Tomorrow at the GROW Conference in Vancouver, Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal will be interviewing Groupon Founder and CEO Andrew Mason on "building a $1.35B company in under 2 years".
The title alone is enough to make this the most intriguing session on Friday's slate but today's Groupon deal with the Gap should give Swisher plenty to talk about. Early reports of the numbers involved are astounding.
In their first ever nationwide deal, Groupon offered $25 off a $50 purchase at the Gap. The promotion, which was available in every city, briefly crashed the Groupon site as bargain hunters clicked on the 50% discount and pinged their friends.
Despite the technical difficulties, according to Mason as of 11:00am PST Groupon had sold 200,000 Groupons - a rate of roughly 10 per second.
Assuming the volume continued for the rest of the day, Groupon was on track to sell more than 700,000 Gap Groupons in one day worth roughly $17.5 Million. Based on an estimated 30% revenue share, the day was worth $5.25 Million to Mason and his startup.
Launched in November 2008, Groupon features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in a variety of cities across the United... [more]
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
When not blogging on...[more]
