Groupon

Coupons … who doesn’t like coupons … But what about bringing a bunch of friends for a group discount? Who could have imagined that? Well, Andrew did.

In 2006, founder Andrew Mason’s disappointment with trying to terminate a mobile phone contract led to the creation of Groupon. Mason believed that there must be a method to utilize the collective bargaining power of a large number of people. 

“I just thought, There has to be a large number of people with these same problems, and if we were united in some way, we could leverage our collective power”, says Andrew.

Mason established the Point, a website aimed at uniting people behind a cause, in 2007. It didn’t really take off in Chicago until a group of users decided to make saving money their cause. In order to earn a group discount, they searched for other individuals who would purchase the same item.

The concept captivated the interest of his former employer, Eric Lefkofsky, who contributed $1 million to its development. In November 2008, Groupon began operations.

The name of the online shopping site, Groupon, is a combination of the words “group” and “coupon.”

The company was worth $1.35 billion in April 2010.

The company went public on November 4, 2011.  Since Google’s IPO in 2004, it was the largest IPO by an Internet company. 

By the end of March 2015, Groupon offered more than 425,000 active offers in 48 countries, served more than 500 cities worldwide, and had almost 48 million active customers. 

– Do you have a favorite billionaire? Check out Compare Billionaires to see how they are doing today –