How to Make a Billion Dollars in Your Underwear!!!

I Found This Interestine Article

plentyoffish.c0m

A few months ago, we blogged about Markus Frind, a lone entrepreneur and founder of the popular dating site PlentyOfFish.com. On a panel interview with Guy Kawasaki (watch it here if you've got 30 minutes), Markus claimed that he was his only employee, and that he basically spends a couple hours each day maintaining the site - that's it - in his underwear.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Read/Write Web's Richard MacManus caught up with the entrepreneur, who'd just hired his first employee. Apparently, the site may now be worth a billion dollars - billions, maybe. (And hey, if Microsoft thinks Facebook's worth $15 bills, why not?) Says MacManus:

Markus told me that per page view, Plentyoffish has 5-10 times the click through rate of Facebook. So by his calculations, POF's 1.2 Billion page views per month is the same as 5-10 Billion Facebook page views per month. Facebook "only" generates 40 billion page views a month and yet it has a $15 Billion valuation. But the crux of Markus' argument is that despite having about 33 times the monthly traffic of POF, Facebook's poor click-through ads should bring the valuation models closer. Markus said that "over 40% of Facebook's pageviews are image related, ads in bad positions and users just generally looking to waste time." He said that "there are only a handful of sections on the site [Facebook] that will generate good click thru rates for advertisers."

So getting down to nitty gritty metrics, Markus concluded that "Facebook is only able to generate 10 to 15 times as many clicks on ads as my site and it's valued at 15 billion. Needless to say I'm watching ad supported business model valuations very closely." What's more, some of his direct competitors - e.g. Eharmony and match.c0m - are apparently valued in the billions.

Kind of amazing how a cheap-looking site with virtually no overhead, aside from server costs, can be worth billions.

Whether or not you believe in these fishy valuation schemes, it's still pretty cool, isn't it? Here's a guy who's only invested in the things his business requires. Oh, and he's clearly more focused on ROI than his competitors.

The incredible thing about POF is that it is butt ugly, and ads everywhere.

Pof auctually looks cleaner now

People Will Overlook A Lack Of Beauty, If What They're Viewing Is Practical And Useful To Them.

Personally, I Believe We All Should Be Taking Notes

shibumila said:

The incredible thing about POF is that it is butt ugly, and ads everywhere.

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Yea they cleaned up it actually looks pretty good. And the forum has lots of traffic.. hmmm

??? Its unbelievable.. Is it really true? I just checked our the site and it looks like a personal webpage..

yeah .. good place to ewhore .. ihaaaaaaaaaaaa ...

Guys ... The sexy big booty girls are coming to help you sign up to your new favorite cam/adult site .. Be ready )

yes people this article is true just goes to show you how easy it is to be wealthy nadays thanks to the internet like Prideoflion said i hope you guys are taking notes cuz i know i am.

and damn pof forums are busy as hell i c cookie stuffing heading their way soon lol

r-webb-k said:

yes people this article is true just goes to show you how easy it is to be wealthy nadays thanks to the internet like Prideoflion said i hope you guys are taking notes cuz i know i am.

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yes if you build it so even the simple minded can use it they will come flocking.

diff true and right now im working on a project its going to shake myspace facbook bebo Hi5 plentyoffish you name it i would let BHW Know about it when its done

My memory may be wrong, but, wasn't the owner of POF one of the guys "busted" for faking adsense earnings on checks in pictures. I think he was the one that changed the dollar value of the check, but didn't change the written amount of the check.

I might be wrong, but I think it was him.

It doesn't really matter though, the site is worth a ton. I'd sell it quick though and move on to the next thing.

Wow. It's incredible that such a simple and ugly (god knows what it looked like before the 'clean up' but it's pretty ugly now - the thumbnail photos aren't even resized properly!) site can do so well. Should give hope to us all that if you find the right idea you don't need technical excellence to make it pay.

BlackBeret said:

My memory may be wrong, but, wasn't the owner of POF one of the guys "busted" for faking adsense earnings on checks in pictures. I think he was the one that changed the dollar value of the check, but didn't change the written amount of the check.

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Lol! You've got to laugh at such incompetent attempts at fraud...