded by Mason). The Point launched in November 2007
as a collective action site allowing local users to utilize the online platform
to ignite social change. Monetizing this collective action model with collective
buying, Mason launched Groupon just over a year after The Point’s inception.
Groupon is a win-win for local shoppers and business owners. For the consumer,
Groupon brings unbeatable deals on top local experiences – everything from
restaurants and salons to skydiving, hotels and dentistry. For local businesses,
Groupon has changed the way they are able to market themselves and drives a
guaranteed number of new customers through their door. For some brick and mortar
establishments, Groupon creates an unprecedented online marketing platform that
drives results unlike any other forms of local advertising (print, broadcast,
etc.). Businesses pay nothing up front (as with traditional methods of
marketing) but instead receive checks from Groupon as part of the revenue- share
model the Groupon concept is based on.
Today, Groupon has more than 70 million subscribers worldwide in 45 countries.
Groupon runs around 900 deals per day and has saved consumers more than $1.8
billion worldwide.
Forbes name Groupon the “fastest growing company ever,” and Groupon continues to
enter unprecedented territory and break new ground. With this newness in lies
the key challenge: introducing an unknown concept to both businesses and
consumers, and showcasing how it can best benefit them. Mason’s ability to
succeed here is in the facts – growing from a single market to more than 500
worldwide in just 2 years, the Groupon concept continues to become part of the
lexicon and a tool utilized by shoppers and business owners in a growing number
of places internationally.
List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon-facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom.html,
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/groupon-extreme-clipping-11686737 ,
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2010/On-Groupon-and-its-founder-Andrew-Mason/,
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2011/profile/groupon.php ,
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/fortune/1010/gallery.40_under_40.fortune/25.html ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54WKCfjLinU ,
http://www.youtube.com/user/groupondotcom#p/u/2/-zu9gnk84UE ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6TgWvPThY ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWIh2BUhSek ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36w1IQdBIs ,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.html?_r=1 ,
http://mashable.com/2010/12/28/tech-win-flop-surprise-2010/ ,
http://www.inc.com/ss/breakout-companies-2010 , http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3041440/vp/40603167#40603167 ,
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7143199n&tag=contentMain;contentBody ,
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11338
MANY MORE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:
Andrew Mason is the founder of Groupon as well as The Point, the collective
action platform from which Groupon was born. Andrew's mostly unremarkable
existence began in Pittsburgh, PA; he moved to Chicago in 1999 to attend
Northwestern University, where he lives today with his girlfriend and over 20
cats. Excited by the power of technology to change the world, Andrew developed
Policy Tree, a policy debate visualization tool, and won a scholarship to attend
the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy in 2006. In school for
only 3 months, the flighty Andrew dropped out after receiving an unexpected
offer to fund the idea that would become The Point. The Point, a ground-breaking
approach to online collective action and fundraising, launched in November 2007.
One year later, Andrew founded Groupon, leveraging the collective buying
technology of The Point to make it easier (and cheaper) to experience all the
great stuff in Chicago. At various points in his life, Andrew has also started
businesses to deliver bagels as if they were newspapers, and sell muffins with
cranberries that he found in his backyard to people living on his street.