LivingSocial Is Growing-Up and Focusing on Big Goals and a Bigger Future

I visited my son in Washington DC this week.

 

 

   
He works for company called LivingSocial, which is a fast-growing and innovative tech startup. If it doesn't immediately ring a bell ... they compete with Groupon in the daily deals space.

As an entrepreneur, it was interesting to get a sense of the scope (they do a lot more than daily deals), scale (5,000 employess in just three years), and pace of the company like this.

LivingSocial raised enough money (at a $6 billion valuation) that, even though they lost over $500 million on operations last year, they are on pace for their targets - including an initial public offering in the near future.

As I watched the swarms of people huddling, white-boarding, and doing what they do ... It occured to me that what once seemed like chaos is re-organizing at a higher level of order. Teams are relying more on project management; key performance indicators are well known and well tracked; and they are moving to a matrix organization management to get things done.

All-in-all, it was impressive.  Moreover, they are keeping the "prize" in plain sight.  Here's a picture of Ben and me in front of a LivingSocial motivational mural titled "Intergalactic Winning".

 

It's next to a world map that shows the markets in which they've gone live, and it's a reminder that cool things happen when you focus relentlessly on big goals and an even bigger future.

Related articles

• Tim O'Shaughnessy Explains Why LivingSocial Lost $558 Million Last Year (businessinsider.com)
• LivingSocial CEO: Lumping Us With Groupon Is Like Lumping eBay With Amazon - TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
• What's next for LivingSocial (tech.fortune.cnn.com)