Plenty of Fish

Profile: Markus Frind Built A $10M/Year Dating App... Alone

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About
Business

Markus Frind

Founder, Plenty of Fish

$833K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Plenty of Fish

pof.com

from Vancouver, BC, Canada

started July 2003

$833,333

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

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Plenty of Fish (POF) is a Canadian online dating site that connects people looking for romantic partners with like-minded people.

Monthly Revenue

$833K

Starting Costs

$1K

Built in

15 days

Score

98 🔥

Founders

Employees

Monthly Traffic

37,637,692

Profitable

Yes

Days To Build

Year Started

2003

Customer

B2C

Revenue Per Visitor

$0.02

Founders

Employees

Monthly Traffic

37,637,692

Profitable

Yes

Days To Build

Year Started

2003

Customer

B2C

Revenue Per Visitor

$0.02

Plenty of Fish Revenue

Plenty of Fish Growth Timeline

December 2015
Plenty of Fish hits $96M in revenue
December 2016
Plenty of Fish hits $91M in revenue
December 2017
Plenty of Fish hits $109M in revenue
December 2018
Plenty of Fish hits $120M in revenue
December 2019
Plenty of Fish hits $107M in revenue

About The Plenty of Fish Founder

Who is Markus Frind?

Markus Frind is the founder and CEO of Plenty of Fish (POF), a Canadian-based dating site. Markus started POF in 2003 and built it in 2 weeks as an exercise to help himself learn ASP.Net, a new programming language by then.

He ended up selling the website for about US$575 million in 2015.

About The Business

What problem is Plenty of Fish solving?

It can be difficult to find someone who is compatible with you and who shares your values and goals

Idea

How did Markus Frind get the idea for Plenty of Fish?

Markus started Plenty of Fish in 2003 as a way to improve his résumé. A new programming language called ASP.NET was released, and instead of reading books about it, he went ahead and created the site in two weeks to learn it.

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, plentyoffish.com, archived December 30, 2003

Build

How did Markus Frind build the initial version of Plenty of Fish?

Markus Frind singlehandedly built Plenty Of Fish in 2003 at a time when a new programming called ASP.NET was just released. So, instead of reading books to learn ASP, he focused on creating the website as a practical way of teaching himself the programming language.

Markus accomplished all this success on his own using only five servers, a Microsoft and ASP.NET tech stack.

Growth

What is the growth strategy for Plenty of Fish?

Product-based marketing and free access to users was the way Markus got people off the ground.

He introduced the "POF Chemistry Predictor," which used an in-depth questionnaire to assess users' personalities and recommend compatible matches.

This added credibility to the site and was successful in gradually building a legitimate dating community.

Pricing

How does Plenty of Fish price their products?

The site was free to use and advertisements were the primary monetization channel.

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