[lotusleaf1987]

They have a list of some ~60,000 merchants, email addresses in the tens of millions, no patents or 'moat', and they're trying to sell a dollar for fifty cents and make a profit. Also, how do you scale when you have 8,000 employees? That's a huge fixed cost. And these aren't huge barriers to entry for your competition--Twitter/Facebook/any website with an audience can basically do this.

I don't see how their model is sustainable and the entire premise of their success seems wrested on Groupon succeeding at things they haven't demonstrated yet.

Also, I see Groupon as a sales company, not a tech company.

[lurker19]

Salespeople are marginal costs, not fixed costs, and that is why they do not scale. (Unless those salespeople are converting prospects into long-term renewal sales) Engineering and design is a fixed cost.