Spring-Summer 2011 was the collection-range from the Indian startup industry that can be termed as the era of daily-deals sites. If I have seen anything growing in numbers faster than the units that belonged to this category that would be…errm, well nothing. There were an odd thirty daily deals site operating in the Indian ecosystem at one time – 30, the number speaks for itself. Jasper was overwhelmed by the success chart Groupon was plotting for itself in the US, and Snapdeal was born; and it was a hit! That did it for everyone else; everyone wanted to make their own copy of Snapdeal, who had already copied Groupon. Timesdeal, sosasta, mydala, dealivore etc. etc. – the names are far too many to recollect. And now they are gone; most of them.

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For weeks now, all major finance portals have been full of articles on Groupon, how it has been losing out on market share to Living Social and other upcoming daily deals providers and how the investors are losing their sleep over the turn of events. The much awaited Groupon IPO was being delayed, and there were rumors that it may even be cancelled owing to the dismal performance by the daily deal pioneer. But amidst all speculations and negativities around Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, he still managed to finally pull off the IPO that has been marked as the biggest the tech industry has ever seen since Google’s. So what does it mean for Groupon? And more importantly, what does it mean for the people who are buying in the stocks?

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