PlentyofFish is a free online dating service. The founder and sole operator, 29-year-old Markus Frind, runs the site from his 83-square-metre Vancouver apartment. The site pulls in more than $5 million a year from Google advertising.

Markus Frind, CEO and Founder of Plentyoffish Media Inc., graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology with a diploma in Computer Systems Technology. Over the next few years, he worked for several dot.com companies as the number of them in Vancouver began to wane. Markus ended up working at a company as a website and database administrator where he found and fixed errors.

In 2003, Frind had to learn ASP.NET and to better learn the language, he built a dating website. The free dating website quickly grew in Canada and then spread, via word of mouth, to the U.K., Australia, and the United States. His first Adsense check arrived in July 2003 and was for $1,100 USD.

In 2004, PlentyofFish became a full-time business for Markus.

Members can add photographs, if they choose to do so. Members can flag another person’s photographs if they are not clear photographs of that person. There is a rating system in place similar to the site HOTorNOT.

The site also has a chat feature which allows members to chat with other members, regardless of age, sexual orientation and location.

An extensive forum discussion group allows members to discuss dating experiences and organize local events.

Statistics

• Active users: 500,000 logins per day
• Registered users: 11,000,000
• Number of page views a day: 30+ million (August 2007)
• Google AdSense earner ranking: 1 (May 2007)
• North American Daily Visits: 36,825,000
• UK Daily Visits: 8,025,000 (Comscore June 2008)
• Founded  2003
• Headquarters  Vancouver, Canada
• Key people  Markus Frind, Founder and CEO
• Revenue  $5-10 million USD (2007 estimated)
• Employees  1
• Website  www.plentyoffish.com