July 17, 2010
Posted by Ryan Graves
My interview with Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon (before Groupon)
Two years ago today my good friend Blake Samic and I set out to be the Angels of Interviewers. This meant we wanted to interview entrepreneurs who were just on the verge of doing something classic, something disruptive. We called our video blog ActionsTalk because these were the people who were just diving off the bridge of an idea into the water of a startup. They were doers, and we loved doers.
In hind site it’s really too bad that these interviews didn’t come with any equity exchange because our third interview was with now CEO of Groupon, Andrew Mason. Andrew shared his ideas for his startup ThePoint.com, which transformed from an idea to bring people together for collective action, to a company focused on bringing people together for collective purchase, Groupon.com. Both brilliant ideas but the latter turned out to be incredibly profitable.
In the interview Andrew talks a bit about how ThePoint secured their first funding and how and where the team worked. It’s always fascinating to see the origins of startups and I’m super happy for Andrews incredible successes over the last couple of years.
Also, please excuse the amateur nature of the intro. We were Gary V inspired and really excited about ActionsTalk :)
