![]() “That’s when I got into the world of the Internet, around 1992, because H&R Block owned CompuServe, one of the old online ISPs,” he says. When one of his clients became CFO for H&R Block, Cunningham followed him. I went from, ‘I’m going to be in politics the rest of my life’ to ‘I’m going to go to business school and do something else.’”ĭiscovering an aptitude for mergers and acquisitions, Cunningham started consulting. the wheels of bureaucracy ground on me in a way that meant I didn’t want to do that. “Because of my father and his background in public office, I thought I’d love that combination of public service and business,” he says. After graduating from college in 1985, he got a job working for then-governor Bill Clinton’s Economic Development Office. ![]() Ernest Cunningham, he thought he was destined for a life in public office. As the son of former longtime Arkansas Rep. Tall, down-to-earth and approachably affable, Cunningham does not comport himself like an archetypal CEO. Walking serenely through the center of all this maelstrom is RMN’s Founder and CEO, Cotter Cunningham, the Henry Ford of online coupons. The energy is as tangible as static electricity. Ad-hoc marketing committees brainstorm while lounging in plush chairs in mini-conference cubicles and transglobal video conference calls occupy a large media room known as the “round table.” A fully stocked kitchen is perpetually open to refuel flagging energy, and tickers and digital clocks throughout the office countdown the days until Black Friday-the most profitable shopping day of the year. Even our CEO, CFO, CTO, they all sit with their teams in a newsroom-style setting.”īehind the glass, an army of intense young faces swarm in a buzz of organized chaos, relentlessly combing the global beach for coupons, scrutinizing every grain of digital sand for deals and discounts to contribute to the site. “We don’t have offices here,” explains Brian Hoyt, vice president of communications. True to its former moniker, Whaleshark Media, Inc., the corporate office resembles a giant aquarium of cyber commerce. ![]() There are few doors, barriers or offices nearly everything is clearly visible behind transparent glass. RMN is not so much expanding as exploding-it currently occupies three entire floors of a sleek downtown skyscraper, and it will soon engulf two additional floors as well. It’s also gobbled up other coupon sites in the U.K., France, Germany and Canada-and shows no signs of slowing down. The company began with one man and a vision, and it now boasts more than 400 employees across the globe, 300 in Austin alone. And when the company went public on NASDAQ last July, it was ranked among the Top 10 best performing IPOs in the world. In fact, in the third quarter of 2013, RetailMeNot posted net revenue of $47.4 million, an increase of 39 percent from the year prior. “Trust me, the result is not small potatoes.” “RetailMeNot underscores what can happen when you have a big idea that’s backed by big investors,” says Austin Business Journal tech writer Christopher Calnan. In short, RMN is a homegrown bonanza-the biggest coupon site in the world-planted in our own backyard. ![]() In the past year, the company has logged more than 500 million visits to its website worldwide. Coupons you can scan, coupons you can share, coupons you can receive on your smartphone and cash in at the register. Coupons for free shipping, coupons for 20 percent off, coupons for giant retailers like Macy’s and The Gap as well as small regional mom-and-pop operations. RetailMeNot (RMN) deals in digital coupons-millions of digital coupons. Make no mistake: The brains behind one of the hottest global finance success stories of the past decade want to leave you with the impression that this is not your father’s old, conservative corporate headquarters. The barista, a fresh-faced young woman introducing herself as Leslie, cheerfully recommends the cappuccino. Instead of being met with the stony visage of a receptionist obscured behind a glass fortress, the first thing guests see is an invitingly spacious, fully equipped coffee bar. Visitors to the company headquarters of RetailMeNot six stories above Congress Avenue may be forgiven if they think they’ve gotten off at the wrong floor.
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