Old WMW user Markus007 has sold his baby, PlentyOfFish, to IAC owned Match.com for over $ 1/2 Billion.
Amazing...
"Tips hat"
Tips hat and curtsies!
Serious money. I have to admire how this was a long term play that actually happened. Grit seems to be 90% of success.
>>grit
Markus is also smart on so many levels. At the outset he managed some incredible optimizations that allowed him to keep server costs way down, but then he also managed to run and grow a business long after his technical skills were no longer the greatest asset.
And he kept his eye on the prize in the face of people who kept telling him his site was ugly and he didn't have a business model and "I don't believe he actually turns a profit" and so. I seem to recall (could be bullshit) remember one time when he posted on WMW about how he was succeeding and somebody basically dismissed his whole thing because there was a typo on the site.
From 2006:
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/forum23/4496.htm
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/13958.htm (and the peanut gallery weighs in with how he could not have made a million in three months)
- http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/05/08/plentyoffish-marketing-101-when-all-else-fails-just-lie - and off all people Shoemoney says Markus is full of sh## (!!!)
From 2009:
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/webmaster/3825717.htm
Wonder what he'll do now, and if he still wants to make stuff online.
Good on him, that is enough to keep anyone happy for the rest of their life, shame for the users of plenty of fish though!!