在知乎的一個帖子上看到一個對於約會網站"plenty of fish"的簡短描述，頓時就來了興趣。一個人做了14年的網站(2001-2015)，設計，開發，維護一直都是一個人，並且在開始不久的時間內就通過Google Adsence來賺錢，最后5.75億美金賣給Match Group。
收購信息：
約會產品提供商Match Group周二宣布，其已經達成以5.75億美元現金收購約會網站PlentyOfFish的最終協議，該交易預計於第四季度初完成。Match Group是IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI)旗下一家子公司，幷計划上市。IAC股價最近3個月以來上漲15%。 -- 2015
在網上查了很多的資料，還特別地去plenty of fish上注冊，嘗試了好幾次，但是死活就是說驗證碼錯誤，好幾次都不行，就放棄了，網站很簡單，沒什么讓人驚艷的，難以想象可以賣5.75億。據網絡上可查的信息，出售這個網站時，"plenty of fish"的注冊用戶是9000萬，活躍用戶是360萬。 創建者是Markus Frind，我找到了Markus Frind 曾經寫過的文章，介紹了他創建"plenty of fish"的歷程。
My short description leaves a lot out, but basically I spent every waking minute when I wasn't at my day job reading, studying, and learning. I picked out "enemies" and did everything I could to defeat them which ment being bigger then them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and I constantly forced myself to test new things. I never tried to perfect anything it didn't matter if things didn't work 100% as long as it was good enough I would move onto the next thing. In 2003 the dating market was growing 80% a year unlike the -10% in 2006 so growth was a LOT easier. When 2004 rolled around and word of mouth REALLY kicked in and as they say the rest is history.
I look back now at how ill prepared I was, I didn't know anything about SEO, Advertising, community and I didn't even know what Venture Capital was. Just goes to show you anyone can do anything.
總結：
- 做不一樣的事情，當時其他的約會網站都是收費的，而Plenty of fish是免費的。
- 他是技術人員。
- 傾聽來自用戶的聲音，持續改進。這點，從他的文章中也看得出來“At the start of March I had ~40 members my site was running off my home machine, people where complaining I didn't allow image uploading so by mid march I had added image uploading. You can see how absolutely horrible the site looked here”。
- 堅持。
- 沒有必要准備充分才開啟自己的事業。如他所言："I look back now at how ill prepared I was, I didn't know anything about SEO, Advertising, community and I didn't even know what Venture Capital was. Just goes to show you anyone can do anything. "。
“近朱者赤，近墨者黑”，而近“人性”者富。產品設計一定要滿足“人性”。吳軍博士在他的《浪潮之巔》中描述Facebook的一段話挺有意思的：
Facebook根據大學和大學的系把用戶分成組，一個人可以得到自己同學的真實資料，而無法直接獲得其他大學學生的資料。由於每個用戶的Email是真的，而且早期幾乎所有資料（包括年齡，
性別，地址和電話）都是真的，便為大學生們談戀愛提供了方便。不少本科生對我講，他們去“早期”的Facebook的原因是需要真實的性ai(他們的原話是Young people need sex)。這就如同Facebook共同創始人的女朋友也是這么找到的一樣。
plenty of fish比facebook創建的還要早，從它的這個名字也可以感受到它的初衷。一個人精心打造產品就可以創造巨大的財富，這是早期的互聯網時代，很多人會認為在步入移動互聯網的今天，這種情況將不復發生。但是歷史一次次告訴我們，每一個時代仍會有“獨行俠”創造“奇跡”，相信下個10年也是如此！
全力以赴去創造價值吧！