Groupon: FabuloCity (Be Fabulous in the City)

Last night I was able to attend the launch party Groupon had for the people of Cebu, announcing to us their boisterous arrival in the Philippines and in every major city! 

Although it was raining cats and dogs the whole day, me and 2 of my friends braved the rain to attend this event. About a month or two ago I already heard about Groupon and I've purchased from them about 3 times already but my information about them was only limited. Being there and listening to what the CEO, managers and other officers had to say about Groupon gave me some more insight behind the company that I was buying from.

invitation

Here's a little something you guys should know about Groupon!

Entrepreneurs
Meet The Fastest Growing Company Ever
Christopher Steiner, 08.30.10, 12:00 AM ET

At least Mark Zuckerberg wrote a few lines of computer code at Harvard before he left to launch Facebook. Now Andrew Mason, a relaxed and lanky 29-year-old music major from Northwestern, has managed to build the fastest-growing company in Web history. Groupon represents what the dot-com boom was supposed to be all about: huge sales, easy profits and solid connection between bricks-and-mortar retailers and online consumers.


Groupon, a name that blends "group" and "coupon," presents an online audience with deep discounts on a product or service. Act now, says the pitch: You have only so many hours before this offer expires. That's a familiar come-on, but it's coupled with a novel element: You get the deal only if a certain number of fellow citizens buy the same thing on the same day. It's a cents-off coupon married to a Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy.


What's in it for the vendor--which might be a museum, a yoga studio or an ice cream shop? Exposure. Since the resulting revenue is not only discounted but shared (typically, 50/50) with Groupon, the vendor may scarcely break even on the incremental sales. But it now has customers who might never have thought of patronizing the business. Groupon gets its offers in front of eyeballs by buying ad space through Google and Facebook and via the word of mouth of its 13 million subscribers.
Unlike so many dot-com rockets, Groupon is a real business. Occupying 85,000 square feet inside a rehabbed eight-story former Montgomery Ward warehouse in Chicago's River North neighborhood, the company is on track to pass $500 million in revenue this year, according to a report Morgan Stanley put together to win some underwriting business. No technology stalwart--including Ebay, Amazon.com, Yahoo, AOL and Google--grew that big that fast. At just 17 months old this April Groupon boasted a $1.35 billion valuation when it raised $135 million, the biggest chunk of it from Digital Sky Technologies, the curious Moscow investment fund behind Facebook and Zynga. (Mason will not disclose his stake, which he says is less than 50%.) The only company to reach a $1 billion valuation faster was YouTube (now part of Google), founded in 2005 and still waiting to turn its first profit. Groupon broke into the black just seven months after inception.

The venue

open bar the whole night

Groupon's CEO (we had a lot of laughs with this guy!)

the food

mojitos kept coming all night

laptop station where you could browse the groupon site

jeanne and sheryl

Top-H&M | Skirt-H&M | Shoes-Renegade Folk | Necklace-Forever21

Check out Groupon's website here and like them on Facebook here if you love their sweet deals :)