Coupon Sites Getting Their 15 Minutes, and Maybe Much More
If you've recently been visiting coupon sites for the first time, you aren’t alone. Owing to factors like the lousy economy and privacy concerns, online coupon destinations are now the second-fastest-growing content sites behind job sites, according to the marketing research company comScore. In fact, the number of visitors to coupon sites is up 41% over this time last year. Venture capitalists have noticed. Joshua Goldman, a general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, has been wrestling for months with whether, and how, Norwest can capitalize on the trend. So has renowned angel investor Ron Conway, who said in an email earlier today that he’s been looking at an array of coupon sites with Baseline Ventures, the early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm. Meanwhile, at last week’s “demo day” at Y Combinator, a Mountain View-based company that incubates startups, the rustling of paper was audible during the presentation of petaSales, a startup whose coupon site works with smaller retailers. The VC-packed audience was taking notes. To find out more about who the players are in the coupon space, and where the opportunities may be, I spoke at length with Norwest’s Goldman, an e-commerce expert who was the CEO of comparison shopping site MySimon when it sold to CNet in 2000 for $700 million. Q&A is after the jump.
