Their strategy reminds me most of the telecom strategy in the 90's. Since as many have pointed out there are few barriers to entry, one possible strategy is to get so big so fast that your the 800lb gorilla before anyone realizes the opportunity.
That said, their losses do seem to be coming down relative to their revenue which would imply they have some idea of the 'recipe' that would make money in this space and are spending capital on growth.
But the really egregious thing that stands out, is that if the "early investors" had taken only a third of the billion dollars off the table, rather than the 80% or so they did take, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Rather they would have enough money in the bank to fund this growth rate and converge on an operating profit (see point above) at or just before going public.
If this kills them, and startups are full of the 'one decision' that in hindsight took them from the launch rail to the fail rail, they will have no one to blame but their investors.
The major difference is that telecoms have at least some kind of user lock-in, so it makes sense to go after hypergrowth to get that user before your competitor does. Groupon has zero such lock-in - a user actually has an incentive to sign up for as many deal sites as they can, because a good deal could come from anywhere.
True, but vendors do have lock-in. If you get big fast enough and cover a metro area with in place agreements to couponize offerings that makes it harder for a new player to sell to the same business. Basically you're asking Joes Pizza Parlor and Nail Salon to send offers to two networks now. Unless Groupon completely screwed the relationship from the beginning this will be 'harder' (in the sense that small business doesn't really want to manage a bunch of vendors so there is natural resistance to taking on new ones).
That being said, it creates an opportunity for an 'offer market maker' which is to say a clearing house which can put your offer on various channels (via Groupon via CloneOn or whatever) offer enhanced analytics about how well it does and let you slosh around your limited advertising/marketing dollars.
Actually, this is why I think Square is so well positioned. They're offering a full suite of merchant services, from payment processing to loyalty program management to proximity advertising, and there's nothing stopping them from joining the coupon space if they were inclined to do so.
To lock in the vendor that doesn't want to deal with multiple companies, I think you're going to have to provide a lot more than occasional access to an email list.
That said, their losses do seem to be coming down relative to their revenue which would imply they have some idea of the 'recipe' that would make money in this space and are spending capital on growth.
But the really egregious thing that stands out, is that if the "early investors" had taken only a third of the billion dollars off the table, rather than the 80% or so they did take, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Rather they would have enough money in the bank to fund this growth rate and converge on an operating profit (see point above) at or just before going public.
If this kills them, and startups are full of the 'one decision' that in hindsight took them from the launch rail to the fail rail, they will have no one to blame but their investors.