The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 23 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Mason: Groupon could have rivaled tech giants without post-rejection execution mistakes
“And it could have, maybe it could have been, were it not for some execution mistakes that happened after we made that decision.”
Mason: Proliferation of daily deal copycats destroyed Groupon's core business model
“The Proliferation of clones was undermining the foundation of the business model. The business model was based on scarcity. It was based on the novelty of one of these things existing per day in a city, and when you have 50 different Groupons in Chicago, all o…”
Mason: Hired actress to impersonate Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to prank staff
“What happened was we had an all hands meeting at this church down the street from the office and, you know, they're the 500 or a thousand Groupon employees were in this church. And I came up to the stage. I said, hey, I have a special announcement... I said, h…”
Mason: Pursuing an IPO was part of the board agreement to reject buyouts
“That was basically part of the agreement with the board.”
Mason: Quirky persona was tolerated while Groupon was private, weaponized post-IPO
“Anyway, it was all, like, good and fun when we were a private company, and then when we became a public company, it was kind of weaponized as a sign that I was, like, not suited for the job and immature. It didn't make sense to me, because it's like, I was thi…”
Mason: Refused voluntary resignation, forcing Groupon board to fire him
“I mentioned earlier that we didn't have the same vision on, on where to take the business, so I wasn't super into that idea. And I was like, you can do that, but you'll have to fire me.”
Mason: Some merchants lost money on Groupon, as occurs with advertising
“I think, like, for sure, there are businesses that lost money on Groupon. It's a little tricky because it's this new form of advertising, basically. Businesses lose money on advertising all the time.”
Scholl: Groupon had $100B potential but IPO'd before operational readiness
“My synthesis of Groupon is it's a story of massively lost potential. In, in, in my view, that company had all the potential to be worth 30 or a hundred billion dollars and really to have earned it. But they made kind of one critical mistake, which was taking t…”
Errett: Free product trials drive poor retention compared to paying customers
“So we learned trial by free, not so good. If I pay for it, and I love the results, they stay. And that has been a hallmark of the company, high retention.”
BarkBox Sold $15 Groupon Subscriptions Despite Having $20 Box Costs
“If I remember right, we were selling three-month subscriptions for 45 dollars so 15 dollars a month, but you'd probably have a 20 dollar cost of goods in every box.”
Mason: Every success I've had came from the rubble of previous messes
“Everything that I've done that's been any form of success has not been the obvious thing from the start. Like, you end up finding it in the rubble of some mess that you've created.”
Mason: Groupon missed quarterly projections by $10M due to French spreadsheet error
“My CFO and I were meeting with investors in Barcelona or Madrid or something like that when we got a call from our French office that there was some, like, error in the spreadsheet they were using to Track stuff, and we were gonna miss our number in, in France…”
Mason: Founders get slack on inexperience if they demonstrate rapid growth
“When you're a founder, you just have this, you just get a free pass on a lot of stuff. I guess you bring something to the table or people just like assume that you're stuck there or something like that, and they're willing to give you some slack and understand…”
Mason: Groupon scaled merchant take rates from ~10% to 50%
“Well, we didn't take that much at first. We might have taken, if we're 10 dollars a unit, we might have taken a dollar, if anything, in those first deals. As we did it more, and we started to see the value that these businesses were getting out of it, and star…”
Mason: Detour was self-funded to avoid investor pressure
“Yes. At this point I was like, I need a break from investors. Like, I get the role, but I just want to build something truly great without thinking about anything else other than building something truly great.”
Mason: Groupon's non-subscription daily turnover alienated Wall Street
“We're not a subscription business. It's harder to understand what's going to happen, especially when, like, You're completely turning over the inventory of your website every single day with completely new stuff. So, so I think we were like difficult for wall …”
Mason: Groupon found Google's 2010 acquisition interest far more exciting than Yahoo's
“Google got wind and came along, and that was more exciting. There, like, Google was the... The cool company.”
Guy Raz: Groupon raised at a $1.3B valuation in April 2010
“In April of 2010, you raised around at 1.3 billion dollar valuation.”
Raz: Groupon's 2011 debut was the biggest internet IPO since Google
“You go public in November of 2011 and despite all of that, despite all of the negative press, it was the biggest internet IPO since Google in 2004.”
Mason: Groupon's first deal required 20 buyers for $10 pizza
“Ultimately, the first business that ran on Groupon was a pizza shop. We offered 20 dollars of value in pizza, cost 10 dollars, so people are saving 50%. And we had to sell 20 in order to hit the so-called tipping point and actually have the deal become real.”
Mason: Thousands of Groupon clones emerged rapidly during early growth
“The emergence of what became literally thousands of Groupon clones added intensity to it because we felt like we had to stay ahead.”