Friend’s online dating company, Plenty of Fish, is newly located on the 26th floor of a downtown skyscraper with a revolving restaurant on the roof. The gleaming space could easily house 30 employees, but as Friend strides in, it is eerily quiet -- just a room with new carpets, freshly painted walls, and eight flat-screen computer monitors. Friend drops his bag and plops himself down in front of one of them. He looks down at his desk. There's a $180,000 order waiting for his signature. It's from Video Egg, a San Francisco company that is paying Friend to run a series of Budweiser commercials in Canada. Like most of his advertising deals, this one found Friend. He hadn't even heard of Video Egg until a week ago. But then, you tend to attract advertisers' attention when you are serving up 1.6 billion web pages each month. Compass Founder Robert Rifkin on How to Bounce Back From FailureThat's a lot of personal ads. "One-point-six be-million," Friend says slowly, smacking his lips on the hard b. "There are maybe 10 sites in the U.S. with more than that." Five years ago, he started Plenty of Fish with no money, no plan, and scant knowledge of how to build a Web business. Today, according to the research firm Hit wise, his creation is the largest dating website in the U.S. and quite possibly the world. Its traffic is four times that of dating pioneer Match, which has annual revenue of $350 million and a staff that numbers in the hundreds. Until 2007, Friend 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 Customer Services website while Friend handles everything else. Amazingly, Friend has set up his company so that doing everything else amounts to doing almost nothing at all. "I usually accomplish everything in the first hour," he says, before pausing for a moment to think this over. "Actually, in the first 10 or 15 minutes. To demonstrate, Friend turns to his computer and begins fiddling with a free software program that he uses to manage his advertising inventory. While he is doing this, he carps about Canada's high-income taxes, a serious problem considering that Plenty of Fish is on track to book revenue of $10 million for 2008, with profit margins in excess of 50 percent. Then, six minutes 38 seconds after beginning his workday, Friend closes his Web browser and announces, "All done. All done? Are you serious? "The site pretty much runs itself," he explains. "Most of the time, I just sit on my ass and watch it." There's so little to do that he and his girlfriend, Annie Chancier, spent the better part of last summer sunning themselves on the French Riviera. Friend would log on at night, spend a minute or two making sure there were no serious error messages, and then go back to sipping expensive wine. A year ago, they relaxed for a couple of weeks in Mexico with a yacht, a captain, and four of Fancier’s friends. "Me and five girls," he says. "Rough life." As Friend gets up to leave, I ask him what he has planned for the rest of the day. "I don't know," he says. "Maybe I'll take a nap." It's a 21st-century fairy tale: A young man starts a website in his spare time. This person is unknown and undistinguished. He hasn't gone to MIT, Stanford, or any other four-year college for that matter, yet he is deceptively brilliant. He has been bouncing aimlessly from job to job, but he is secretly ambitious. He builds his company by himself and from his apartment. In most stories, this is where the hard work begins -- the long hours, sleepless nights, and near-death business experiences. But this one is way mellower. Friend takes it easy, working no more than 20 hours a week during the busiest times and usually no more than 10. Five years later, he is running one of the largest websites on the planet and paying himself more than $5 million a year. Friend, 30, doesn't seem like the sort of fellow who would run a market-leading anything. Quiet, soft-featured, and ordinary looking, he is the kind of person who can get lost in a roomful of people and who seems to take up less space than his large frame would suggest. Those who know Friend describe him as introverted, smart, and a little awkward. "Markus is one of those engineers who is just more comfortable sitting in front of a computer than he is talking to someone face to face," says Noel Biermann, the co-founder of Avid Life Media, a Toronto-based company that owns several Dating Support Number. When he does engage in conversation, Friend can be disarmingly frank, delivering vitriolic quips with a self-assured cheerfulness that feels almost mean. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), he says, is "a complete joke," Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is "a cult," and Match is "dying." Says Mark Brooks, a marketing consultant who has advised Friend since 2006, "I've never known anybody so competitive. He always says exactly what he thinks." With friends and family, Friend expresses affection through playful pranks. Friend will spend hours hiding in the three-bedroom apartment he and Chancier share, furtively flipping light switches, tapping on doors, and ducking into rooms to play on his girlfriend's fear of ghosts. Another memorable valentine involved the secret consumption of a massive quantity of hot peppers. Though his mouth was on fire, Friend calmly planted a kiss on Fancier’s lips and feigned ignorance as she went scrambling for water. Chancier, a freelance Web designer who also helps out around Plenty of Fish, is a lanky blonde with an easy smile and a hearty laugh, which she often uses to try to get Friend to open up. When I ask him to talk about what he does with the 23 hours a day in which he doesn't work, Friend struggles to answer and then looks helplessly at Chancier. She offers a few suggestions -- video games, ski trips, walks -- then tries to focus his energies. "We're trying to convince Max that we're interesting," she says sweetly. That's not easy for Friend, who seems most comfortable with the world at arm's length. "He never raises his voice," Chancier says later. "And he doesn't like conflict." Friend prefers to remain a silent observer of others, who then constructs arguments and counterarguments about their motivations. He seems perpetually lost in thought, constantly thinking about and studying the world around him. "He's always watching his environment to apply it to the site," says Chancier. "Once in a while, from the middle of nowhere, he'll say, 'Why is that girl doing that?' or 'Why is that guy posing like that?' He'll check people out in restaurants and watch how they interact. In a way, he's thinking about the company all the time." Friend spent his formative years on a grain farm in the northern hinterlands of British Columbia -- "the bush," in local parlance. His hometown, Hudson's Hope, is a cold, isolated place not far from the starting point of the Alaska Highway. Friend’s parents, German farmers who emigrated just before his fourth birthday, bought a 1,200-acre plot 10 miles from town and initially lived in a trailer without electricity, phones, or running water. The family's closest neighbors were a mile and a half away, and, apart from a younger brother, Friend had few friends. "His problem was English," says his father, Eduard Friend. "If you don't have English, you can't do anything." Friend eventually adjusted, but his was a lonely childhood. He rarely visits Hudson's Hope these days. When his parents want to see him, they make the 14-hour drive southward. After graduating from a technical school in 1999 with a two-year degree in computer programming, Friend got a job with an online shopping mall. Then the dot-com bubble burst, and he spent the next two years bouncing from failed startup to failed startup. For most of 2002, he was unemployed. "Every six months, I got a new job," Friend says. "It'd start with 30 people, then five months later, there'd be five. It was brutal." When he did have work, it felt like torture. His fellow engineers seemed to be writing deliberately inscrutable code in order to protect their jobs. "It would literally take me four or five hours," he says -- an eternity in Friend time -- "just to make heads or tails of their code, when normally you're supposed to spend, like, two minutes doing that." But cleaning up other people's messes taught Friend how to quickly simplify complex code. In his spare time, he started working on a piece of software that was designed to find prime numbers in arithmetic progression. The topic, a perennial challenge in mathematics because it requires lots of computing power, had been discussed in one of his classes, and Friend thought it would be a fun way to learn how to sharpen his skills. He finished the hobby project in 2002, and, two years later, his program discovered a string of 23 prime numbers, the longest ever. (Friend’s record has since been surpassed, but not before it was cited by UCLA mathematician and Fields Medal winner Terence Tao.) "It was just a way of teaching myself something," Friend says. "I was learning how to make the computer as fast as possible." By early 2003, the technology economy in Vancouver had yet to bounce back, and Friend’s sixth employer in three years was laying off half its workforce. Worried that he would again find himself unemployed, Friend decided to bolster his qualifications. He would devote a couple of weeks to mastering Microsoft's new tool for building websites, ASP.net, and do it by building the hardest kind of website he could think of. Online dating was an inspired choice. Not only does the act of building an intricate web of electronic winks, smiles, and nudges require significant programming skills, but the industry has always been a friendly place for oddballs and opportunists. Industry pioneer Gary Kreme, the founder of Match and the man who registered the Sex.com domain name, cites rapper Ice Cube and the bank robber "Slick" Willie Sutton as important influences on his business philosophy. Another pioneer, James Hong, co-founded hot or not, a site with a single, crude feature. Hong allowed users to upload pictures of themselves and have other user’s rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. Hot or not was acquired for $20 million in cash last year by Noel Biermann’s company, Avid Life. Avid, which has also courted Plenty of Fish, derives most of its revenue from Ashley Madison, a dating website for married people (tag line: "Life is short. Have an affair"). The site has 2.8 million members and revenue in the tens of millions of dollars. Unlike many online dating entrepreneurs, Friend didn't start Plenty of Fish to meet women -- or even because he had some vision of business glory. "It was a burning desire to have something stable," he says. "And I didn't really want to work." Friend’s eyes were also a factor. He suffers from hypersensitivity to light, and his eyes were not taking well to long days in front of a screen. Working a few hours an evening for two weeks, Friend built a crude dating site, which he named Plenty of Fish. It was desperately simple -- just an unadorned list of plain-text personals ads. But it promised something that no big dating company offered: it was free.
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Understanding The Best Way To Avoid A Lengthy Family Law Case
Civil cases generally involve private disputes between individuals or organizations. Criminal cases involve actions considered harmful to society as a whole (therefore, they are considered crimes against the “state” or the jurisdiction of the prosecution service). Although criminal law and civil law are different, there is a certain intersection. It's time that you found the right attorney to handle your case. As you continue reading, you will see how the selection process can be better narrowed down to suit your needs. You must realize that it's important that you find the right lawyer, and the "when" is also very important. When it comes to hiring a lawyer, trust is an essential part of the relationship that you want to build. You will want a lawyer that you can feel comfortable with and who seems very capable of handling your case. This may take some time to find, so look carefully! Ask your friends and family for referrals if you are looking for a great lawyer. Others that have had legal issues know how critical a good lawyer can be and will be best able to lead you in the right direction. Get a few recommendations and then do your own research from there. Imagine taking on a lawyer who is about to enter court for the first time. That's what will happen if you take a general lawyer into a case where a specializing lawyer is a better bet. Ask any lawyer you know for their recommendations, and you'll be pleased with the outcome. Don't just pick the first lawyer you find on the Internet. It is tempting to think lawyers all do the same thing, but they can vary in quality and expertise. Ask friends if they know a good lawyer and what he represented them for. Be picky when choosing legal help. Avoid lawyers that use the term "slam dunk" in regards to any situation or case. Seasoned legal professionals know that the law is rarely a cut and dry matter. Otherwise, lawyers might not need to exist at all! You do want a confident attorney, but not an arrogant or ignorant one. Keep in mind that even lawyers have flaws. If you come across a lawyer that claims that he will definitely win your case, he is a blantant liar and should be avoided at all costs. There aren't guarantees with the law, and you should avoid a lawyer that says they win all the time. Everyone wants to find the best legal representation for the best price. However, remember that many times you get what you pay for and you surely want the best outcome of your case. Do some research about the reputation of several different lawyers as well as asking acquaintances for personal recommendations. If you cannot afford a lawyer, consider representing yourself. Find a lawyer who is willing to help you prepare a good defense and give use some useful advice. Some lawyers will help you build a solid defense and bill you for a the few hours they spent working with you. You really need to understand what you are paying for when you hire a lawyer. These fees can be complicated. You need to make sure you have all these fees in writing up front and that you understand how they are calculated. If you do not, they are required to explain them to you until you do. Do you want to be able to email your lawyer? Then you must choose someone who knows what email is! Many lawyers are still in the Dark Ages when it comes to technology, so it is important to contact them through the method you'll use once they're hired to ensure it will work. Ask your lawyer for more details regarding their fees. If your lawyer is only quoting a total fee and not giving you any details, they might be overcharging you. Ask your lawyer for a detailed bill including hourly rates and communicate with your lawyer regularly to keep track of how much time they are spending on your case. If you find yourself needing the services of an attorney, but don't have any good leads on one, use a referral service. Different states use different methods of putting citizens together with the right lawyer and you will benefit from this match-making. You should be able to find all the information on your state's main website. There are a variety of questions to ask your short list of potential attorneys. Ask them how many cases like yours they've worked on, when the last time they worked on such a case was, how it was resolved, and what the resolution was. This should help you pick the best candidate. The first step in choosing a lawyer is making detailed notes about your case. Include a chronology of events, any evidence you have in hand like receipts or photographs, names and contact information for witnesses (both those who will support you and those who will not). This will help your lawyers gauge your case. One very important aspect of hiring a good lawyer is finding one whose personality meshes with yours. Do you trust him/her with your life? If you don't, you need to keep searching, no matter how much the cost. If you can be comfortable with them, you'll have a chance with them. Just because you agree to a contract with an attorney does not mean that you must rack up unnecessary bills. Make sure you communicate wisely as you lawyer can charge you for all interaction. If possible, do small things for yourself like document pickup and delivery, printing, and faxing. Although fees may appear to be miniscule, they can quickly escalate to a large amount. You can get reliable lawyer referrals from the chamber of commerce of your city. You might also solicit input from local non-profit agencies that deal with the situation that confronts you. For example, if you are a woman looking for a good divorce lawyer, you might ask local women's groups for referrals. You might also consult a law librarian for a good lawyer referral. "When" you find an attorney has everything to do with your "win" for your case. However, it's not just "when," but you must remember everything else you've read about the selection process so that you have the right attorney for your need. Use the tips you've just read so that you can find a good one. Viewing data can be difficult, and some things don’t work just because they don’t create what people want. Most of the data disappears due to incorrect execution of growth and marketing. How to Grow A StartupGrowth is the key to success, but starting a business is really difficult. This is incomprehensible to many founders. What makes things more difficult is a large number of strategies and compromise technologies that determine how we should promote our own growth and marketing efforts.
I think this is because many founders like brands and we fantasize about going to nightclubs. The stories we hear about Dropbox, Airbnb, or other unicorns lead us to believe that growth is the pursuit of magical choices that change the course of our history. As a source of inspiration, many founders view it as a secret and apply it regardless of their product or the background of their customers. Instead, these startups posed a question: "Which marketing channels can help us find the customers of our dreams? This has led them to start a growth process that requires a lot of experimentation, measurement, and learning to make their growth machine work. Talking about building a growth machine may sound simple and fun, but how do you start the process from scratch? 1) Don’t take hacks out of their context. 2) Don’t experiment with many acquisition channels at once. 3) If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. 4) Do things that don’t scale 5) Focus on a small niche A few months passed, and I sat down to really think about the WHO. I realize that our proposal may not satisfy all founders who are willing to develop their products. Many investors have provided terrible advice to fledgling entrepreneurs: "Your idea is too small. You have to look at the ground and target a larger market." If you come up with an unusual idea to build your startup , Don't go too far. This may seem counterintuitive, because most founders worry that if they do, they will lose potential customers. Start small. 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How to download Norton Antivirus online?Being a popular antivirus, there will be lots of downloading options available to you. We recommend that you download it from the official Norton website for reliability. You can follow these subsequent steps to access the Norton Setup.
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Irrespective of the source from where you purchase the MS Office setup what matters is that you save & secure the product key for future use. Otherwise, you can also log in with your Microsoft account through which you have earlier made use of the product key. There your product key is automatically saved.
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