After four years at the head of one of South Africa’s fastest-growing ecommerce companies, Cape Town entrepreneurs Wayne Gosling and Daniel Guasco have announced their departure from deal-of-the-day platform Groupon South Africa in search of new opportunities.
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“Our strengths lie in creating businesses,” explains Gosling. Guasco adds “We’ve built a team that has generated hundreds of millions of Rands worth of revenue per year and won the SA ecommerce Award each year. It is a brand that is going to do incredible things in the future, but it is now time for a new challenge”.
The four years have seen Dan and Wayne grow Groupon South Africa from a team of two offering deals in Cape Town and Johannesburg, to a team of 140 in nine cities offering deals from local services, and products to travel.
Gosling and Guasco first started Twangoo in June 2010 in a garage, which was a few months later sold to Groupon USA. The company notes that Groupon covers about a third of all ecommerce transactions being made in SA. Internationally, Groupon has also shown positive signs with a first-quarter revenue of US$757.6 million, up 26% year-on-year.
iAfrica reported that South African entrepreneur, Emilian Popa, will be filling the shoes of the duo. Popa has a background in a bunch of popular ecommerce outfits backed by Rocket Internet like Zando SA and Jumia Nigeria, as well as Naspers-backed Style36, 5rooms and Kinderelo.
Roy Blanga, International Vice President for Northern Europe at Groupon, said, “Emilian is an innovative and passionate leader who greatly understands the needs of both merchants and consumers. He joins us at an incredibly exciting time as we look to shortly roll out both a completely redesigned website and updated mobile apps in South Africa.”
Gosling and Guasco are now on the lookout for new investment opportunities or prospects in which to use their expertise — whether that be building a new business, or helping other entrepreneurs execute their ideas.
