Groupon recently let go of their CEO Andrew Mason and nobody is running to throw a charitable benefit for him. As an avid user of Groupon who has seen the company go in a thousand different directions simultaneously, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little role playing game called “If I were running Groupon”.
The first five things I would do are.
(A) Killing the international division
Seriously this isn’t an arms race with Living Social the main company your competing for last place in losing currently.
(B) Focus on Daily Deals that actually end.
There used to be a real sense of urgency when I bought a Groupon. I felt like if I don’t buy now, I’ll lose out immediately. With Groupon at its current state, there is no urgency to buy anything cause I know I could always buy later or whenever I felt like it.
(C) Revamp Groupon Now
I am a firm believer in location based mobile commerce and I think buying decisions through mobile are made based more on convenience of service, “I need it now” and Groupon now could connect the dots on a lot of social commerce. I feel like they haven’t invested the necessary amount of time in revamping the UI of this app.
It continually crashes on me and they’re is very little new deals showing up in my Los Angeles market.
(D) Create a Clear Focus
I think the company has lost a clear focus. Is it mobile, local, flash commerce for local businesses, flash commerce for travel? What is the focus? Groupon can’t be everything to everybody. There needs to be a solid core somewhere.
(E) Bring in a CEO who is passionate about the product
I never had a gigantic exit or IPO with any of my business’s but from reading Andrew’s exit statement he didn’t seem to unhappy about being letting go nor did he show a passion for Groupon. I could imagine once you hit the big one you lose a little steam and excitement.
Groupon seems to be a mirror vision of the leadership up top. If you have a passionate leader people will follow. Yahoo is a great example of this.
