Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

plentyoffish.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#41

Post by staunch »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #39
staunch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I think there's a pretty dark side to the rise of POF that Markus has been less than forthcoming about.

how the hell is that dark? he's at number 13 or even 130, it's still a huge success. he didn't rip anyone off here. most startups in the consumer space that have a big rise have some form of what purists would call a "dark side".

Then call me a purist. I don't think you're right that "most" startups have a dark side. I'd guess that most don't. I'd rather be one of those.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#42

Post by rtw »

dhimes wrote: post #18
wyclif wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's free as in beer, and it's not intimidating or filled with Flash like some of the others (the "good enough" design derided by web design snobs). But it's still a dating site, and even the best, most functional dating sites aren't very good. A friend of mine signed up at plentyoffish, he lives in an urban area and is reasonably attractive. What he found was a lot of women who like to chat and email, but do…

Ouch. Those who can, do. Those who understand , teach.

Teaching is a skill on its own, it's orthogonal. I've read, and believe through my own intuition/experience, that being a "true expert" in most things is often such an intuitive place to be that it cannot be translated mechanically in that person's mind into steps for teaching it.

It's arrived at after years and years of "doing" and growing past internal boundaries and goals.

One thing you can be a "true expert" at is teaching itself.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#43

Post by chriskelley »

Hexstream wrote: post #17
axod wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the power of one person with a passion and determination. I think plentyoffish got some good press early on and that got it the momentum. Plentyoffish is the only free dating site I've heard of, so there's a big reason to go there instead of other free dating sites. The site design is actually pretty good IMHO, and sort of suggests that you're going to quickly get what you want to see and not a to…

IIRC the two things that the plentyoffish story lacks is passion and determination. edit: Or was it HotOrNot? I might have got my stories mixed up.

I believe the incarnation came from something along the lines of "I wanted to learn ASP, so I made a dating site". Not sure where that plots on the graph of passion and determination.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#44

Post by dhimes »

rtw wrote: post #42
dhimes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. Those who can, do. Those who understand , teach.

Teaching is a skill on its own, it's orthogonal. I've read, and believe through my own intuition/experience, that being a "true expert" in most things is often such an intuitive place to be that it cannot be translated mechanically in that person's mind into steps for teaching it. It's arrived at after years and years of "doing" and growing past internal boundaries and goals. One thing you can be a "true expert" at i…

Teaching relies on two things, primarily, beyond domain knowledge: making connections, and empathy. A great teacher understands not just the topic, but how it relates to other topics. Furthermore, a great teacher also has the ability to probe the person being taught to discover which connections are missing. Finally, of course, the connections have to be communicated, but communication skills are the least important. (If you don't have domain knowledge, if you can't make connections, and you can't get inside the head of the "student," you can't teach. If you can do all of those things, but you struggle with communication, you can eventually get your point across if you are determined).

It's the ability to make connections that we mostly associate with "understanding."

I'm suspicious of "true experts" who can't explain themselves. I think what a lot of people witness are people with deep domain knowledge ("experts") who just don't bother to make the connections. In my view, making the connections is a large part of being an expert.

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#45

Post by dhimes »

rtw wrote: post #42
dhimes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. Those who can, do. Those who understand , teach.

Teaching is a skill on its own, it's orthogonal. I've read, and believe through my own intuition/experience, that being a "true expert" in most things is often such an intuitive place to be that it cannot be translated mechanically in that person's mind into steps for teaching it. It's arrived at after years and years of "doing" and growing past internal boundaries and goals. One thing you can be a "true expert" at i…

Here's something just out--I doubt it would interest the community at large, but I thought you might enjoy it.

http://www.quickanded.com/2008/12/gladwell-kane-theory-of-te...

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#46

Post by [deleted] »

mtw wrote: post #19
vlad wrote: post #9

To people who wonder how a company like this might happen, here's my take. A developer constantly talks about his company (that also happens to cater to software developers/hackers) under the pretenses of how well a small software company is growing, which attracts software developers/hackers to read about it from blogs and hear speeches mentioning it at startup conferences, causing them to join the site to see how t…

interesting but this didn't apply to plentyoffish, which didn't come up with new technology or new marketing hacks. it was just the only free dating website at the time, and also with the right design (read=no design) to be trusted by its users

[deleted]

Re: 2008 was a good year, now #13 in the US.

#47

Post by vlad »

mtw wrote: post #19
vlad wrote: post #9

To people who wonder how a company like this might happen, here's my take. A developer constantly talks about his company (that also happens to cater to software developers/hackers) under the pretenses of how well a small software company is growing, which attracts software developers/hackers to read about it from blogs and hear speeches mentioning it at startup conferences, causing them to join the site to see how t…

interesting but this didn't apply to plentyoffish, which didn't come up with new technology or new marketing hacks. it was just the only free dating website at the time, and also with the right design (read=no design) to be trusted by its users

I didn't say anything about new technology or marketing hacks, but about publicizing itself to other developers, which are also either the target market or a big part of the initial target market. Plenty of fish used the strategy of blogging about its growth, which was picked up by none other than other developers and posted about in developer and indie forums on a regular basis over the past few years. This is exactly what I described--a developer talking about how successful their app is, which causes developers to sign up for it. Remember, the 20-30 year old software developer demographic who would hear about the site is most likely single and with money, making them the perfect target market to seed. This is exactly the same as creating a project management site for developers that grows in popularity to the point most users are no longer developers, or a social news site like reddit.
Post reply on HN