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Another wildly successful example of "What We Can Learn From A Mess" can be found at Plenty of Fish, where they are doing the same thing in the online dating wo

Another wildly successful example of "What We Can Learn From A Mess" can be found at Plenty of Fish, where they are doing the same thing in the online dating world. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-in.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rol... "Today, according to the research firm Hitwise, his creation is the largest dating website in the U.S. and quite possibly the world. Its traffic is four times that of the dating pioneer Match, which has annual revenue of $350 million and a staff that numbers in the hundreds. Until 2007, Frind had a staff of exactly zero. Today, he employs just three customer service workers, who check for spam and delete nude images from the Plenty of Fish website while Frind handles everything else."

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
"a staff of exactly zero" Or more correctly "Plenty of Fish had a staff of one"?
csallen 17y ago
I find all of this very intriguing. Assuming that both Craigslist and PlentyOfFish are successful for the same underlying reasons, it's worth pointing out similarities between the two. Note that while I've been using Craigslist for years, I have very little real experience with PlentyOfFish, so feel free to correct any invalid assumptions I make: 1. Plain user interfaces. The choices of fonts and colors seems very personal, non-corporate. There's nothing sleek, modern, trendy, creative, or flashy about either of these sites. That's not to say they're particularly simple or efficient. 2. Unchanging user interfaces. When you go to Craigslist, at least, you can be sure to find the exact same site you were using one, two, three years ago. No surprises, no re-learning, and no feeling left-behind. 3. Initial focus on small community, growth through word of mouth. Craigslist had San Francisco, and PoF had Vancouver I believe? There's something to be said about making users feel like they are party of a small, exclusive community. (Look at the beginnings of Facebook.) 4. Content created almost entirely by users. Craigslist does little more than categorize users' posts, and PoF is, well, a dating site. 5. Open: you don't have to know someone or get them to accept a friend request in order to interact with them. Once again, these sites make connecting with others easy and direct. (Although the signup process at PoF is understandably more involved.) When I go to Craigslist Boston I really do feel like the site represents the entire community. 6. Pretty much free. I'm sure I could add more, but the recurrent theme seems to be getting out of the way and keeping the focus on the people. Neither of these sites rely on revolutionary tools or features or algorithms, and neither seems particularly interested in impressing the tech community.
- csallen 17y ago
  Another one to add to the list is CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com), a site owned and created almost entirely by Derek Sivers. He sold it for $22 million last year. Looking at the site now, it's a bit sleeker and more up-to-date than both Craigslist and PlentyOfFish, but not too long ago it looked pretty much like a link farm: http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0004/6518/46518v1.png http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0004/6518/4...

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

"a staff of exactly zero" Or more correctly "Plenty of Fish had a staff of one"?

csallen 17y ago

I find all of this very intriguing. Assuming that both Craigslist and PlentyOfFish are successful for the same underlying reasons, it's worth pointing out similarities between the two. Note that while I've been using Craigslist for years, I have very little real experience with PlentyOfFish, so feel free to correct any invalid assumptions I make: 1. Plain user interfaces. The choices of fonts and colors seems very personal, non-corporate. There's nothing sleek, modern, trendy, creative, or flashy about either of these sites. That's not to say they're particularly simple or efficient. 2. Unchanging user interfaces. When you go to Craigslist, at least, you can be sure to find the exact same site you were using one, two, three years ago. No surprises, no re-learning, and no feeling left-behind. 3. Initial focus on small community, growth through word of mouth. Craigslist had San Francisco, and PoF had Vancouver I believe? There's something to be said about making users feel like they are party of a small, exclusive community. (Look at the beginnings of Facebook.) 4. Content created almost entirely by users. Craigslist does little more than categorize users' posts, and PoF is, well, a dating site. 5. Open: you don't have to know someone or get them to accept a friend request in order to interact with them. Once again, these sites make connecting with others easy and direct. (Although the signup process at PoF is understandably more involved.) When I go to Craigslist Boston I really do feel like the site represents the entire community. 6. Pretty much free. I'm sure I could add more, but the recurrent theme seems to be getting out of the way and keeping the focus on the people. Neither of these sites rely on revolutionary tools or features or algorithms, and neither seems particularly interested in impressing the tech community.

csallen 17y ago
Another one to add to the list is CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com), a site owned and created almost entirely by Derek Sivers. He sold it for $22 million last year. Looking at the site now, it's a bit sleeker and more up-to-date than both Craigslist and PlentyOfFish, but not too long ago it looked pretty much like a link farm: http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0004/6518/46518v1.png http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/original/0004/6518/4...