Plenty of Fish

Similar to online dating I can't share everything here online as I need to respect Match Group's confidentiality requirements here. Plus, it leaves something for us to talk about after our very own meet cute!

Founded in 2003, Plenty of Fish started its journey before smartphone market penetration ramped up and is one of the early pioneers in the online dating industry.

Today Plenty of Fish (or POF) is available in 11 languages and more than 20 countries worldwide, and is one of the top revenue-driving brands in the Match Group (comprised of Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, and more).

In the winter of 2018, my previous startup fell on some tough times. We went through a difficult metamorphosis into what some call “Cockroach Mode” or “time to start finding a new gig".

From the outside looking in POF had all of the characteristics of where I wanted to work next: Creating solutions at scale; meaningful work that impacted millions of people's lives; and a team focused on learning quickly through experimentation.

I saw a lot of potential, but also a lot of room for improvement. I wanted to help. So I joined, and what an amazing ride it’s been.

It’s now been nearly 4 years since I joined Plenty of Fish. This is what their iOS and Android apps looked like when I started (photos provided by Content Reel):

Over the course of 20 years, there hadn't been a consolidated effort put into simplifying user journeys, information hierarchy, or any of the design patterns.

Thanks to the sucess of Tinder, the loop of swiping, matching, then chatting is now ubiquitous. In contrast, POF's product mechanics and design patterns favoured open discovery (ie message someone without needing to match first), and felt overwhelming to many members.

There was a lot of the right pieces coming together when I joined the team. It was also clear that Plenty of Fish needed Product Design leadership. I stepped up. I was promoted to lead Product Design.

Since then, I’ve focused on breathing life into a design culture that is relentless in improving clarity, consistency, and aesthetics. I’ve led the Product Design team in maintaining simplicity while the product continued to grow in complexity.

Here is what those same pages evolved into today:

Product Design is a team sport, and I’ve benefited from working with a team of incredibly talented and driven designers. Between those early designs and what Plenty of Fish is today, there were countless iterations. Many successful and many failed projects. Heading up the team, I’ve touched virtually every design we’ve released, be it through vision, direction, collaboration, as an individual contributor, and regular critique — usually a combination of these.