Some people consider TeamBuy as a modern advertising company while others view it as a tech company. No matter the view, the company built a strong reputation as Canada's team-buying website founding online daily deal. The firm is one of the largest e-commerce firms in the country. The company provides very wide discounts on local businesses by guaranteeing them a minimum amount of clients.
Ghassan Halazon is the CEO of TeamBuy. He graduated in 2006 from the Desautels Faculty of Management with a double concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurship. Just after completing his Bachelor of Commerce degree, Ghassan went to Georgetown University in Washington D.C to complete his MBA. He received his undergraduate degree in finance and entrepreneurship from McGill in Montreal. He found a job at Citigroup where he worked as an Investment Banking Associate. However, it was not fun there and decided to pursue his entrepreneurial spirit by founding TeamBuy.
What many people do not know, TeamBuy is not the first group buying. In general, group buying has been pretty popular in Asia for many years. There are some services such as Craiglist where people meet online and the go physically to stores in order to demand basically these discounts based on volume.
When he was working at Citigroup, the concept of team buying represented a huge online market potential and excited Ghasson as he decided to travel to Toronto in order to meet two strangers who shared his interest in social buying. The three realized that their way of looking at things were very similar. Therefore, they decided to align their visions.
Since Canada was like USA where this idea took off, Halazon decided that the time was right. Such idea revealed a deep concern to the comfort levels of consumers with e-commerce and social media.
The three men worked hard to develop the infrastructure of the firm and its website. However, in order to launch the site, they need to set up a strong marketing plan. This was why they decided to take the company to the national stage where the team appeared on a popular reality TV show on CBC, Dragon' Den, in front of 2 million viewers. Insight venture Partners, Georgian Partners, and ru-Net. The team considered the show as a serious opportunity to raise capital and as a great way to make the company more visible. They accepted, on the show, an offer from Jim Trieliving of $150,000 for 35% of the company. When the company outgrew the offer, Ghasson and his associated did not accept Treviling's company.
The reality show brought thousands of unique users to the site. When they launched their website officially, they set up a funny solution for punishing the tech team each time the site would crash. The punishment of the tech team was a reward for the users. Halazon said that since then, when the tech team messes up, the users know that something fun would be sent in their e-mail. This company of 120 employees has now more than 1 million users and has currently a $30 million gross revenue run rate.
TeamBuy is now one of the fastest growing start-ups of the country and the company asked its employeed to hug each other on Friday before to leave for the weekend. The firm named this practice €Friday hug days.€
Ghassan Halazon is the CEO of TeamBuy. He graduated in 2006 from the Desautels Faculty of Management with a double concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurship. Just after completing his Bachelor of Commerce degree, Ghassan went to Georgetown University in Washington D.C to complete his MBA. He received his undergraduate degree in finance and entrepreneurship from McGill in Montreal. He found a job at Citigroup where he worked as an Investment Banking Associate. However, it was not fun there and decided to pursue his entrepreneurial spirit by founding TeamBuy.
What many people do not know, TeamBuy is not the first group buying. In general, group buying has been pretty popular in Asia for many years. There are some services such as Craiglist where people meet online and the go physically to stores in order to demand basically these discounts based on volume.
When he was working at Citigroup, the concept of team buying represented a huge online market potential and excited Ghasson as he decided to travel to Toronto in order to meet two strangers who shared his interest in social buying. The three realized that their way of looking at things were very similar. Therefore, they decided to align their visions.
Since Canada was like USA where this idea took off, Halazon decided that the time was right. Such idea revealed a deep concern to the comfort levels of consumers with e-commerce and social media.
The three men worked hard to develop the infrastructure of the firm and its website. However, in order to launch the site, they need to set up a strong marketing plan. This was why they decided to take the company to the national stage where the team appeared on a popular reality TV show on CBC, Dragon' Den, in front of 2 million viewers. Insight venture Partners, Georgian Partners, and ru-Net. The team considered the show as a serious opportunity to raise capital and as a great way to make the company more visible. They accepted, on the show, an offer from Jim Trieliving of $150,000 for 35% of the company. When the company outgrew the offer, Ghasson and his associated did not accept Treviling's company.
The reality show brought thousands of unique users to the site. When they launched their website officially, they set up a funny solution for punishing the tech team each time the site would crash. The punishment of the tech team was a reward for the users. Halazon said that since then, when the tech team messes up, the users know that something fun would be sent in their e-mail. This company of 120 employees has now more than 1 million users and has currently a $30 million gross revenue run rate.
TeamBuy is now one of the fastest growing start-ups of the country and the company asked its employeed to hug each other on Friday before to leave for the weekend. The firm named this practice €Friday hug days.€