So we decided to start selling some seats for our classes through these new things called Groupon and Living Social. We did a couple deals with Groupon and had some modest success. Now that we were in a townhouse with double the capacity, what could possibly go wrong with doing another one with this new company called Living Social and sell maybe 400 or 500. Ha!

Our deal with Living Social was one of their biggest deals if not the biggest deal in the country up to that point and certainly for a year or two after. We sold over 2300 coupons! People trying to book flooded our email systems every time we released a new calendar of classes. Our booking system was still done manually, so as you can imagine we were very overwhelmed. The social coupon business was great exposure for us without a doubt, but like for many small businesses like ours, it nearly killed us too. We survived and persevered and met some great people this way. The cash infusion helped us finish our island buildout and purchase equipment. Oh, and get rid of some student too. :-)

Will do another coupon deal again? Sorry, but probably not. And, if we did, it would be us offering it directly to our current customers and not through a coupon site. So y'all, you never know when our special friends on our email list will get one of the best deals ever!