WORK HAPPY.NET -- June 15 -- Markus Frind runs a free online dating site called PlentyOfFish.com and he rocked the Internet world this week when he posted a photo of his latest Google AdSense check for $900k Canadian. It was a check for 2 months because the first check they sent was so big it was rejected by his bank.
You're a one-man show running a very successful dating site. Tell us how you got started.
Back in 2001 after my birthday someone in the office introduced me to online dating sites. I went back to my desk and checked out udate.com and kiss.com and lavalife/web personals. I was bored and I wanted to chat with people. I was really annoyed when I found out you had to pay for everything, I ended up telling the girl who introduced me to the sites that I could do better and make them for free.
Your site, if you'll forgive me, isn't terribly attractive. What's your secret and what are your thoughts about what it takes to be successful?
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. There is no such thing as a secret. When I came home from work I sat down and I forced myself to code for a hour or 2. There are only 1000 or so sites in the world with massive traffic, and of those mine is the only one that is run by a single person. For being successful in building sites you need to give something to the surfer faster or better or both. If you want to do pay per click, you just need to be good at picking words to bid on. For that business its just a matter of repetition and fighting boredom. At the end of the day you just need to sit down and DO it. Most people don't. FULL INTERVIEW @ WORK HAPPY.NET
Mark Brooks: I just started listing the Canadian internet dating rankings at www.onlinepersonalswatch.com courtesy of Comscore Mediametrix. Plentyoffish.com is #3, very close behind Mate1, and has 3.7 times the number of uniques that it had in May of 2005. I'll interview Markus for OPW again shortly. Let me know the questions you'd like me to ask him.
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