Lessons from the Groupon Disaster

The easiest way to figure out one's international expansion strategy is to look at GDP or GDP per capita over the accessible market for your product. Many startups in the attempt to hoodwink growth find that it's AMAZING to get growth in developing countries. They fail to recognize that their predecessors or competitors are not catering to those groups because it just doesn't make economic sense.<p>I, for one, am a bigger believer in the small dedicated cohort of people strategy, e.g. Facebook, etc.

tl;dr - focusing globally at the outset, instead of nailing it locally first, Groupon has set themselves up for failure.<p>The article is a disappointment in that very little is actually said about Groupon. I was hoping for the nitty gritty details of their dirty scammy business.

Perhaps if US companies didn't start from a mindset which consistently refers to "domestic" and "international" business, their performance might be better. Europe is not one country yet, never mind everywhere else.