Jon Carpenter
By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – “If I can spend $25 and get something worth $50, it’s a compelling value proposition,” says Jon Carpenter, director of marketing for LivingSocial, the DC-based company that has raised $50 million this year alone to expand its LivingSocial Deals service. Members save from 50 to 90 percent off deals at restaurants, spas, sporting events, hotels and other local attractions.
LivingSocial raised more money than any DC-area consumer oriented startup since AOL and has rapidly expanded its local deals program, closing in on 60 cities. It has also rapidly expanded its employee base from 20 to 200 as it puts people on the ground in each city it adds to the LivingSocial Deals program and builds its customer service department in DC.
“We made the strategic decision early on to have boots on the ground in every city,” Carpenter tells us. He says the company looks for reps who grew up in a city and/or “Have their fingers on the pulse of their cities. We put a top priority on quality, so finding them is more difficult than say just doubling staff at a call center.”
Hot business sector
The recession and whatever it is we’re in now has people looking for bargains, but Carpenter notes, “Any time is a good time to save money.” That at least partly explains why the discount group buying space is one of the hottest digital businesses out there right now.
As we’ve pointed out numerous times at TechJournal South, LivingSocial, Groupon and others have raised huge amounts of expansion cash and the space has more than 100 players, although only four are in more than two cities.
Room for lots of players
“We think there’s room for a lot of players,” Carpenter says. “It’s anybody’s guess what this will look like five years from now. Wish I had a crystal ball,” he adds as fire sirens whine in the background. The company headquarters is in DC’s Chinatown and not far from a fire station.
While restaurant, spa and other deals are fairly common offerings, LivingSocial also presents deals on shooting ranges, medical services, teeth whitening, and pole dancing classes, among many others.
LivingSocial started out offering the Facebook “Pick Five,” app, but rapidly progressed to its revenue producing deals service.
Carpenter is one of more than 50 top Internet gurus, digital maestros, executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists slated to participate in the first Digital East conference at Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Prior to joining LivingSocial, Carpenter worked in digital strategy for clients such as the US Department of Energy, Bombadier Transportation, smartUSA and DARPA.
He was also an early product manager at Steve Case’s Revolution Health.
See also: Local deals firm growing because they provide merchants with leads
Living Social grabs another $10M
Five Questions for LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
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Tags: Digital East, group discount buying services, Groupon, Jon Carpenter, LIvingSocial, local buying
