Category Archives: groupon

Would Rocky Agrawal ever work for Groupon?

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

This post is an excerpt from a forthcoming book on Groupon. It’s a question I’m asked quite often by friends, family, journalists and once by a Groupon employee. Apparently, it’s plausible that I would. When I posted on April Fool’s … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, groupon | 2 Comments

Groupon investors race for the exits as lockup ends

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

Groupon shares dropped to a new all-time low today as its lockup ended, releasing a torrent of new shares on to the market. Thirty minutes into the trading session, Groupon had already traded 75% of its average daily trading volume. … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, groupon | 2 Comments

Weekly reader: GrubHub, Yelp, Groupon, computer science

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

I was in New Orleans for Jazz Fest this week, but managed to get more writing in than I expected. For the first time this week, we saw Groupon drop below 50% of its initial IPO price of $20, closing … Continue reading →

Posted in groupon, yelp | 1 Comment

Weekly Reader: Groupon, Sonos, why air travel sucks

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

I didn’t write any posts this week! I spent the first part of the week in Chicago chatting with current and former Groupon employees and with the folks at edo Interactive, Braintree and GrubHub. GrubHub has a very interesting product … Continue reading →

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Weekly Reader: Facebook virality, Twitter patents and Groupon’s Lefkofsky

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

This contains a summary of my work this week. I had two very important non-Groupon stories this week, on Facebook and Twitter. My work Secrets of Facebook’s success: Virality — Facebook’s photo tagging feature was an important driver of its growth. … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, facebook, groupon, twitter | 2 Comments

Another open letter to Andrew Mason

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

Dear Andrew: As you may have heard, I am coming back to Chicago in the next couple of weeks for another round of Groupon research. Although you didn’t take me up on my invitation the last time I visited Chicago, … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, groupon | 4 Comments

Look at the logo Google News puts next to Groupon

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

From this morning, a search on Groupon returned these results: I think I’ve made the Groupon and Enron comparison myself. In both cases, you had high-flying companies that focused on short-term growth while ignoring the underlying risks of what they … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, groupon | 2 Comments

Are LivingSocial, Google Offers and the rest as bad as Groupon?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

IMPORTANT: Please see this page to see my current interests in Groupon. Whenever I get into Groupon mode, people ask me about how LivingSocial and Google Offers are different from Groupon. In many ways, they are the same. Any model … Continue reading →

Posted in daily deals, google, groupon, livingsocial | 1 Comment

Best practices for April Fool’s Day

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

My April Fool’s Day went much better than I expected with a lot of people believing that I joined Groupon. As you probably know by now, I didn’t actually join Groupon. In fact, I was on CNBC this afternoon talking … Continue reading →

Posted in groupon | 3 Comments

Why I’m joining Groupon

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Rakesh Agrawal

My life has taken quite a few turns over the last year, but none stranger than yesterday’s. After taking Groupon to task for the bazillionth time, I got a call from Andrew Mason. This was shocking because Groupon PR has … Continue reading →

Posted in groupon | 12 Comments