Andrew Mason: "In fact it was one small part of the broader ideas»

You have started in November 2008 and has already paid for itself in six months. Morgan Stanley previously estimated your income for that year of $ 500 million, Fortune magazine called Groupon most bystroras-tuschim startup in history. What do you think, why Groupon has become popular so quickly? - In May 2009 the business was only a few months, but we were in New York, Boston and Chicago. If I'm not mistaken, in our list, e-mailing was about 20 000 subscribers. We have around 20 or 30 people. By the end of winter 2010, the number of employees has grown ten-fold, we were in 40 cities and planned to be back in a hundred by the end of the year. Get more. I think that makes Groupon to millions of consumers is the same as that for me - it helps me to learn the city. You used to walk in the same place, and how to hit in a closed circle nuty. A Groupon encourages you to what you need to go out and try something completely new, something that you might never have tried. All of this sounds like you have been successful for a moment, but you do not start as Groupon, but as something quite different? - Of course. In early 2007, was a much broader idea: a project in which people can negotiate and solve problems together, they could not solve alone. At sayte thepoint.com, for example, could organize a boycott of multinational corporations - only one person could appeal to millions of people to get involved and action. One could raise the money to a park or bike paths, or something like that. This large abstract idea, with which you can do almost anything. For example, to make collective purchases, and this was one way to use our site. Then the economic crisis and we decided that the best figure out how to make money - namely, to focus on Groupon, when in fact it was one small part of the broader ideas. And at the end of 2008 we started Groupon in Chicago. Silicon Valley tried to collective buying, but this stung. There were so many dot-com boom in startups - MobShop, Mercotta, The Company, the other, now forgotten names. Your idea just came at the right time? - Group purchase - just part of what made Groupon successful service. If we tried to recreate what was Mercotta, we would also have failed. In general, they took the idea of ​​Amazon. They had their stock of goods - televisions, video cameras and other things. That is, the business was originally a low-margin and strongly competed with companies such as Amazon and Wal-Mart. They tried to use the collective purchasing to more lower prices, but failed to achieve the volumes necessary to be competitive and their prices are no longer low. So they failed on such a good reason that we have struck out a scheme of work from a list of options. And as you all work? - Every day we offer a "deal of the day" - a special offer from one of the best enterprises in the city. This may be a restaurant, spa, theater tickets, anything, and we sell it at a discount of 50-70% or more. But there is a minimum of people who have to subscribe to this "deal" and only then it will become active. We are doing this, and the seller gets what he wants - a huge number of new clients, and, of course, customers also get what they want - this offer. When we started, we had many problems with achieving this minimum. Now the company is so successful that we sell thousands and thousands "gruponov." After all, you started at a good time - people are more than ever, want to reduce costs. - I think about Groupon soon as the city of the company where we show people different places where you can go. Everyone loves our proposals, despite the economic situation and the person who is in the best position - it is the seller. For them there is a more efficient way to get a large number of customers at once. A decade ago, many local businesses were not ready for Groupon. They say that even today some people just "fall through" under the weight of Groupon: they will have such great demand that they can not satisfy him. As an example, Restaurant cope with ten thousand holders of "gruponov" in the day, so even if all will require lunch at half the price? - To cope with pleasure. Not all people come to the very next day. They come in over the next six months or a year. Also, any business may limit the number of sales through Groupon. We have a good deal is when a lot - it's too much. Nobody ever says, "I do not want too many ads, because I do not want too many customers." And people are still trying to grasp everything, despite the fact that the good is sometimes too much. Therefore, we are taught to regulate the number of clients: We appreciate the power of business and ensures that they are not offered for sale more than they can. You take a very large commission - something like half the profits. Is this true? - That is correct. And we have another list of about 35 000 businesses that also want to become famous through Groupon. You are giving much in return. For example, the site of local Groupon San Francisco talks about "the bottom's blessing," which may offer local seafood distributor. Some have to search for words in a dictionary. It was not written by the seller itself, right? - We write all the lyrics themselves. We in the U.S. only about 70 people involved in what they write code for all of our transactions. We're doing from the beginning. We want to Groupon has been a part of because of what the receiving advertising messages every day it becomes tolerable. Because now there is always something interesting and new about the business, written in an entertaining manner. So write texts themselves - so, to convince people to continue the subscription, even when they receive a proposal that is not interested. We do this from the very beginning and still is because our "consumer part of the soul" really wants to create a product that will be like ourselves. And what the deal was the strangest? - We sold to a concert tour by Michael Jackson in Gary, Indiana, but were unable to raise the required minimum bids. So what we have discovered the limits of pop Michael Jackson, people love it, but not enough to go to Gary. You started in Chicago, not in Silicon Valley. Valley company never would have started doing e-newsletter because it's not cool. They would never have hired writers of advertising, because this process must be automated and "creativity to create users." Do you think if you started Groupon in Silicon Valley, whether you'd feel the same need to do things "cool, technologically, algorithmic"? - I'm not sure that has any value, you're in Silicon Valley or not. Did that come from the Valley are more focused on large-scale use of high technology. We just do not know what you can do something like that. Starting business in Chicago is similar to the days when I recorded music on tape, whereas now I do it on your computer. When we started business in Chicago, there were many technical limitations, which forced us to be inventive. In general, the creation of Groupon has been associated with various complications. We started with platform, which is always "falling" and we had to figure out what we do with it. Yet we did not have any scope at all, and we decided that we would give one sentence a day, because our audience was very small and we had to send it all to provide enough customers for a discount. But these limitations have forced us creatively to create a business model that would fit us in all respects. But you've recently opened a new office in the Valley. - Yes, here we have technology support office, which employs about 25 engineers. In Chicago, a lot of talent, but this source is not infinite, and as a consequence, we had a shortage of cad-ditch. And here is much easier to find the advanced workers. We were trying to convince people to re-ride, and some even relocate, but not all. And we thought it would be easier to open offices in Chicago and Silicon Valley. Can you compare with eBay? EBay has emerged a great idea to the online market, where everyone was and the seller and the buyer. Many people around the world saw it and decided that they would make «eBay for India", and then eBay was forced to buy the same company. - Sure you can. We bought our European company with the same people as eBay. In Europe, there are several groups of people who erected a search of strong business models and copying them into art. It infuriates you? After all, these guys should get you some of their shares? - This is a strange and conflicting emotions. When I first saw the people "steal» Groupon, I thought, "Are you serious, just copy it?" But when I see that they take my program and adjust it to new conditions and opportunities, I begin to feel that it is not just copying. What's wrong with consumer startups make when creating their products? - I can tell you a bit about the things we did wrong. These failures are my practical experience in how to ruin everything. First of all, it took us a long time to run the product. When I was in graduate school, I had visions of the great companies that I have to set up, but it was not exactly the place where want to think about ideas for a startup consumer. In addition, we did everything too complicated and only then realized that the most important thing - that the consumer received the offer less than a second. "I understand why I'm interested in this proposal: give me what I like and cheap." In fact, we almost forcibly shoved into history with a collective buying in background. We have specially made so that it seemed as though it were a simple sentence on a bargain. But once the customer accepts the offer, we said: "By the way, this coupon to buy another 30 people, otherwise the deal will not happen." So we are gradually revealed this to our feature, not letting it get in the way people understand the value of this proposal. It was also important not to reduce traffic, but we had no marketing plan. In Groupon from the beginning we tried to start a mailing list for regular subscribers by email. We knew that if we offer people anything great, will still be only 10% chance that they will agree on a specific proposal. That is, they may be, buy, and maybe not buy the service or product, but will likely never come to us again. And instead of selling people the idea: "That's today's deal, if you want to buy it?" - We began to sell them the idea of ​​"service, which every day gives you the best that is in your town. What do you think about in order to receive by e-mail newsletter with the proposals? "Big Mailing List to push through our site to people every day, gave us many opportunities to make mistakes. Now we can have the same stock within 3-4 days and make people hate us so much as to refuse our proposals, even very profitable, because they received the same seven days a week.