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That said, I feel that all of the Groupon horror stories floating around are from businesses that would be in trouble regardless. I would love to find out that

That said, I feel that all of the Groupon horror stories floating around are from businesses that would be in trouble regardless. I would love to find out that your experience is more typical for Groupon customers, but it strikes me that there is a bit of selection bias at play here. The fact that you are posting this on HN, with 3 years/700+ karma here, suggests you might take a more analytical approach to assessing the Groupon opportunity and building a business model to make it work for you. I doubt this is typical of the small B&M business owner that Groupon sells to. Congratulations, though, on your success and thanks for the write-up.

joeguilmette 15y ago
My karma was around 550 before this post :) I went into this management position with zero management experience. If I am at the top end of small business management then we're all doomed. I honestly feel that every single one of these Groupon horror stories are from careless, dare I say stupid, business owners. You see them all the time. How many buildings have you seen cycle through restaurants every 8 months? One of these businesses happens to run a Groupon and then it's Groupon's fault they went out of business.
- kevinpet 15y ago
  That's a good point. Groupon might be rough on restaurants, but then it seems everything is pretty rough on restaurants.
- frossie 15y ago
  I went into this management position with zero management experience. If I am at the top end of small business management then we're all doomed. I think you might be conflating experience with ability. There are people with a lifetime of management experience whose ability remains modest at best.
thaumaturgy 15y ago
I think you're both right -- you in that joe is definitely an atypical small business owner, if my experience is anything to go by, but he's right in that a lot of the businesses that get crushed by Groupon aren't being run real well to begin with. We do a lot of one-on-one B2B work. I really, truly, dearly love our clients. However, it's definitely true that most (nearly all) of them handle their business as though it's a 9-to-5 job. They come in, open up the shop, place orders, deal with whatever needs attention, and practice their trade for the day. And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with that. They're happy, it's great all 'round. But, then they often get wind of the "next big thing", and they ask us how to get involved with that, without really thinking through whether or not it's the right fit for their business. They aren't maintaining the kind of customer tracking they should be, or follow-ups, or the kind of cross-promotions that joe described. (We aren't yet, either, which is the only reason we haven't run a Groupon of our own. I'd love to, but we're not ready for it yet.)

joeguilmette 15y ago

My karma was around 550 before this post :) I went into this management position with zero management experience. If I am at the top end of small business management then we're all doomed. I honestly feel that every single one of these Groupon horror stories are from careless, dare I say stupid, business owners. You see them all the time. How many buildings have you seen cycle through restaurants every 8 months? One of these businesses happens to run a Groupon and then it's Groupon's fault they went out of business.

kevinpet 15y ago
That's a good point. Groupon might be rough on restaurants, but then it seems everything is pretty rough on restaurants.
frossie 15y ago
I went into this management position with zero management experience. If I am at the top end of small business management then we're all doomed. I think you might be conflating experience with ability. There are people with a lifetime of management experience whose ability remains modest at best.

thaumaturgy 15y ago

I think you're both right -- you in that joe is definitely an atypical small business owner, if my experience is anything to go by, but he's right in that a lot of the businesses that get crushed by Groupon aren't being run real well to begin with. We do a lot of one-on-one B2B work. I really, truly, dearly love our clients. However, it's definitely true that most (nearly all) of them handle their business as though it's a 9-to-5 job. They come in, open up the shop, place orders, deal with whatever needs attention, and practice their trade for the day. And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with that. They're happy, it's great all 'round. But, then they often get wind of the "next big thing", and they ask us how to get involved with that, without really thinking through whether or not it's the right fit for their business. They aren't maintaining the kind of customer tracking they should be, or follow-ups, or the kind of cross-promotions that joe described. (We aren't yet, either, which is the only reason we haven't run a Groupon of our own. I'd love to, but we're not ready for it yet.)