
Match Group Buys PlentyOfFish for $575M - funkyy
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/14/match-group-buys-plentyoffish-for-575m-to-bag-more-singles/
======
shubhamjain
When I was just an ignorant kid, I was fond of building stupid little website
where I could put adsense ads (they used to approve almost everyone) and have
a small pocket-money income. In the best month, I made around $300. I could
never figure out how to get traffic and people like Marcus and Amit Agarwal
used to be my heroes.

Although, people like us on HN, won't feel excited about making a little
websites and earning through Adsense income; a good business / startup seems
more worthwhile but sometimes, I do get tempted to enter that territory again
seeing people making thousands of dollars a day with just re-hashed content
and a little effort but I feel it won't be something to be proud of in the
future.

~~~
nadams
> In the best month, I made around $300. I could never figure out how to get
> traffic

If you never got traffic - why did Google adsense pay you $300 in a month? I
get ~600 visits per day and I barely get $0.10/day - usually ~$1 if someone
clicks on an ad.

~~~
Scoundreller
10cents per day sounds extraordinarily low for 600 visits per day. But it all
depends on content and how rich your traffic is. US Traffic will pay better
than developing nation traffic.

~~~
nadams
I mean that's a quick glance at Google Analytics - I don't know if Google has
algorithms that filter out bots or other non-human traffic.

I have thought about dumping google adsense and trying something else.

------
sputknick
This man is my hero. When I become a millionaire I want to be just like him.
Spent a weekend hacking together a mediocre site that grosses millions a
month. Working 15 minutes a day. Yeah, brilliant.

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-
rol...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-
in.html)

~~~
smrtinsert
iirc, he was was able to scale easily since his c# based dev allowed for
performance etc. tl;dr he knew how to build a big site.

~~~
fleitz
It's a combination of Moore's law and churn, since the site is reasonably
effective it generates huge churn.

Since RAM follows Moore's law you could always keep the users in RAM if you
wrote effective queries because user growth didn't outpace Moore's law. All
you had to do was build a server big enough.

C# definitely helped vs ruby, the real kicker was stored procs, everything was
a highly tuned stored proc. The huge insights I got was latency, by keeping
everything close together you could run some really abysmal synchronous code
with out cratering everything.

Also, he really cared about the ant hill more than the ants. He would do
horrible things to the ants that would encourage them to build a bigger ant
hill. (Ants are users, employees were treated very well)

As a fictional example, lets say the site was skewing too heavily male by 20%,
just add a line in the stored proc that gave a male user a 20% chance of their
registration not being written to disk. Voila, site has the proper mix, onto
the next problem. He was the most brutally effective person I've ever worked
with.

~~~
chubot
Is that last anecdote true? When did you work with him?

~~~
fleitz
As a fictional example... The ant thing was verbatim while we were all
drinking...

But seriously, go to a club... same thing...

------
blowski
So IAC now owns Match.com, Tinder, OKCupid, and PlentyofFish. Are there any
competition concerns there? I only looked briefly, but couldn't see any market
share figures.

EDIT: and Chemistry.com, Meetic, and PeopleMedia.

~~~
adventured
eHarmony and Zoosk are the only two majors left standing independently.

It wouldn't surprise me if IAC has over 50% of the US dating market at this
point.

There's a blatant competition issue there, but the online dating market isn't
likely to attract much anti-trust scrutiny at this point, for at least three
reasons: there needs to be some evidence of consumer harm (I'm not aware of
much in that regard); competitors would have to be getting Washington's
attention; the dating market isn't considered to be very attention worthy,
minus something egregious going on.

~~~
jolan
Not sure how major they are but there's Coffee Meets Bagel as well. They got
some traction from being on Shark Tank.

~~~
afarrell
May I shamelessly plug my friend's startup?

[http://www.jessmeetken.com/](http://www.jessmeetken.com/) is based on
introductions from women to other women, which eliminated the problem that
women's inboxes are filled with lots of low-quality (and occasionally vulgar)
messages.

~~~
tomjen3
The problem with that is that if I knew a girl I wouldn't need online dating.

He is right that there need to be some kind of filtering though - the problem
is that the men women want to date are also the girls most likely to put up
with the filters.

~~~
afarrell
Does the person in question not have any female friends? If not, then that is
a problem they will want to solve first before getting into dating.

~~~
kiiski
How so? I don't have any female friends (I don't have any male ones either).
If I started looking for a girlfriend (which I currently don't), I would
indeed be looking solely for a romantic relationship, so I don't see how
having female friends would be a prerequisite.

That said, I don't think that matters for the site in question. I'm just not a
part of their target audience. Doesn't mean their idea doesn't work for other
people.

~~~
hluska
If you really love women, you'll love being friends with women just as much as
you love being in romantic relationships with women. If you don't really love
women, I'd likely suggest that you just don't date - loneliness or social
proof of your value are shitty reasons to get into a relationship.

------
sytelus
Some people put down Marcus as just the lucky guy and POF as an ugly
undeserving website. The reality is that running even a semi-successful dating
website for 12 years straight is a huge huge achievement. Dating websites have
almost 30% customer churn each year which means you constantly have to figure
out how to get new customers. This problem becomes much harder because entry
in the market is easy enough that any one can one-up you anytime. There is not
much stickyness or virality like FB. All these makes dating business very
difficult to run successfully with large margins.

The thing is that Marcus has conveniently downplayed the required effort in
playing this game. He has projected image that he just worked few hours a week
to check servers and then going back to other things in his life. I would bet
reality wasn't exactly like that. To ensure new customer acquisition, you must
make sure your website constantly pops up high on Google for most popular
dating queries. This means lot of SEO+marketing work. My guess is that Marcus
purposely made his story very attractive for newspapers to report without
paying for any PR which gave him links and boosted his ranking. His
competitors are known to spend massive fortune and efforts on marketing just
to stay relevant.

Now that deal is done, it would be good time for Marcus to actually disclose
the true story :).

~~~
Scoundreller
> Dating websites have almost 30% customer churn each year which means you
> constantly have to figure out how to get new customers.

I think that was a part of the business model. A good chunk of the ads were
for for-pay dating sites. At $30/month, which is effectively $30/month
marginal revenue (since most costs are fixed), the for-pay sites will pay a
fortune per customer acquisition.

Good call on the alleged PR move.

------
gjkood
Here is a discussion of the PlentyOfFish architecture on High Scalability
[http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-
architecture](http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-architecture).

~~~
Luc
Six years old though. Still interesting historically.

~~~
atwebb
Some is still pretty appropriate

Monitors performance using task manager. When spikes show up he investigates.
Problems were usually blocking in the database. It's always database issues.
Rarely any problems in .net. Because POF doesn't use the .net library it's
relatively easy to track down performance problems. When you are using many
layers of frameworks finding out where problems are hiding is frustrating and
hard.

------
swozey
I cannot believe that terrible site is worth 575. It's basically the trailer
park of online dating.

~~~
GVIrish
Just goes to show it doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be useful to
enough people.

~~~
colkassad
It has a great name too.

------
netcan
I'm not sure if I'm on track, but I think Match.com's acquisitions are of the
kind I'm a little sad to see, "competitor squash" kind. A lot of acquisitions
are cool. EG, Google bought youtube and they run it well. You might not agree
with everything, but it's hard to say youtube suffered. Google just wanted to
get into video and youtube knew how to do it right.

BWhen FB buy instagram or match.com buy everyone, it feels like an unfair
avenue of competition. I'm not sure if "fair" or "competition" are the right
words, but hopefully my point gets across.

Part of the issue is (ironically) well illustrated by OKcupid's blog post.^ In
it, they basically said that paid dating sites work worse, because they are
paid. It's a fun pick-a-fight blog, so read it if you're interested. Implied
(IMO) is that a massive dating site can be run with much lower revenue _and_
be better for users. Doesn't matter if they were right.

OKcupid had a working unique, effective model and their product _was_
different. Then Tinder do it a totally different way and we have more
diversity. The difference are cultural, not just a different feature-set. I
think that's awesome. But, one business model generates way more money. The
others are profitable too and can actually do their job perfectly well
(OKcupid anyway) with less revenue. There's no inherent reason not to continue
existing and letting a thousand (or like six) flower bloom.

The problem is that removing company A as a threat is worth more (in dollars)
to company B than company A costs. So company B buys OKcupid, Tinder, POF and
anything else. The wheels of the market are removing choice.

OKcupid still exists. It's fine, but it's doesn't have the same cultural
uniqueness. They removed that blog post, for example.

^[http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-
dat...](http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating.html)

~~~
maxtaco
For the record, no one ever asked we take down that post. We did it just to be
polite.

By contrast, when we sold TheSpark.com to iTurf.com in 2000, we spent several
man-months of company time making the parody AyeTurf.com, which pissed a lot
of people off.

~~~
netcan
Awesome to hear feedback from the source.

I don't think there's anything terrible about taking down the post to be
polite.

I also don't think that OKCupid (or match.com) are to _blame._ I'm just kind
of musing about this sort of tiny-giant paradox generally. The internet lets
people make great things on small budgets, which means big thing can exist
with small business models. Magnitude of revenue does not necessarily equal
magnitude of impact, but if the first is a lot smaller then the second,
they're a target for these neutralising acquisitions.

------
bruceb
He is one of the original open disclosure type founders: Here he post his ad-
sense earning for a couple years:
[https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/adsense-
breakd...](https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/adsense-breakdown/)

Here is the post with the $900k(CAD) check from google (which bounced!)
[https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/small-
companie...](https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/small-companies-
google-adsense-is-the-future/)

~~~
cperciva
_check from google (which bounced!)_

He said the ETF (think wire transfer) bounced, not that the check bounced. I'm
guessing this means that Google got the wrong account number.

------
Gdiddy
Well this is awful... Their monetisation of OK Cupid killed the sites
functionality. You literally have to pay to see 'more attractive matches', and
search ranking is based on payment as well. What was once a place where the
alternative / arts crowd could meet like minded folks is now awash with spam,
poorly filled out profiles and other guff that makes it effectively useless
for meeting a potential partner.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_What was once a place where the alternative / arts crowd could meet like
minded folks is now awash with spam_

I see a Business Opportunity

------
x5n1
i thought it would be worth more. congrats markus. not that markus needs any
more money than that. i thought he would enjoy being a billionare though.

~~~
hackerboos
Revenue in 2014 was approx $100 million. Maybe growth numbers were not doing
well...

~~~
solve
Companies valued purely based on revenue streams alone will typically sell for
2x to 5x their yearly revenue.

This is a big part of why it's SMART for most consumer startups to avoid
earning revenue at all. Doing so will often cap their potential exit price, in
practice.

Still, this at least was at the higher end, for purely revenue-based
valuations.

~~~
msie
Heh, Silicon Valley (the show) talks about maintaining a pre-revenue state.

~~~
solve
Likewise, a cap on a convertible note may be used by investors in the next
round as an anchoring point to restrict the valuation in the next round.

Both of these effects are what a layman would think "shouldn't be real". From
experience, both are extremely real.

Too bad that the TV shows present these as sort of jokes. That disappoints me.
No joke, these are dead real.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Jokes are often about reality.

------
nraynaud
half a billion dollars in 12 years.

What did I do this last decade?

~~~
loceng
POF's founder story is fascinating and jealousy making. It was just right
time, right place, right product. He had $10MM in the bank before he realized
he needed help and hired his first employee..

------
bkm
Interesting to see how he kept things lean and has gone against the entire
'companies need a co-founder to succeed' stigma by single-handedly growing a
multimillion dollar venture. He recruited the first three employees in 2008.

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-
rol...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-
in.html)

------
ck2
I remember when he was mentioning how his relatively new site was pulling in a
million a month in adsense and no-one believed him (many, many years ago).

------
circa
This is pretty sweet for POF. I remember talking to Markus on my days at OT. A
good 10 years ago now at least. Good for POF!

------
mtsmith85
Match, Tinder, OKCupid, HowAboutWe, now PlentyOfFish. I'm curious if there are
other mainstream dating apps out there? There are apps like Grindr for the
LGBTQ community; JDate for the Jewish community. But what others are there for
the larger populations? eHarmony, though I've always been under the belief
that religion was a key component of that site.

I find it interesting to see that Match now really owns the space and that
TechCrunch is suggesting that the purchase was for "a fresh pool of digitally
active singles" vs. technology (OKCupid) or a different experience all
together (Tinder).

~~~
caseysoftware
The only way to grow the business is to grow the market and move into niches
where the customers _don 't_ go away, such as Tinder.

Otherwise, the customer base of a dating site is doomed to collapse as it
becomes successful: [http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-
website](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website)

------
gohrt
I've never heard of plentyoffish users in USA, nor bumped into advertising
except PR on web-biz sites. I have heard of users of Match, Yahoo, JDate, and
seen advertising for eHarmony.

Is this a case where someone launched a product that conquered the non-USA
users that USA companies ignore?

------
dimino
I've read somewhere that it's very hard to sell VCs on dating websites, but
with OKC and PoF both now being owned by big companies, is this space opening
back up for someone without the stink of big corporate?

~~~
baudehlo
Well pg has definitely written about it.

[http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html](http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html)

------
techaddict009
I strongly feel Adsense can be really great source of revenue!

Thanks POF for making my faith more stronger and stronger!

How many of you have Adsense source of income?

------
kamilszybalski
Anyone know what the biggest exit for a bootstrapped company is?

~~~
binarymax
Mojang maybe?

~~~
cryowaffle
Winner here

------
manishsharan
If Match group is really really serious about bagging more singles, they
should acquire Reddit.

~~~
tomjen3
More single women, probably - men will generally go where the women are.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Don't know if one can say that about Pinterest...

------
curiousjorge
100 million per year and only about 6x multiple? I'd expected at least a
billion but I guess they aren't doing as great as they used to?

------
anon3_
Online dating is elance of romance. It's a race to the bottom.

"Myspace, Match, eHarmony, CL… they all suck for the elegantly simple reason
that online there are too many indiscriminate horny men and too few cute
girls. The dynamics are totally in the woman’s favor, ridiculously so in that
it encourages massive self-assessment inflation that will carry over into real
life social interactions, guaranteeing disappointment."

[http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/online-dating-
is-f...](http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/online-dating-is-futile/)
is an interesting article on online dating.

A great youtube video on why online dating doesn't work:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5_JK_LcEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5_JK_LcEI)

~~~
probably_wrong
To me, that article feels incredibly negative, sexist, and rooted on a men-
women dynamic that assumes women are things to be conquered.

Then again, I don't know what I was expecting from a website that gives "Alpha
assessments" regarding "women you are attempting to bed" and whose top post is
"How to get a girl to send nudes of herself".

~~~
dantillberg
It's not just you that feels that way. That article is just a torrent of
misogynist screed.

For example: "It’s no surprise that the virtual world warehouses sexual
rejects who couldn’t cut it in public where their ugliness means they’re not
even in the running. BBWs, BBBWs, BBBBBBBBBBBBWs… you’ll find them all online,
beached like a herd of walrus." Or later, "Fatties – The internet is great for
banging fatties."

~~~
anon3_
> It's not just you that feels that way. That article is just a torrent of
> misogynist screed.

The article discusses lopsidedness of online dating and how it
disproportionately favors women.

~~~
geofft
Misogyny and a belief that women are favored aren't incompatible. If anything,
they're compatible beliefs.

Antisemitism, for instance, doesn't often hold that Jews are worthless, poor,
and incompetent. It tends to hold that Jews are rich and powerful and can do
whatever they want thanks to their worldwide conspiracy. The antisemite
usually thinks that the world disproportionately favors Jews.

~~~
anon3_
> Misogyny and a belief that women are favored aren't incompatible. If
> anything, they're compatible beliefs.

How is dating websites being lopsided in favor of women misogyny?

The systemic use of the blanket term of misogyny in these cases seems more
like misandry, to be fair.

Why not stay on the point? You can't control of tone of Heartiste. He has the
right to express his opinions, don't you think?

~~~
geofft
Why did you delete your earlier comment?

> How is dating websites being lopsided in favor of women misogyny?

I did not claim that.

> The systemic use of the blanket term of misogyny in these cases seems more
> like misandry, to be fair.

Why?

> Why not stay on the point?

What is the point? I thought you were implying that the author believing that
women were favored by dating websites was a counter to the claim that the site
was a torrent of misogynistic screed. If so, I refuted that. If not, you were
unclear, but if you wish to be clear about your point, I am happy to stay on
it.

> You can't control of tone of Heartiste. He has the right to express his
> opinions, don't you think?

Absolutely, and I have the right to express opinions about his expression of
his opinions. Free speech is truly a wonderful thing!

~~~
anon3_
> I did not claim that.

See the subject of my thread for context.

> What is the point?

Lopsided proportions on dating websites.

------
craigslistguy
I've said it before and I'll say it again, "it's easier to get laid on
Craigslist.org"

~~~
rhokstar
And to your point, Craigslist is also a haven for scammers and therefore not
as trust worthy.

