The Future of Local Commerce That Could Have Been [INTERVIEW]

No one knows local better then Groupon. Since its launch in 2008, it's been one of the most adaptive platforms on the web in the very challenging local and small business market. Led by Andrew Mason, Groupon built the industry of local when no one else was paying attention.

We recently sat down with Groupon's co-founder, Andrew Mason, for his thoughts and insight into the digital challenges small businesses face, what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur in local, and what local marketing will look like in five years.

The full article will appear in the Yext Quarterly, being published on Monday March 4th. Yext Quarterly is resource that addresses topics on the changing landscape of location, and the first issue covers 'The State of Location'. Download just the interview, 'Cracking the Local Code with Andrew Mason', here.

Here are highlights from the vision for the future of local commerce that could have been:

• When asked what's changed in local since Groupon's founding, Mason said, "I think for sure, mobile, that's no surprise. Our business just in the last year has gone from 22% mobile, which was already doubling from the year period, to 39-40% mobile this year."
• Mason even offered advice to other entrepreneurs starting companies about avoiding the "chicken-and-egg" problem. He said Groupon "actually had the opposite issue; it worked very well at small scale and, as we grew, we ran into issues bringing businesses too many customers. And we've had to innovate out of that problem."
• He went on to say "you don't have to be that smart to do well in business, you just have to have the courage to follow you intuition… And being convicted about those principles and being uniting to stray from them in the difference between success and failure."

Download the interview here.