It's just too bad it had to stomp out a fun little corner of geek commerce and camaraderie in the process." So all those crazy edges got hacked off until it did fit," wrote CNET blogger Amanda Kooser in 2013.
Woot "was just too eccentric to slot smoothly into a big company that thrives on being orderly. Critics claimed that the post-acquisition Woot lost much of its appeal. Īmazon's ownership of Woot was characterized by increasing complexity of the company's simple business model, moving away from the deal-of-the-day approach to a broader collection of flash sales. Louis, moved to the Amazon campus in Seattle. The company's headquarters remained in Carrollton, although the creative and web development team, previously based in St. In June 2010, Amazon acquired Woot for a reported $110 million. To them, every product is perfect." Īfter four years of rapid growth, in 2008 Woot was named the #1 Fastest Growing Private Retail Company in America and the #1 Fastest Growing Private Company in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area by Inc. "We feel that if we don't do a good job describing what's wrong with a product, people will assume we just don't know. To that end, he encouraged the site's copywriters to be entertainingly frank about the shortcomings of the often obsolete products sold on the site. "I wanted it to be a blog and a store at the same time," Rutledge told Inc. In 2004, Rutledge launched Woot as an outgrowth of Synapse Micro, offering a single product a day at steeply discounted prices. In 1994, Rutledge launched his first company, Synapse Micro, wholesaling tech products to primarily mom-and-pop computer shops.
Matts daily deal phonetizer Pc#
While working at a Dallas-area computer retailer called Resource Concepts, Rutledge began attending the monthly First Saturday swap meets, selling refurbished PC parts from a truck in the wee hours of the morning.
Louis, Missouri area to live with his mother, but returned to Texas to avoid paying some $8,000 in traffic tickets. He was an undistinguished high school student. Rutledge grew up in San Antonio and Carrollton, Texas.
Matt Rutledge, founder and CEO of Woot, and the grandfather of the daily deal, is stepping down from his position, two years after the website sold to.