Dean McEvoy and Justus Hammer are poster boys for the frenzied group deal-buying industry. The duo not only caught the wave early but also sold their startup Spreets to Yahoo for an eye-popping $40 million in January, a mere 10 months after founding it. McEvoy and Hammer still remain part of the company, answering now to boards rather than investors, and poring over balance sheets and profit and loss statements, without quite losing their entrepreneurial bug.
In an interview with Anthill’s Cynthia Karena, the duo says entrepreneurship should be all about building value, not selling out. Early in Spreets’ life, McEvoy realised the importance of this when a friend declined to put a deal opportunity on his Facebook page. That is when the penny dropped, he says, and Spreets began to focus on quality deals and the user experience, rather than focusing only on discounts.
