These Guys Built A Google Chrome Extension For Online Deals That Got Sold For Rs 28,400 Crore

In the age of startups, getting acquired by a major conglomerate is every budding CEOs dream. And recently, PayPal, a multi-billion dollar enterprise acquired Honey -- a Google Chrome extension that helps you find coupons for best deals on the internet -- for a whopping $4 Billion.

Honey has been popular among shoppers online, co-founded by Ryan Hudson and George Ruan, two blokes trying to find a better way to push coupons and deals to customers when they were online trying to buy stuff.

It sits as a menial chrome extension that only gets activated when you reach a payment gateway of a certain app. The moment you arrive at that page, Honey will either show you discount coupons that can be used to save some bucks or show you other options on the internet that are cheaper than your current pick -- all to give you a better overall deal.

Honey boasted a $100 million in revenue with a constant user base of 17 million, which is good, but definitely not worth $4 billion. It surely seems unbelievable of the feat that Honey has been able to achieve. However, what many don¡¯t know is what Honey has been able to achieve in the seven years they¡¯ve existed.

Firstly, with their extension, they were able to solve the biggest need of buyers online -- best deals. And they did this through a variety of ways (coupons, price comparison etc). This helped them create a loyal user base. Loyal userbase = data.

Alternatively, they created bonds with e-commerce players to give affiliate links so when buyers looking online use their links to the deals -- Honey got some incentives. That helped them gain revenue.

This data is worth a lot. And that¡¯s exactly what PayPal might be going after. PayPal hasn¡¯t revealed what it plans to do with Honey. Will it ask it to create another extension that would benefit PayPal -- showing coupons/deals only when on PayPal¡¯s payment gateway or something else entirely.

But occurrences like these give hope to budding startups to never give up because you don¡¯t know when you might get lucky.