In 2003, Markus Frind, a Canadian resident, launched a new online dating venture called PlentyofFish. He coded the site himself, with knowledge from his education and jobs at various dot com companies. The unique selling point of PlentyofFish was that it was 100% free. Frind would depend on revenue from Google Adsense, affiliate programs, and ads to drive his revenue.
And drive his revenue he did.
As of 2008, PlentyofFish was grossing nearly $10 million a year. With Google Adsense alone, Frind was averaging $10,000 a day. Yes, a day.
Frind first got the idea of opening up PlentyofFish.com from his online dating experiences in 2001. His frustrations with the paid system let him to focus on creating an online dating service of his own - one that was free.
As of 2008, PlentyofFish had more than 1.2 million active members and at any given time has 40,000 - 60,000 people using or visitng the site at the same time. PlentyofFish is built using Microsoft technologies and ASP.NET.
The About Team page on PlentyofFish sums up the amount of work Markus does by himself. Here's what the About Team page lists:
CTO – Markus Frind
CFO – Markus Frind
VP Business Development – Markus Frind
VP Marketing – Markus Frind
Development Team – Markus Frind
Board Members – Markus Frind
Customer Service – Markus Frind and Girlfriend
Quotes from Markus Frind
About PlentyofFish Site Looking Basic
"To many people assume an "original idea" is just something that looks visually different then others. I created the first real free dating and the first one that actually worked. Just like Google created the first real search engine that worked." (from interview with Work Happy blog)
About Building PlentyofFish into a Successful Venture.
"basically I spent every waking minute when I wasn't at my day job reading, studying, and learning. I picked out "enemies" and did everything I could to defeat them which ment being bigger then them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and I constantly forced myself to test new things."
About Whether PlentyofFish Threatens the Paid Online Dating Industry
"Well I think it really depends on the market. In cities where there's a lot of wealth and a lot of money, I don't think PlentyofFish will have that deep of a market penetration, but in other areas, for instance in Canada, PlentyofFish is by far the largest dating site.."
About Competition from New Free Online Dating Services
"A lot of VC’s are throwing around a lot of money and probably have funded some of the other free sites, but I have so much of a head start that I don’t think there’s much they can do."
About Creating and Coding the Site (Frind uses ASP.NET)
"I just wrote everything myself. Everything is super simple, nothing more complex than an if-for-while loop. No built-in controls, nothing. The hardest thing is database access." (from interview with ARCast.TV)
About the Potential of Selling PlentyofFish
"I can either sell and walk away with a few hundred million or start an office and grow the site. So in the coming weeks/months i’m going to turn my hobby into a business." (from an August 2007 post on his blog)
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