Markus Frind, the founder of PlentyOfFish.com is my new hero (James Hong of Hot or Not is a close second). Marcus spends about two hours a day in his underwear managing a free dating website that gets twelve billion page views a year. He is the only employee, and he only has one server. And by the way, he makes $5-6 million/year with Google ads.
I’ve moderated many panels in my time, and if I had to choose one that entrepeneurs should watch, this is it. If you’re one guy/gal or two guys/gals in a garage, it will push all the right buttons, and you’ll love it. However, if your plan is to raise several million dollars from venture capitalists and then hire five engineers, one vp of biz dev, one CTO, two testers, and a vp of marketing to ship a product in a year, you probably shouldn’t spend your time watching it.
The members of the five-person panel provided many good insights into starting and funding a company today.
Marcus Kazmierczak, vp of engineering, Maya’s Mom
Markus Frind, Founder, PlentyofFish.com
James Hong, Co-Founder, HotorNot.com
Dave Lu, CEO, Fanpop
Karen Northup, CEO and Founder, CoreFino
Watch it and reap!
Guy Kawasaki
Note: This piece was originally published on Guy’s blog How to Change the World and is posted on DMW with the author's permission. Guy’s bio can be viewed here.
I really enjoyed reading this post. Keep up the good work.
and linked to your article “Markus Frind, Founder of PlentyOfFish, is my Hero” on OnlinePersonalsWatch at http://onlinepersonalswatch.typepad.com/news/2007/06/guy-kawasaki-ma.html
Please let me know if I can be of assistance as you work on future articles covering the internet dating or social networking industries.
Mark Brooks
OnlinePersonalsWatch.com
SocialNetworkingWatch.com
USA: 212-444-1636
UK: 020-8133-1835
Bio: http://301url.com/brooks
I found a new datingsite at http://www.freedatingforyou.com that seems to be free also. Maybe it could be something in the future for us singles.
Hey there, thanks for approving my previous post. Just thought I’d leave my details of my new site
http://www.todaysdating.com which is now just 1 of thousands competing for top Google rankings, but hey you’ve got to be in it to win it. I think something as competitive as online dating needs new inovation and fresh ideas to be able to compete – will keep you posted!
I wish you all the best with that! Nothing wrong with setting your goals high. From what I’ve read up on with good Adsense models, the idea is to find something that has a huge demand, and simply make it free, and funded by ads. Sounds easier than it actually is though.
Markus has created such a fantastic dating website that provides a genuine free dating service that is not built around advertising but is built for the users.
Hello Im Paul Founder Of Abmatch.com
Like Plentyoffish I Work Alone
The Site Is Based In Usa And Is One Year Old.
http://abmatch.com
chat rooms/ instant messenger/ forums
http://www.abmatch.com
Sometimes the simple ideas are what eludes us. When Marcus thought of a free online dating site, he probably tapped into one of the worlds biggest success stories. Thanks to him and his idea I have created a good income for myself and enjoy the industry. But its not easy hanging onto crucial search positions within Google, but staying on top of the competition is a great challenge. I never would thought I would achieve # 1 search position for free dating and free online dating in the serps when searching from within Australia. please feel free to review me @
http://www.hookmeup.com.au
I was looking at some stats from hitwise the other day and it looks like Plentyoffish has overtaken Match.com as the worlds largest dating site. What an amazing achievement!