

Groupon: Doomed by Too Much of a Good Thing - gatsby
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/groupon_doomed_by_too_much_of.html?cm_sp=most_widget-_-default-_-Groupon%20Doomed%20by%20Too%20Much%20of%20a%20Good%20Thing

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pbreit
This is a poorly reasoned article. I will only respond to the two bolded
statements but the bulk of the article is questionable:

 _businesses should become profitable before they become big_

This is contradicted by virtually all of the big, successful internet
companies. I would challenge anyone to name even one internet company that was
profitable before it was big (such as Amazon, Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter,
Yahoo, etc).

 _Groupon's fundamental problem is that it has not yet discovered a viable
business model_

Groupon has discovered the most outrageously viable business model of pretty
much any company formed in the past 10 years. It takes 25% of the business it
facilitates. Totally unheard of in such mature markets as small business
services and retail.

