Guest Post
Recently, people have questioned my motivations around writing about Groupon. They have tried to insinuate that I’m writing about Groupon for personal financial gain.
Anyone who believes that doesn’t know the first thing about how financial markets work. I have …
In Andrew Mason's recent letter to shareholders and in a press release touting 1.5 million Groupon Now deals sold, Groupon has been highlighting the product as an example of innovation and a potential positive for the beleaguered company.
After an accounting restatement, a shuffling of its board of directors and Groupon's stock falling to below 50 percent of its initial public offering price (and 66 percent off the high it reached on its first day of trading), Groupon CEO Andrew Mason wrote a letter to shareholders yesterday to try to swing the momentum back in the company's favor.
Some people interpreted my piece calling out Silicon Valley’s snobbishness about computer science degrees as a defense of embattled Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson. It’s not.
Thompson’s mistake is a big issue. It reflects his own ethical lapses as well as …
Groupon is changing its payment terms with merchants, according to several sources familiar with Groupon's business and contracts. The company has traditionally used two different payment models. In the United States and Canada, merchants have been paid in three installments.
I don’t have a computer science degree. There, I said it.
At too many companies around Silicon Valley that would make me unemployable.
I’ve been amused by the scandal surrounding Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s embellishment of his resume to include …
The other day, I tweeted “I should be able to ban anyone who rates Applebee’s 4* from ever influencing a Yelp result for me.” That sentiment touched a nerve among my followers. Shervin Pishevar of Menlo Ventures coined it “ …
In the midst of all the turmoil of Groupon, which is now trading at a market cap below $8 billion and broke below the $12 mark in trading today, the company's hometown newspaper had a sitdown with Groupon chairman Eric Lefkofsky. As a former journalist who once aspired to work at the Tribune, I'm embarrassed for them.
As Facebook gets ready for its monster IPO, which will likely value the company at more than $100 billion, I thought it would be valuable to take a look at some of the critical product decisions that have led to …
I've spent much of the last year talking about how the sites small businesses rely on to advertise and promote themselves -- think Yelp and Groupon -- are failing them. In fact, helping small businesses at the local level is extremely challenging for technology companies, for the following reasons:
Guest Post
With all of the doom and gloom surrounding Groupon, which reached yet another all-time low in trading today, I thought it would be useful to write up my best practices for buying Groupons and other daily deals.
Yes, despite being …
As Facebook gets ready for its monster IPO, which will likely value the company at more than $100 billion, I thought it would be valuable to take a look at some of the critical product decisions that have led to …
Guest Post
This is the Groupon Promise, prominently plastered all over the Groupon site:
If the experience using your Groupon ever lets you down, we’ll make it right or return your purchase. Simple as that.
But when I put it to the …
Guest Post
Groupon faced a deluge of bad press and unfavorable comparisons this week following its accounting restatement on March 30. This morning, I searched for Groupon and got this on Google News:
Notice that Google News algorithms put the Enron logo
…
Guest Post
We’ve heard quite a few opinions about who’s to blame for Groupon’s IPO fiasco ever since the company announced a restatement of its earnings last Friday and indicated that it had material weakness in its internal controls. Andrew Ross Sorkin …
Guest Post
Chicago-based investment research firm Morningstar can’t make the numbers in Groupon’s restatement add up. In a research note it sent to clients, who are institutional investors, it wrote:
While several of the financial revisions seem inconsistent, we were surprised by …
Guest Post
People frequently ask me about how LivingSocial and Google Offers are different from Groupon.
In many ways, they are the same. Any model that gives businesses cash early on in exchange for a promise of service to be delivered later …
Guest Post
Groupon was forced to restate fourth quarter earnings, sending its stock down 6% in after-hours trading. This surprised me as much as my $2 investment in the Mega Millions jackpot not paying off.
The reasons for Groupon’s restatement were higher …
Guest Post
“Are you solving a real problem?”
That’s a question I frequently ask entrepreneurs I meet with. Too often, companies focus on a technology instead of the customer’s problem. Here’s an example to illustrate the difference:
A new trend in hotel …
Guest Post
PayPal is set to launch a competitor to media darling Square at an event in San Francisco scheduled for tomorrow, according to GigaOm and Bloomberg.
Mobile payment enabler Square has set the benchmark for small business applications in terms of …
