jprobert

How about structuring bonuses more like an earn out. When companies are acquired an earn out is typically included so that the owner of the acquired company has an incentive to run the company in the most profitable way. If bankers bonuses were based on earn outs that are paid over 3-4-5 years then they will reconsider risk since compensation is deferred.

The only way possible to download the whole FB social graph is to get permission to do so from every FB user. People can scrape public info but the social graph allows access to a users friends, friends of friends, likes, comments, checkins an so forth.

I'm intrigued but how is this using my information to present me with an infographic? A sample would be great but I didn't see one (could be me). I'm reluctant to sign up with the limited info.

It's the Eric Lefkowsky model.. Grow as fast as possible at an unsustainable rate in an unproven market and take be money and run.

Groupon cut their IPO by more than half to $10-11b from $25-30b. If you think its bad that they laid off 75% of their employees wait until Groupon has to lay off a good portion of their 10k +- sales force. Through being in the business, understanding Groupons financials and the market I have a hard time believing they are worth more than a few billion. The market requires a large on the ground sales force (expensive) and huge marketing expenditures to keep and gain new customers who are not loyal. Groupon may be better off pivoting into some sort of social network as they do have >100mm subs. What about Living Social? Their recent valuation was in the billions but not hearing much about them.

With regards to #2 on your list "Yelp for Business Services" there is a company called Contact Karma http://www.contactkarma.com/ which aims to do something along the lines of what you're looking for. My company will also eventually be in the space and allow you to search and discover recommendations through friends and friends of friends in your social networks. For the most part we're restaurants, entertainment, and services for now while we perfect the data but you can see if you're connected in anyway by checking out http://www.cliqsearch.com

Can you share the slide?

Sometimes I don't get why this community gets so pumped up about certain things

Padmapper already does this and does it well

I agree with the fact that most people who make these comments have a bias. While these bias must be disclosed they are often not done so until the end of the video or article that they've written. It should be required that a person disclose any potential biases at the beginning of their argument so that the audience has a clear understanding of what motivates them.

Congratulations I think you are now the all time #2 behind the announcement that Steve Jobs is leaving!

It's amazing to me how far Groupon has fallen recently. I'm curious to see if investors file lawsuits against the founders for misappropriation of funds given that the founders took so much money off the table.

Google has been throwing shit against the wall for many years and most of it hasn't stuck and their core product, search, is still 95% of their business (and they're a juggernaut). I view Facebook in the same light. They are the dominate social network and have by far the most users. Right now they are throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks but it doesn't really matter. They've already earned the eyes and ears of almost 1 billion people and they will not fade soon.

I think Yelp has always been a good service but obviously there is a disconnect between the business end of Yelp and the service end. The Chicago Tribune article is not the first to complain about the business practices of Yelp. Additionally, advertising on Yelp is some of the most expensive real estate on the web with CPM rates of $100-$300. Ultimately I think that directory sites such as Yelp will become obsolete as social search becomes more refined and relevant. My company is actually working on this and we thing that we have a good product so far (in alpha). http://www.cliqsearch.com

DBs, Dataminers, Developers

Philadelphia, PA

Cliq is a big data company focused on social search. We are a small group and currently have 3 great developers. We need DBs, dataminers and architects to help us scale the company as we're dealing with billions of data points and social edges. We're free spirited and funded company and you can check out an Alpha version of our site at http://www.cliqsearch.com.

Please email resumes to jason@cliqsearch.com.

The difference between your example and the Steve Jobs anecdote is that one is backend and the other is customer facing. Getting all of the details right for the customer is paramount for him but I doubt he would fret over the minute details on the backend.

The business model of Groupon is eerily similar to that of the US. Use current cash/bonds to fund payables and hope that it doesn't get out of control. For the US it already has but at least the US can raise the debt ceiling and print more money... something that Groupon can not do.

Look at it from a different perspective. Is Groupon now going back to old applicants because they're having trouble recruiting new talent? Groupon hasn't exactly been a cinderella in the news lately with their phony accounting metrics and questionable concerns about the viability of their business. Perhaps they have outgrown their employment base. Hard to imagine considering above 9% unemployment but just a thought.

I'm in this business and I routinely hear from my sales staff that merchants who have done a deal with Groupon, want to do a second deal but never get a call back. Also once the deal is inked the sales person goes silent. I know there is a lot of turnover with the sales team there but more often than not we hear of a lack of relationship building at Groupon but rather "pump and dump".

Philadelphia, PA

We're hiring developers and DBAs to help work on the next phase of search and discovery. You can check out the position on LinkedIn. http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=1637027&...

Some great points in the article and I agree that Livingsocial is better all around than Groupon, not only from a merchant perspective but also with innovation and creativity in the group buying space.

At the same time I believe that daily deals are unsustainable for the large crowd that is out there. Groupon and living social will survive but many will die. My company is providing an innovative solution that complements daily deals and is another good source for marketing.

At Zooyan.com we are creating a marketplace for deals where people can go and search for or browse 100s of ongoing offers near them. All of the offers last on average for 6 months and provide similar discounts to daily deals. We allow customers the ability to buy what they want, when they want it and we allow merchants to have a long term marketing source that provides consistent and manageable sales. I'd love to know what others think. Www.zooyan.com

ProCapital Technologies is always looking for amazing engineers. We're working on some cool technologies around social search and e-commerce. Email me if you would like further detail.

We launched Zooyan today as a marketplace where local merchants can create compelling offers to market their business and where consumers can freely search and browse offers to discover new places in their cities. The idea of Zooyan was created to address the current issues with the business model for daily deal sites such as Groupon and Livingsocial.

Our model structures offers that are available for a minimum of 30 days which helps smooth sales out over time for merchants rather than the one or two day surges in customers resulting from daily deals which can actually hurt business. We also recognized that consumers want variety and the ability to purchase offers on their schedule rather than make impulse decisions. The extended deal time frame helps curb impulsive purchases and having many offers at the same time provides choice.

Currently we have over 70 offers available in Philadelphia growing to over 100 in the next week or two. We aim to have at leas 250 offers available at any one time in each city which should provide an ample supply of merchants to discover. Our goal is to create a one stop shop for locals, travelers etc who might be looking for something new but is unwilling to dive in head first. We allow you to test the water with your toes first.

I appreciate any suggestions of comments that any of you may have in regards to the website or business model.

This resonates with me as I've noticed this as well recently. It's almost impossible for a small competitor to advertise via Google as relevant keywords have become incredibly expensive and the long tail generates minute traffic. I've even seen this in Facebook recently as CPMs and CPCs have sky rocketed as of late.

Being from Detroit this brings a tear to my eye but it presents opportunity for many people to establish new companies very cheaply.

If this was a planned exit all along and he was only meant to be on short term then Groupon would have prepared a better statement. I assume that whatever equity he has he'll keep as he was looking for a big pay day and I don't know why he would pass that up.

I wonder if that sushi restaurant will still be in business after it churns through all of those Groupons.

duh, isn't this the very reason why .XXX was formed? They want to segregate porn from the rest of the web.

This goes back to the popular post about Reddit being down to one developer. The war for talent comes down to a) having the resources to pay for top talent - Google or b) cool and fun concepts to work on which have enormous potential - Hipmunk. Getting hooked up with nice hard wear is great but at this point it seems expected as everyone pretty much does it (except for the bootstrapped start-up).

This makes me shiver in my boots. I couldn't imagine having to run that site myself. Neil is inline for a big pay raise.