Groupon Rejects Google’s $6 Billion Buyout Offer

The entrepreneurial lights are burning again in Silicon Valley and even within companies that can manage to do things that Silicon Valley is known for. Groupon, a company that offers online coupons for sale that just entered the Evansville market last week has reportedly rejected a $6 Billion offer to be bought out by Google.

Acquisition and investment fever has moved so fast that warnings of another Y2K style valuation bubble are surfacing. Venture capital is beginning to flow into “monkey see monkey do” start-ups as opposed to pioneering innovations.

Groupon was launched in November 2008 in Chicago and employs over 1,000 there and in its Palo Alto, California office. Andrew Mason moved to Chicago in 1999 to attend Northwestern University and subsequently founded “The Point”, a collective action online platform. Groupon grew from “The Point”. Andrews profile includes the following:

“Andrew graduated with a degree in music, the uselessness of which served as a chief inspiration to not be useless. Out of college, Andrew became a software developer by no ambition of his own, but via a series of acquaintances offering to give him money to do incrementally harder stuff on computers. Excited by the power of technology to change the world, Andrew developed Policy Tree, a policy debate visualization tool, and won a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy in 2006. In school for only 3 months, the flighty Andrew dropped out after receiving an unexpected offer to fund the idea that would become The Point. The Point, a ground-breaking approach to online collective action and fundraising, launched in November 2007. One year later, Andrew founded Groupon, leveraging the collective buying technology of The Point to make it easier (and cheaper) to experience all the great stuff in Chicago. At various points in his life, Andrew has also started businesses to deliver bagels as if they were newspapers, and sell muffins with cranberries that he found in his backyard to people living on his street.”

The power if ideas when those ideas are supported by available investment dollars and professional talent never ceases to amaze the marketplace. Innovation, daring, investment, energy, and ambition are what fueled a coupon service founded in the middle of a banking meltdown to a $6 Billion valuation in only two years.

Upon Groupon’s entry into the Evansville market, the City County Observer rapidly applied for and was approved as a Groupon Affiliate. The second Groupon offer resulted in over 1,000 coupons sold for local culinary entrepreneur Doug Rennie, founder of “Just Rennies”. The current offering for a 50% off coupon at Evansville Massage Specialists has already resulted in over 300 sales.

Groupon’s perfect positioning of allowing people to purchase coupons on line for reduced price products and services was perfectly timed economically and has timeless appeal to deal hunters. We are all looking forward to the next deal offered. It would also be welcome is the next $6 Billion innovation company has a zip code that starts with 477>

Link to story on Silicon Valley start-up actitivities:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/a-silicon-bubble-shows-signs-of-reinflating/?hp