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Markus Frind makes the cover of Inc.

Written by: Ross Fattori

Article Overview: Canadian entrepreneur, Markus Frind, makes the cover of Inc. magazine

Markus Frind makes the cover of Inc.

There’s a great cover story about Canadian Markus Frind and his hugely popular web site, Plenty of Fish, in this month’s Inc. magazine. The writer of the piece, Max Chafkin, does a fine job describing the rise to prominence and rather unusual circumstances that have lead to the success of Frind’s web site.

Markus’s business model flies in the face of conventional wisdom. He operates one of the most heavily-trafficked dating web sites in the world – practically by himself. He now has a staff of three working for him, but the bulk of the heavy lifting, strategizing and execution is performed by Frind himself. He works an hour or so per day from his Vancouver office.

When it came time to launch Plenty of Fish, Frind merely saw an opportunity to build a better mousetrap and began building. In this case, the site was an online dating service that didn’t charge its members fees to join. Most of the popular online dating sites, at that time, charged a membership fee.

By Frind’s own admission, Plenty of Fish is not the most elegant site in the world. In fact, it looks even amateurish, but that may be part of its appeal. Occasionally, member head shots will appear distorted or out of focus. This doesn’t seem to matter to the millions of users who use the site.

Rather than subscribe to someone else’s formula for success, Frind developed his own model. He’s never had a business plan. He has no mentor, no advisors and no investors. No board of directors. There’s just Frind, along with three staff members.

When he first launched Plenty of Fish five years ago, he didn’t go looking for venture capital or business partners; he funded the start-up entirely himself. Once his business model was established, Frind began attracting more and more traffic, and eventually he monetized the site using Google’s AdSense program.

Ka-ching! Frind earned a reported $10 million last year.

For anyone interested in learning more about this Internet maverick, I’d recommend reading the Inc. piece. For more in-depth analysis about Markus’s approach to business, check out his blog called The Paradigm Shift.

The blog could use a little editing here and there, but there you’ll find nuggets of entrepreneurial wisdom and insight.

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Article Tags: better mousetrap, business model, business partners, ching, conventional wisdom, fish five, formula for success, google, head shots, heavy lifting, internet maverick, markus frind, max chafkin, membership fee, online dating service, online dating sites, plenty of fish, popular online dating sites, prominence, vancouver office



Related Forum Posts
Re: How to make $10 million from home in 4 easy steps - Hey Yinka, Good post! For some reason I don't think it was a spark of genius that did it for Markus Frind. What I want to know is his thought process on arriving at a revenue model as he undercut these online dating giants. Did he really think he was going to make it this big by being free?????
Re: How to make $10 million from home in 4 easy steps - [quote="Ringo So":17xe3oiv]Hey Yinka, Good post! For some reason I don't think it was a spark of genius that did it for Markus Frind. What I want to know is his thought process on arriving at a revenue model as he undercut these online dating giants. Did he really think he was going to make it this big by being free?????[/quote:17xe3oiv] This is what is gaining ground now ( The freemium model) this is why all the social networking giants are doing. Let it be free, attract millions of people and sell adverts
Re: Dropped Out Of School To Startup! - People should always try to finish what they start. But there are circumstances when "quitting" or choosing a different route is a better path. But to reinforce the point Stas made... dropping out of high school isn't a good idea. For the rare few who have still gone on to "make it" in life and succeed without a high school education... keep in mind we just haven't heard from the other 99.999999999999% who didn't make it. Moreover, I often find that small business/entrepreneur magazine (or even online publications) content is designed paint an unrealistic image of entrepreneurship. They'll showcase a famous or successful entrepreneur and lead readers to believe that they can do it too with little effort. Those kinds of publications focus on/glorify all the positives (e.g. how easy it was, how much revenue was earned), while leaving out the "important stuff" (i.e. how much sweat equity was involved, what was the company's expenses, etc.) For example, in the Jan/Feb 2009 copy of "Inc." Magazine, they did a profile on Markus Frind, the founder/owner of PlentyOfFish.com, and talk about how he only works one hour a day, makes $10 million a year, keeps things simple and was lazy. But does that mean other aspiring entrepreneurs can just be lazy? Probably not.
Re: eBook Testimonials Needed - I have read the ebook form cover to cover. It is amazing. I will pm you the tetimonial now. I want you to take note that page 18 was totally blank please check it out.
Book cover questions - While it is certainly interesting to know if an author is happy with their book cover - I'd be interested in knowing that, particulary with covers that I think stink! - I wonder if writers will answer that question truthfully. If word of what they say gets back to the artist/cover designer...there might be repercussions.


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