Markus Frind: From Plenty Of Fish to plenty of grapes

Markus Frind founded dating site PlentyOfFish.com in 2003 by building it in his free time and ended up selling it for about US$575 million in 2015.

While he has built other businesses, ranging from a steel mill to an online furniture store, it was his family’s 500-year involvement with agriculture that set him on the path to creating Frind Estate Winery in Kelowna, B.C.

Frind also runs Frind Properties, an investment company that manages real estate and public and private equities.

Here, he explains how he came full circle, from emigrating from Germany to Canada at 4 years old and growing up on a farm in northern British Columbia, to growing grapes.

What was your experience growing up in a family farming business?

“When you grow up on a farm in the middle of nowhere you are the jack of all trades and when something breaks you just have to find some way to make it work. No one is going to come and fix it for you, so if you don’t do something no one else will.”

Can you discuss your tech trajectory and your family’s reaction?

“I created PlentyOfFish from my apartment, and when it was the largest dating site in the world back in 2008, I hired my first employee. I’m not sure [my family] really understood the scale of it back then. I went from no one knowing I was in Vancouver to being on the Today Show, and Wall Street Journal in the span of three weeks.”

What challenges have you faced in establishing Frind Estate Winery?

“On the Internet, everything moves at light speed; when building buildings or developing land, everything takes and is measured in terms of, years, not days. When you make wine, you have only one chance a year. If you’re running a tech business, you test a process over and over every day till you perfect it.”

How does your investment firm fit in to your interests?

“I have a family office, Frind Properties, that invests in tech companies, real estate, etc. Being involved in tech companies allows me to use the knowledge I have gained over the years and allows me to stay up to date.

When it comes to business, there are really only four or five things you do a year that truly move the business forward, and in hindsight they are usually obvious. The key to growing these companies is to make sure you only focus on what is truly important and keep it simple.”

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How has the post-pandemic economic climate affected your businesses?

“It has been brutal, and there isn’t really much you could do. The cost of glass doubled, cardboard went up 100 per cent, fertilizers did the same. As most of the materials we need come from overseas we are captive to ocean freight, and in terms of Europe, their power costs have made them non-competitive for things like glass bottles.

For Cymax [an e-commerce subsidiary of Frind Properties] we ship hundreds of thousands of furniture products from different vendors. Broadly speaking, many companies we see had a lot of problems with supply chain and that is mostly stabilized, and now the bigger issue is interest rates, as many of these companies can no longer service the debt they hold.”

Can you offer advice to next-generations of family businesses who might want to take the reins in future, or strike out on their own?

“One step at a time; a business takes on a life of its own and there is no end state – it always evolves.

If there is one piece of advice I could give, it would to be build the business you have not the one you wish you had. Look to see what is making the business successful today, and double down on that, as opposed to launching new features, products, etc. that are based on hunches.”

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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