Taken Mind Stories!
They sold their company to google for $114 million. Within 17 months, they buyback Dailydeal from google!
Brief History Dailydeal:
Dailydeal was a coupon promotional company similar to Groupon. The Dailydeal company was founded by Fabian and Ferry Heilemann (Brothers). The company had its goal of associating with merchants and publicizing every merchant deal to the public on their website. The duo brothers lived in West Germany. The company got acquired by google within a few months of operation. 17 months later, the founders – Fabin and Ferry Heilemann of Dailydeal called off the deal and got the company back from google!
History of Fabin and Ferry Heilemann:
Fabin and Ferry were born in West Germany. After completing their schooling at a public school, Ferry left to WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management to study economics and Fabin left to Bucerius Law School in Hamburg for studying Law. After their Undergraduate, the duo left for higher studies. This time, Fabin went to the Nottingham University Business School, UK and Ferry left to the Santa Clara University School of Law, USA. Fabin did his Ph.D. in Heidelberg, Germany.
During the course of study, the duo worked for many consulting firms. That was the time, they realized they were not satisfied as consultants. The duo felt that they wanted to take decisions on their own and lead a group of people. That is how, the idea of Entrepreneurship shed light on their minds. They decided to startup.
According to Fabin,
There was just one reason behind the Entrepreneur idea! We want to realise our business ideas, form up a team and definitely lead it to success. We gain self-encouragement by leading our very own company!
In 2001, the duo started an Event Gastronomy company and continued for some years. The idea of Dailydeal.de showed later. The duo ran into more than 60 business models, analysed them, fixed their minds to the most marketable one.
Establishment of Dailydeal.de
Dailydeal was launched in 2009 at Berlin. Richard Branson joined Fabin and Ferry as a web developer. The three-member team released a beta version of the website. They started their merchant dealings on the same day of the website launch. The market situation and the consistent efforts of the trio made growth rate fast. By March 2010, the company sported 100+ employees. Dailydeal addressed hotels, restaurants, saloons, local avenues and small businesses. They incorporated the latest technology and software applications such as the use of Jitterbit.
Struggle of Dailydeal with the market opponents
Dailydeal had the main market opponent as CityDeal. After CityDeal got acquired by GroupOn in 2010, Growing faster was the only option left for Daily deal to survive. In September 2011, Dailydeal got acquired by google for a whopping $114 Million. By then, dailydeal had 12,000 merchants onboard and had greater user reach.
The future of Dailydeal with google
Google brought Dailydeal to enhance their existing ‘google offers’ the deal of the day site of google. Dailydeal helped google reach out to the European market. Eventually, google’s attempt failed. Google started laying off Dailydeal employees in September 2012 and planned to shut down the unit.
Fabin and Ferry buyback Dailydeal
When the news struck Fabin and Ferry’s attention, the duo stepped in to save the company. Fabin and Ferry offered a buyback Dailydeal offer to google to prevent the shutdown and layoff of their employees.
After the buyback Dailydeal offer, the duo brothers stated,
“We are pleased to inform you today that we as founders and managing directors have bought the company DailyDeal back from Google and will now continue to lead it on our own. DailyDeal will, of course, continue to offer the same service and exciting offers – exactly as we have done in the past. In addition, we will expand the business in the coming months. In the name of the DailyDeal team, we thank all of our users, business partners and colleagues for their loyalty and support over the last three years. We are very much looking forward to what lies ahead of us!”
At the time of google’s acquirement of Dailydeal, Fabin and Ferry had made a string of angel investments in berlin and german based companies. These investments financially helped the duo in the buy-back offer. Also dailydeal.de is live and active, providing daily deals, coupon promotions and competing at the present with Groupon.
For some entrepreneurs, it is not just about an “exit”. They make a difference by finding a passage to enter back.