thousands of retail sites, using a website that shows more than 150 shopping categories. When used with the Drop Down Deals free Web browser plug-in, the company says consumers no longer need to search for coupons while they shop. To view available coupons, consumers simply click on a desired category, which pulls up a list of retailers and correlating coupons. To use a coupon, users click on a link associated with the category, which takes them directly to the retailer’s site for immediate use.
The company launched its browser application in beta form in September, and Mendes said it’s been easy to acquire users from around the world so far. Drop Down Deals quickly gained scale because “we had a lot of partners,” the browser plug-in is free, and it’s often bundled with other software. Mendes said more than 3 million Drop Down Deals plug-ins have been downloaded in the past month or two.
The company, which was funded by a private investment group called Sambreel Holdings, and already is profitable. Mendes told me, “We get an affiliate’s commission from the store where they bought the product,” but he declined to provide specific revenue numbers or to say how much capital the company raised.
The pace of the company’s progress is just one example of how Drop Down Deals has been moving at Internet speed. Mendes told me he was recruited to join the startup just three months ago, after working through this summer as the chief marketing officer at Carlsbad, CA-based Wellness.com, a website for sharing information about health and happiness. He estimates the company now has close to 30 employees, and adds, “We’re hiring more people every week.”
