Markus Frind did something I don?t think many folks thought he could; he built the world?s largest (Canada?s largest for sure) online dating sites by himself. In fact Plenty of Fish (or POF as people who use it called it), is still run from his apartment in Vancouver with Markus as the sole employee.
In fact not only is POF widely successful it?s free to join and use. Yes, unlike his competitors, he doesn?t charge you to interact with others. No per-email charge or you have to pay to reply. All free, all supported by advertising.
From his blog post it sounded like he had been planning to hire some folks, but that has changed recently:
Well it seems most of the stuff I wanted to hire employees to build has already been built. I?ve got to see a lot of stuff under NDA the last week and All I can say is there is going to be a major major change to the web and the economics of Online Dating are about to dramatically change.
So for now I?m just going to overspend on tech and buy my way out of any trouble and maybe hire someone part time to do customer service stuff. Source: No Employees for a while.
I?m chatting with Markus (too bad we live on opposite sides of the Georgia Straight, because sitting down for a coffee is so much more West Coast) in a little bit so I?ll update this post with that info?
I decided to just write up my conversation as a separate post. And what an awesome conversation it was!
Company Index: Plenty of fish
Tris Hussey is a writer, teacher, blogger, and speaker on all facets of Internet life, WordPress, and social media. If you are interested in having Tris speak, teach, lead a workshop or consult for you, feel free to email tris [at] trishussey [dot] com.
