slough (plural sloughs) 1  The skin shed by a snake or other reptile. That is the slough of a rattler; we must be careful. 2  Dead skin on a sore or ulcer. This is the slough that came off of his skin after the burn.
The name Groupon is a combination of the words group and coupon, which references the company's viral marketing business model.
What this means is that, when Groupon is growing rapidly, as it is now, it collects a ton of cash from its subscribers long before it has to deliver some of the cash to its merchant partners. And that generates positive cash flow. This is how Groupon can generate cash even when it is losing money on its income statement. The full-year cash flow statement for 2010 illustrates this. Groupon lost $413 million in 2010 on its income statement.