Tag Archive - Business

Markus Frind Quote

February 23, 2009 in Business, The Internet with 0 Comments

As someone that is involved in building community based sites, a quote from Markus Frind (Plenty of Fish) in a recent INC Magazine article really resonated with me.

Frind has resisted adding other commonly requested features, such as chatrooms and video profiles, on the same grounds. “I don’t listen to the users,” he says. “The people who suggest things are the vocal minority who have stupid ideas that only apply to their little niches.”

Though what Markus says isn’t totally true all of the time, it is mostly true most of the time. Noah’s post on Twitter about Tropicana’s un-redesign made me think of this.

Paid Is The New Free

November 14, 2008 in Business, The Internet with 0 Comments

Saw this blurb on MarcPorcelli.com, and thought it was interesting.

Still others like the worlds largest free online dating site, PlentyOfFish.com (POF) are perhaps beginning to hit a wall. Here is what CEO Markus Frind said recently, “The problem with free is that every time you double the size of your database the cost of maintaining the site grows 6 fold. I really underestimated how much resources it would take, I have one database table now that exceeds 3 billion records. The bigger you get as a free site the less money you make per visit and the more it costs to service a visit.

Never really stopped and thought about the point of diminishing returns that happens at a certain point when you are running a free (ad supported) service.