Plenty of Fish

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

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

0 (est.)

Monthly Traffic

37,637,692

Profitable

Yes

Days To Build

Year Started

2003

Customer

B2C

Revenue Per Visitor

$0.02

Founders

Employees

0 (est.)

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 [source]
December 2016
Plenty of Fish hits $91M in revenue [source]
December 2017
Plenty of Fish hits $109M in revenue [source]
December 2018
Plenty of Fish hits $120M in revenue [source]
December 2019
Plenty of Fish hits $107M in revenue [source]
October 2023
Plenty of Fish hits $10M in revenue [source]

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.

What problem does Plenty of Fish solve?

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

How did Markus come up with 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

How did Markus 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.

What was the growth strategy for Plenty of Fish and how did they scale?

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.

What's the pricing strategy for Plenty of Fish?

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

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