America's Road to Fame

Chapter 346 The Grandfather of Group Buying, Groupon
Now that he came to California, after separating from Musk, Chen William went to Los Angeles by the way to visit Nozomi Sasaki and the child in her belly.

When Ivanta was pregnant, she didn't check the gender of the child in advance, but Nozomi Sasaki didn't hold back her curiosity, so she went to check and found out that she was also carrying a girl.

In this way, Chen William had already chosen a name for the child in advance, and it was called Chen Xiran, which also had the name of Sasaki Nozomi in the name—Xi.

Nozomi Sasaki really likes this name. When she was in Los Angeles for the past few months, she was not idle. She has been learning Chinese, and now she is able to have daily conversations with William Chen relatively fluently.

William Chen sometimes thinks that his children will probably be able to speak several languages ​​in the future, such as Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean... Anyway, there is no lack of language environment since childhood.

In the villa in Malibu, Rick Walton came to see William Chen.

"Congratulations, William, I originally wanted to go to New York with Delfina to see Ivanta and the little princess, but I didn't expect you to come to Los Angeles, so I came to see you by the way, let me tell you first, her name is Anna Well, I will be her godfather, and I can't promise it to others."

Rick Walton first congratulated Chen William on getting a daughter.

"Then why don't you work harder with Delfina, oh, by the way, you haven't held a formal wedding yet, Rick. Look at me, I've come from behind. You already have children, you need to hurry up."

He was shown off by Musk before, and now that William Chen seized the opportunity, he naturally couldn't let go of the opportunity to show off in front of Rick Walton.

"Uh, the wedding, I'm afraid it won't be until next year. Delphine's schedule is very full recently. You know, she is a very ambitious woman."

Hearing what Rick Walton said, William Chen couldn't say anything. Anyway, in his opinion, looking for a partner would definitely not look for a daughter from a super rich family like Delphine, and Delphine Na's character is still so strong...

Thinking of this, William Chen glanced at Rick meaningfully. Could it be that you have any special hobbies that are not known to everyone?

In addition to these, Rick also talked about business matters with William Chen when he came here this time. It wasn't exactly about Zoom, but it also had something to do with Zoom.

When he first founded Zoom, William Chen once mentioned to Rick Walton the newly established group buying website - Groupon.The website at that time was still very useful for Zoom in its infancy. At least it could provide data support for Zoom’s self-operated products based on the popularity of their group buying.

At that time, Rick contacted Groupon, and finally invested 1 million US dollars in this company with a post-investment valuation of 4000 million US dollars, and got 40% of the shares, becoming the largest investor in Groupon.

After they invested, Groupon developed rapidly, because the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in 2010, which caused a financial tsunami and paralyzed Wall Street. However, this background provided the soil for the growth of the group buying economy.

And Groupon just took advantage of the "east wind" of the economic crisis and became a winner growing up in that soil.Due to severe overproduction and sluggish consumption during the economic crisis, many companies are facing pressure to destock. Low-price group buying is a good way to stimulate consumption and destock.

Groupon has not missed this opportunity for development, not only actively promoted, but also re-financed and launched a series of acquisitions to expand their market share.

Zoom participated in Groupon’s A round of financing. In the B round of financing half a year later, Chen William’s Meta investment also participated. With a post-investment valuation of 5 million US dollars, he invested 1 million US dollars and got Groupon’s 20 % of the shares, and Zoom also continued to follow suit, maintaining a 40% shareholding ratio.

Using these funds to make acquisitions, Groupon became the fastest growing company in the world last year.

In June, Groupon acquired City Deal GmbH, a Berlin-based company, to expand its business to 6 European markets; in August, it acquired a majority stake in Japanese shopping site Qpod and Russian shopping site Darberry; in October, it has 80 markets in North America. markets and 8 markets in Europe, Asia and South America.

At the end of 2010, the number of Groupon users reached 2500 million, with a turnover of 5 million US dollars; now in 2011, it easily has 6000 million registered users and more than 5000 employees. It is expected that by the end of the year, the number of users will exceed 1 million...

Moreover, Groupon has planned to be listed on NASDAQ in the United States before the end of the year, turning it from a small start-up company into a multinational listed company.

Now that Zoom and William Chen hold more than 60% of Zoom stock, Rick Walton learned from Andrew, the founder of Groupon, that Groupon is going to conduct another final round of financing before going public, this time Their financing amount will be about 4 million US dollars, and the company's valuation will exceed 40 billion US dollars, so he asked William Chen's opinion on whether to participate in this financing.

"I can hear what Andrew means, that he doesn't want us to participate in this round of financing again, because before going public, he hopes to optimize the company's shareholder holdings, and our holdings are too high in his opinion."

Rick Walton said.

William Chen could understand what he meant. Andrew hoped to introduce new shareholders to make Groupon's equity structure more beneficial to the entrepreneurial team, and he didn't want to release too many shares, because there will be an IPO in the future, so he took out 10 % of the shares are used for financing.

With the rapid development of Groupon this year, even though the number of users has reached 6000 million, there is still a lot of room for growth.

Not only the United States, but all parts of the world, especially Europe, have been affected by the economic crisis. On the one hand, the income of the people has dropped, leading to more cautious consumption;

Therefore, under such circumstances, the group buying model has been greatly welcomed. It is normal for Groupon to reach and exceed 8000 million or even 1 million users by the second half of the year.

Then their valuation of US$40 billion is not impossible, because Groupon's performance this year is really impressive.

Just at the end of last year, Google proposed to acquire Groupon. Their offer was 25 billion US dollars, but it was rejected by Andrew, the founder of Groupon. But until now, Google has not given up on the acquisition of Groupon. Their latest offer, Exactly $40 billion!
If William Chen and Zoom still participate in this round of financing, then Andrew's plan will be meaningless, which is not what he wants.

However, William Chen has his own ideas about this. If it is only to dilute 10% of the shares, he can still accept it. Although the group buying model is currently regarded as a very promising new model, to be honest, William Chen is very interested in Groupon. The company is not looking good for the long term.

Because with the rise of Groupon, imitators flocked in one after another.

In the field of group buying without industry barriers, it is no exaggeration to say that a website and a telephone can become a group buying company.

Therefore, soon, a large number of entrepreneurs will flood into the group buying market. Just like the battle of thousands of regiments in Huaguo in the previous life, the entire group buying industry will fall into a red sea, and various businesses will start fierce hand-to-hand combat.

And the giants are also coveting this piece of fat that everyone looks fat, just like Google, Facebook and other giants will launch group buying websites, and Groupon is facing the battle of these big and small entrants.

From the blue ocean to the red ocean, it means that the business of group buying is not so easy to do, and the future of Groupon is not optimistic.

As time goes by, at most three or four years, the economic crisis will gradually fade away and the economy will gradually recover.

The cold winter is over, and the inventory that needs to be cleared has basically been dealt with. Merchants' enthusiasm for low-price group buying will inevitably weaken, because low-price group buying is just a means of promotion for merchants.

At that time, the group buying business will face the difficulty of sustaining high-speed growth, and Groupon will also bear the brunt, and a sharp decline in performance is predictable.

Unless, like Meituan in Huaguo, it can shift its business from group buying to local life services, including community group buying and food delivery, if so, there is still hope for its rise again.

However, judging from the experience of Chen William in his previous life, Groupon did make an attempt in this area later, but it was later, after group buying had completely declined.

In the previous life, after 2013, Groupon’s stock price once fell from $28 to $2.15, and its market value shrank from $230 billion to $5.2 million. After that, it was a long period of stock price downturn.

It was not until 2015 that it re-turned its business and began to make a profit, and slowly achieved performance to satisfy investors.

(End of this chapter)