OPW INTERVIEW -- June 30, 2006 -- I met Markus at iDate2005 and barely gave him the time of day; a hokey little site called Plentyoffish. I have a lot more respect for him these days. Plentyoffish is free and has snuck up on the Canadian market and has now established itself in the American market. It's #5 on the Hitwise USA rankings for May 2006, no less. (See OnlinePersonalsRankings.com for official international online personals site rankings courtesy of Hitwise, Comscore and Nielsen). Time for another chat with Markus… - Mark Brooks
Why is Plentyoffish a Web 2.0 site?
Because, like other Web 2.0 sites, Plentyoffish is driven by the community. There are one million people who have moderating powers in the Plentyoffish forum and there's several thousand people attending parties all over the country every week. And it's all organized and done by users. So unlike the paid sites, Plentyoffish is run by the users.
I read that you had a check for $900K from Google for two months Ad Sense sales. What sort of pay-per-click (PPC) spend does it take to generate this?
I don't spend more then 10% of my monthly income on advertising. Pretty much the entire thing is viral. I never did any pay-per-click at the start, not in the first two years and then after that it was just a growing. The community was really built by word of mouth. There was a need for a free site and because no one else was providing it, it just grew like a weed. A lot of people just don't want to pay for dating sites. I'm providing a service for millions of people and it's costing me barely anything. These other sites, they're all just out for people's money.
Does Plentyoffish.com really represent a threat to the dating industry? Are many of your members also members of paid dating sites?
Well I think it really depends on the market. On cities where there's a lot of wealth and a lot of money, I don't think Plentyoffish will have that deep of a market penetration but in other areas, for instance in Canada, Plentyoffish is by far the largest dating site. And Lava Life if you look at all the rankings, it's lost about 50% of its traffic in the last year.
People are using three dating sites on average. So right now they're probably using Plentyoffish and two paid dating sites. We won't know until there are two or three other huge free dating sites if the paid dating industry is in trouble.
How many employees do you have? How many uniques a month do you get and how many servers does Plentyoffish.com run on?
Just me, myself and I. Google says it's over 3.4 or 3.5 million uniques a month. I run Google analytics which records all my traffic.
I have five or six servers; one database server, one web server, an image server, a mail server…it's a dating site; it's not rocket science. You don't need thousands of servers.
I have highly optimized the database and the site, so I guess normally everyone else is using two to three hundred servers and I'm doing what they are doing with more complexity on top of it. I've invented stuff like multi-dimensional wheel sieve. I create very advanced algorithms. The more you search and the more you use the site, the more it limits your view of the people you see. So if you only message smokers, then it doesn't matter what pages you're on, you're only going to see smokers. It generates a database on the site that's built around your preferences, which is something that no other dating site is capable of doing yet. It's technically not feasible for them at least using known algorithms. I invented algorithms that no one else thought were feasible.
What you say you want and what you actually want are two different things. It hardly ever corresponds on a dating site. So I just track a user and see what they're actually doing on the site and then show them matches based on their actual surfing preferences. My site is deceptively simple but no one knows just how complex it is under the surface.
Let's go on to the final question. What's your advice for other Web 2.0 start up web entrepreneur's about making money?
Build something useful, simple in ways that people will use. Explore things like Ad Sense, affiliate programs, and just explore ways of making money. Most 2.0 companies will never make a dime and they're not built to make a dime. So I would start looking at how to make money before you even design or think about starting a business.
So what are your goals for 2006 through 2007?
I really don't plan more then three months ahead. Everything always changes constantly but I suppose it would be to incorporate social networking features and to stop Myspace and Facebook from taking over the dating industry. Myspace has 15 million unique log in's a day. The entire dating industry in this space has maybe a million to a million and a half. And from the polls I've taken on my site, something like 30% of the people use Myspace…the same people who are using the paid dating sites. User psychology is very weird. People on Myspace say they're not just there to date but actually that's what most of them are there looking for.
"How many employees do you have?.....
Just me, myself and I.... "
See http://www.plentyoffish.com/about.aspx
"The People ... and i've recently suckered my girlfriend into helping answer some emails. ... I would like to thank the handful of volunteer moderators who make sure the forums aren't overrun by spam. "
And "There are one million people who have moderating powers in the Plentyoffish forum".
Are they employees without salaries?
Posted by: Fernando Ardenghi | Jun 30, 2006 at 06:07 PM
> "I met Markus at iDate2005 and barely gave him the time of day"
Now see - that's why people shouldn't act like that! :p
Posted by: Neal | Jun 30, 2006 at 06:28 PM
i dont know your history, but were u always in some sort of technical or computer field?
Posted by: dan | Jun 30, 2006 at 07:38 PM
Hey Markus,
I love you man. How about a loan? Hope you don't sell out for a long time - no need to. I knew your model rocked, but are you really growing that much virally? A few servers and bandwidth and 10% advertising, anything else? Expanding beyond dating? What happens to the numbers if you really start to hockey stick in the US? Damn man, don't forget your supporters. LOL
Bill
Posted by: Bill Broadbent | Jul 01, 2006 at 12:45 AM
Mark,
Looks like almost everyone thought he was "hokey" until they saw that check. Seeing your increased coverage, when did you believe the reality of his model? How do you think this influences the industry?
Bill
Posted by: Bill Broadbent | Jul 01, 2006 at 12:49 AM
Neal,
A lot of people barely gave Markus the time of day at iDate 2005. I first thought the same thing. Then I heard Jon Ward of eHarmony say something to Markus at the Safedate party that made me really look into what he was doing. He said something along the lines of "your the guy I want to get to know." Jon is one of the sharp guys in the sector, so I knew he saw the potential. That got me to really take a look at it. I knew a little about PlentyofFish, but looked at it as simply a good traffic generating site. What I found was a site that was growing with what looked like minimal promotion. I know his early days were using a lot of irrelovant and obscure PPC search terms, in fact Markus admitted it, but he could only take that so far. He grew through community. A community of people fine with being called fish, can you believe it? (That could get you slapped where I come from.)
There is a Chinese Proverb that says "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." A lot of people laughed at him, he just got it done. He boasted about what he was doing, now everyone can see that it was true (especially if he is only spending 10% on marketing). Will his candor push others to his model. I'd say it is highly likely.
Bill
Posted by: Bill Broadbent | Jul 01, 2006 at 01:12 AM
I continue to me intrigued by the algorithms Markus has created. To me, thats the real value of what he has created. Dating site rankings are often highly suspect, difficult to believe anything these days, but numbers on a check are cold fast reality, and impressive.
I don't buy the hundreds of servers statement. The top few sites have a lot of redundancy built in, somthing POF doesn't at the moment.
Mark, why do you confuse POF with web 2.0? Bulletin boards do not put a site in this category.
I would put POF near the top of a category for making money on advertising on a free site that drives visitors to other sites through affiliate marketing.
We don't have to wait for 3 other large free sites to know the dating industry is in trouble.
Starting a company that doesn't have a defined revenue stream is perfectly fine in certain circumstances.
However, in the dating space, subscription-based services are pretty much impossible to start at this point, with very few exceptions.
Posted by: David Evans | Jul 01, 2006 at 10:40 AM
Marcus, as you well know, I was one of the major doubting Thomas', but now I am a believer, and, I have to admit, an admirer - hey, I was wrong and you were right! (my wife makes me say that a lot to her, so I am used it;-)
Bill has been rooting for you for a while now, when no one else was. As I said, when he called me on it, "I have to hand it to you Marcus, you have proven me wrong! I publicly stand corrected!"
Good for you - I hope those AdSense cheques go from $450K/month to $4.5M/month!
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | Jul 01, 2006 at 12:46 PM
Thanks Sam, I hope they go up as well!
The trueth is though that I'm not making that much money for what I have and other sites are making more per CPM. Date.com, Lavalife.com,loveaccess.com, True.com have ads displaying. Americansingles said in their quarter conference call they are building a huge adnetwork.
People are impressed with the check, but they forget just how massive Plentyoffish.com is. In terms of pageviews ie potential pages for ads it is clearly the third largest in North America. I keep forgetting I don't track all my pageviews in one place, but its around 20 million pageviews a day when added all together.
20 million REAL pageviews is more then date.com, lavalife.com,loveaccess.com and true.com get combined per day.
Here is a quote from date.com http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/industry/bios/meirstrahlberg.html
"Date.com’s advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10 percent of total revenue"
Because plentyoffish isn't paid I'm letting at least $150,000 a day in revenue slip by from subscriptions which sounds about right.
Should the entire Dating industry in the USA go free, the total revenue that could be had would be between 40 and 50 million/year?
Posted by: Markus | Jul 01, 2006 at 01:27 PM
Yes, but your strength is based on the free model, so you can't say that you are losing out by not having paid subscriptions. It would completely change your dynamics (not to mention your KSF), consequently I don't think you can calculate *any* figure for money slipping by - this is not something you can quantify.
And, you could hardly have a paid model and keep on going as a staff of one.
You may be right, though, about your earnings relative to your size. However, given your particular model (and success), which is *unique*, again, I am not sure it is a fair comparison. I don't know how you would begin to quantify it.
Mind you, there have to be other ways for you to monetize POF, e.g. consider Meir's comment on http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/industry/bios/meirstrahlberg.html:
"...Date.com’s advertising revenues have doubled in the past few months to 10 percent of total revenue partially because the company can target an advertiser's products to almost any demographic based on user profiles..."
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | Jul 01, 2006 at 05:29 PM
Markus, it's been less than 2 months when u decleared an all-out war against paying dating sites. What happened to u that u started thinking to joint the crowd?
Was it MySpace's plans to switch to paid subscription mode?
Posted by: Alexander Shetinin | Jul 02, 2006 at 04:08 AM
Did you notice that Off Line Chains for Matchmaking/Dating, instead of disappearing, are still alive with good health?
Dating Industry: Off Line Chains (U.S./Canada market= USD 600 million) + On Line Sites (U.S./Canada market= USD 600 million by memberships)
Whole U.S./Canada Dating Industry market= USD1,200 million
There are more than 900 "Online Dating & Social Networking Sites" at the United States and Canada, but .....
Do many USA/Canadian Online Dating sites exist in order to allow OffLine Dating chains have an annual revenue of USD 600 Million AND top 10 Online Dating sites have an annual revenue of USD500 million by memberships (estimated)?
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]
Posted by: Fernando Ardenghi | Jul 03, 2006 at 01:10 AM
Fernando, where are you seeing that off-line dating services have annual revenues of $600M US/year? I didn't think they were anywhere close to the online dating revenues in the US.
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | Jul 03, 2006 at 09:10 AM
Mr. Moorcroft:
Perhaps I should have used the term "OffLine Methods" instead of "OffLine Chains".
http://homepage.mac.com/rjdombkowski/SITRACon_Archives/FileSharing12.html
MarketData SITRAS Size: 274 KB "US Dating Industry Trends"
John LaRosa President - MarketData Enterprises
(but the file could not be download any more)
At page 6
year 2004
OffLine Methods involving Chains (USD159 million) + Independent matchmakers (USD229 million) + Personal ads, radio station datelines (USD178 million) == USD566 million
year 2008 Forecast:
Chains (USD184 million) + Independent matchmakers (USD255 million) + Personal ads, radio station datelines (USD178 million) == USD617 million
Dating Industry: OffLine METHODS (U.S./Canada market nearly USD600 million) + OnLine Sites (U.S./Canada market nearly USD600 million by memberships)
Whole U.S./Canada Dating Industry market nearly USD1,200 million
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]
Posted by: Fernando Ardenghi | Jul 03, 2006 at 10:44 AM
I think Marcus need a developer team any longer. PlentyofFish is full of bugs. Registration doesn't work. (Yes! Can you believe this?) Password reminder doesn't work. Add favorites doesn't work. (Only in session it does.) God! Who are using this BugParadise?
Posted by: Ersan Ozer | Jul 14, 2006 at 07:01 AM
Turkey is on the list of banned countries.
Posted by: Markus | Jul 14, 2006 at 11:35 AM
Nice job of Markus he made a site and made some money, it is really great that someone does it all by himself or with a little help.
I also made a site to make friends, date, just get in contact with others all by myself called Me Tarzan You Jane http://www.MeTarzanYouJane.eu
I'm not a company and yes I also started this to learn some aspx. I normally programmed asp but wanted to change to a newer more powerfull language.
The site now is english an can cope with a lot of extra members. So if you want some real honest site then support me and sign yourself and your friends up. All free.
You can also contact me via the site if you have any questions, have ideas and I will improve the site further.
Posted by: Jean Paul | Jul 24, 2006 at 06:50 AM
think he'll enjoy success for a few more years... then he should sell...
I (disgruntled user)didn't particularly enjoy
being run through the fish sorting algorithm...
sooner or later...
sorting people,
and who they can contact,
using that method will result in nobody being able to contact anyone...
good for him...
I'm glad he's making money...
I hope he invests it wisely...
I've been reading this page...
and I've heard comment's like Low quality
contacts etc...
and really...
except for spam...
people will resent being treated like a number, or low quality anything...
I remember yahoo when it was free...
and it really wasn't that useful...
so a $20 monthly fee didn't improve it...
PoF is just as unless...
but it has the advantage of being free...
unless you count the aggravation of swimming up stream against his filter...
then it makes yahoos $20 seem more reasonable
I want to be able to browse the whole data base...
if I inadvertently look ant mostly smokers...
I don't want to be excluded from looking at non smokers...
(I'm a non smoker)
I wonder if the size of his member database includes profiles of people who don't really use his service anymore...
because they find it to prejudice or judgmental...
but probably... that isn't really irrelevant here...
because this sight is all about
the Numbers AKA $$$
but at some point the service will
effect the revenue...
but people aren't fish... they're sheep...
so it probable won't happen for some time...
but like I said... invest your money wisely...
and sell at the top of the curve...
because...
like all good plans poorly executed...
Plenty of Fish will be replaced by something else...
ps...
here is a thread detailing some of the reasons people flee PoF...
http://www.matchdoctor.com/forums-6-1388-8.aspx#259179
you won't find any threads detailing the shortcoming of PoF... on his page,
because he wisely deletes any criticism,
constructive or otherwise...
Posted by: MLH | Aug 09, 2006 at 07:59 PM
Yes, POF has some bugs, but it is not about the bugs. It is about a website that is supported by hundreds of thousands of members who can find their love.
And yes, he blocks a few countries (including mine...) but anyone who ever built a large site know that sometimes this is a must... even if it is not the best way to do it...
Posted by: Zoltan | Dec 15, 2006 at 06:24 AM
I agree with MLH. Though it's great that he's making money out of his online dating site, a lot more quite interesting one's are coming along. And we all know the fluidity when it comes to the internet.May be he should consider adding some features to the site like PC-to-PC call and the like. There are very few free dating sites with so much features installed.
Posted by: free dating | Mar 17, 2007 at 05:45 PM
its really amazing work. This guy is really great. One man army. I have a dating site > www.datingsitefree4all.com
I am working hard. I hope i will earn atleast 1/10 of plenty of fish
Posted by: dating site | Apr 25, 2007 at 03:22 AM
Bill, you’d be amazed at what happens when you prevent people from emailing you if they haven’t read the FAQ.
but if they have read the FAQ you seem to just delete them anyway ?
ok so I sent an email to every type of option. I am at a loss now what to to if you can not be contacted I supose i can only mail you each time hoping that one day I might get a reply.
please tell me why my profile keeps getting deleted
David
Posted by: David | Jun 27, 2007 at 06:49 PM
Free online dating services for singles at Freedatingmarriage.com. 100% Free online dating site. Stop paying money to join dating sites. Free dating, Chat, Email messaging and Free personals. www.freedatingmarriage.com
Posted by: Cholada | Oct 26, 2007 at 01:35 AM
I've seen the "free" this & that theme popping up a lot and drew some inspiration from what I'd read about Markus, which resulted in the creation of http://SearchNearMe.com. While still in its infancy, it offers free dating, vehicle, real-estate, and general classifieds, business & events promotion, and much, much more to come - all on one site, all from one account. 100% Free. No Fees. No Fuss.
Comments welcome.
Posted by: George | Nov 08, 2007 at 05:17 PM
The following is a quote from moderator Ticketoride in the forums to a member:
Member:And for the record, I am NOT affected ny this flag BUT I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH IT!!!
BAD DESIGN DECISIONS LIKE THIS WILL DRIVE PEOPLE AWAY NOT ATTACT NEW PEOPLE!!!"
Ticketoride: "The first step in this direction was taken about 1 year ago to limit Site Access to numerous foreign countries, answering up to the flood-calls from the wild such as:
"Me maka luv to u long time".
Act II: ... Gurjingh & Rashneesh walking up the Forum Planks proclaiming "Racism" and "Discrimination". From a more technical Perspective, the Site was constantly being bogged down by this Type of Non-Sense.
As the Site continued to grow, further similar Implementations were put into effect such as refining E-Mail Blocking, "Instant Messenger" Tools, Profile Hiding, and streamlining Reporting Functions.
This newer particular Feature under Question was brought into Existance as the Result of endless Abuse by too many Men on this Site mass-mailing the Inboxes of too many Women who were not interested in any "Intimate Encounter" Relationships. Their Mailboxes were cluttered up to the point where "ease of oversight" was lost and were practically forced to delete their Profiles and start anew.
Doesn't leave a very favourable impression among Women of this Dating Site.
THE ONLY THING DRIVEN AWAY WERE THE WOMEN.:
*****The only thing being driven away are people who believe that Nazism shuld be a thing of the past and that public hatemongering of non-caucasians should be prosecuted.*****
Posted by: Tryme | Jan 30, 2008 at 10:51 AM
I think Marcus should be commended for his achievement in the free online dating market. He has done what the paid dating sites have failed to do- to create a very user friendly site that offers more features. People do not need to pay hefty prices to meet other singles today.
He was actually my friend's inspiration to start a free dating site called http://www.allsinglesmeet.com . She actually started it with no html knowledge. Just a desire to make a great free dating site
Posted by: Terrance | Feb 04, 2008 at 08:25 AM
as someone offering seo services i know how tough it is to rank free online dating sites which do not have huge advertizing budgets...so Kudos to you Markus for not only making a very user friendly site, but also managing to get it rank well.
Posted by: seo consultant | Feb 04, 2008 at 10:24 AM
I think Markus is absolutely amazing!! As the owner of a free online dating site I know how tough the competition is. We constantly work at optimization and keeping our standards high.
He is a really smart guy and is deserving of his success!
Posted by: Dating Site | Feb 04, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Thats a great article sounds like a smart guy and thats one hell of a adsense check
Posted by: Jon Sandler | Mar 13, 2008 at 03:25 PM
I read the similar article somewhere but every time I read, I am impressed about Mr. Markus. He is so smart.
Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Free dating partner | May 04, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Plentyoffish is heads and tails above friendpad. What I like is that the site has an increasingly number of features that people really want to use. There is no clutter or BS. Plus, they have tests/quizzes that sure seem to be higher in quality and usefulness than all the other sites (the tests actually coach people in specific ways and this is something unheard of before).
Keep up the good work, plentyoffish!
Posted by: Trevor | Jul 04, 2008 at 10:56 AM
No doubt plentyoffish is the best dating site on the net.
Posted by: manbros | Jul 24, 2008 at 03:27 AM
Markus,
What's the best way to start out getting sign ups for a small dating site (one that doesn't want to take over the world, but just wants to make $10k a month or so)?
Posted by: web development | Jan 09, 2009 at 02:34 PM
There are so many different software packages out there really. I use SpyFu for free results, someone who generates a great percentage of their revenue off of pay per click might consider something like PPC Web Spy.
I have an article on my blog about analyzing your competition that covers this topic a little more thoroughly.
Posted by: Easy SEO Blog | Apr 07, 2009 at 09:03 PM
Why don't you get a least a web-designer?
Not even full time but just to get things to look correct, just once.
Other than that, I love this business model (make it free and get from the adv), but once the traffic is very big you can switch to a paid one.
It will be easier to maintain and you'll earn more money.
Leave some space to the coming ones ;)
Posted by: Free Dating Ireland | May 19, 2010 at 09:08 AM
I'm in the same boat as the last post. I think plenty was one of the first dating sites to be totally free. That was my inspiration to start my own site Asiandatingfree.com . It's an interesting type of site to work with. From a webmasters point of view dating sites are perfect because the content of the site is created by the users themselves. The only problem is the moderation. To a certain extent the users can moderate by reporting bad members. As for organising parties well I guess that's a fair way off.
Robert
Posted by: Robert from Dating Asia | Aug 18, 2010 at 09:38 AM
I'm interested to know just how much sites like myspace and facebook will really impact on the regular dating sites. It could be that dating sites will still be here in the long term. My reasoning is that there's a degree of straight forward honesty about creating a profile on a dating site. You're basically saying "I'm here to find a date" . Facebook or myspace is not so specific and to the point. So here's hoping the dating niche will still be here for a while yet.
Posted by: Black | Oct 31, 2010 at 06:27 AM
Social networking sites have taken traffic and attention from idating sites. But they have also expanded the market and fed people back to idating. I think there's a net gain. The idating industry continues to expand, albeit nowhere near as fast as Facebook.
Posted by: Mark Brooks | Nov 02, 2010 at 11:22 PM
I echo the OP's views, I think may people see Marcus as being a bit of a headless chicken at times but you can't fault him for his business credentials which have got him to where he is now
Posted by: MingleMonkee | May 01, 2011 at 06:12 AM
Plenty of fish is a great site bur the down fall to free dating sites is that members find free dating sites as expendable, so they get bored of the site easily and then leave because they have nothing at stake as such, but with dating websites that you pay to become a full member, members tend to really give online dating a go and they become much more successful in their search for the love of their life.
Posted by: Wink2Date | Sep 26, 2011 at 10:49 PM
Why Can I not log into my account , I have set one up twice in past 2 days, when I try to log in , I can't , Won't recognize my e-mail and would not let be download pics on my account???
Posted by: [email protected] | Apr 02, 2015 at 11:53 AM