Graduates launched a website featuring online deals

A group of people get together to purchase a deal. They’ll only get the discount if most of the group members buy the product. However, if the purchase can be made online, everything becomes much easier. This is the concept behind Woow, a company founded by three graduates of the School of Business and Social Sciences. It is the first company to offer a different product or service online every day at a significant discount, provided a minimum number of buyers is reached.

The offers are posted on the Woow website for 24 hours, and the coupons to use the purchased service or product are valid for between one and six months. Since its launch, the company has maintained an average of 100 coupons sold per day; on its highest-selling day, coupon sales reached $10,000.

Leonardo Silveira (23 years old, with a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Administration), Martín Giura (24 years old, with a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Administration), and Martín Larre (32 years old, with a degree in Marketing Analysis and a law degree from the Catholic University of Argentina) are behind the initiative. They began working on the project in late 2009 and launched the site on October 20. Woow has 12,000 registered users and approximately 6,000 daily visits. The young entrepreneurs plan to expand into other product categories and into international markets.

According to the founders, the initiative is very appealing to users because “the visible benefit is the significant discount.” Likewise, the service is very good for companies because it gives them the chance to capture 100% of the attention on their business; it’s like being on the cover of a digital magazine with a massive circulation, which encourages people to go and try it out, and in that way, companies gain customers.”

Silveira explained that group buying originated within the framework of social projects. For example, a call for participation would be posted online to renovate a plaza; if at least 20 interested people signed up, the initiative would move forward. For Giura, “the best thing about ORT is the quality of the professors. The vast majority encourage you to keep pursuing entrepreneurship; with them, you feel supported.” "We’re applying a lot of daily reasoning exercises and case studies, which is what we learned in class," Silveira noted. For his part, Larre highlighted ORT’s "promotion of entrepreneurship, to train people who can generate value and create jobs. It also taught me a lot about teamwork."

Interview published in November 2010