Groupon’s Biggest Deal Ever: The Inside Story of How One Insane Gamble, Tons of Unbelievable Hype, and Millions of Wild Deals Made Billions for One Ballsy Joker

Product Description

“It’s hard to overstate how big a year it was for Mr. Mason. His company went public, he became a billionaire, and the daily-coupon-deals phenomenon he pioneered has seemingly swept the nation.”
—Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times DealBook, January 2, 2012
Groupon’s Biggest Deal Ever is the exclusive, behind-the-scenes account of the incredible rise of discount coupon giant Groupon and the compelling story of its offbeat founder, Andrew Mason, as he created a juggernaut of online commerce and ignited a consumer revolution that is disrupting how people shop all over the world.
Love him for saving you 50 percent on last night’s Indian dinner or hate him for cashing in big when he could be losing millions for merchants and investors alike, Mason—Groupon’s thirtysomething founder and CEO—made an incredible gamble when he turned down Google’s $6 billion buyout offer to go it alone. The experts thought he was insane. Groupon was little more than two years old and staffed from top to bottom with twentysomethings. The wild ride couldn’t last, but Mason thought otherwise, and with dreams of a potential IPO that could be massive, he liked his odds.
But did he make the right decision, or did he blow a chance to continue to grow “the fastest growing company in history”? Is Mason an Internet genius, or is he sitting on another bubble that could burst at any moment?
While everyone has an opinion on Groupon, Frank Sennett has written the only inside account. With exclusive access, interviews, and documents that no one outside of the company has seen or been able to report on, Groupon’s Biggest Deal Ever has every twist and turn from start-up to IPO and is the real story of Mason’s audacious gamble and the meteoric rise of Groupon from start-up to $16.7 billion online giant.

Review

“Perfect for would-be entrepreneurs with a dollar and a dream… Mr. Sennett had an enviable level of access during his reporting, and it pays off in a highly readable series of vignettes that demonstrate just how much personality plays in high-stakes Silicon Valley deal-making… For students of start-ups, there is much to enjoy in this breezy retelling of three tumultuous years with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“Fresh, fun, and exciting! A great inside business story wonderfully told.” ―Tony Hsieh, New York Times bestselling author of Delivering Happiness and CEO of Zappos.com, Inc.
“The ‘insane gamble’ referred to in the subtitle is the one in which Andrew Mason, the founder of the Internet coupon site Groupon, turned down a $6 billion buyout offer from Google…Told with an appealingly jaunty prose style (imagine Ben Mezrich but with even more enthusiasm), the story portrays Mason as a plucky entrepreneur, a laidback and politically incorrect school prankster who, on the other hand, is a sharp-as-a-tack computer programmer and a guy who’s savvy enough to know a good idea when he has it… Is there a movie here, too, following in the wake of The Social Network? Well, there are no Winklevoss twins in the story, but don’t bet against it.” ―Booklist (Starred Review, Top 10 Business Book of 2012*)
“By the end of the first chapter, Sennett’s nuggets of detail swell into full-blown revelations. The Time Out Chicago editor in chief quickly plunges readers into Groupon’s boardroom, providing one of the most detailed accounts of how close the founders came in late 2010 to accepting a $5.75 billion buyout offer from Google and why they ultimately rejected it… The cover of Sennett’s book promises “the inside story” of the Chicago-based daily deal company that went from tech startup to multibillion-dollar initial public offering in less than four years, and that’s what it delivers. Even the closest of Groupon observers will learn a lot. And they’ll also hear from company insiders who rarely grant interviews… Through numerous anecdotes and observations, Sennett also captures all 360 degrees of Maso