网络交友产业迎来呆大王

    雅冈与大学期间的恋人喜结连理。在他2004年创立OkCupid时，他们俩就已经处于热恋之中，不过他也属于网站的目标用户。网站的用户平均需要自愿回答涉及本人的233个问题。雅冈用典型的自嘲语气对《财富》（Fortune）说：“我单身时讨厌在酒吧和人约会，因为那里完全是以貌取人，还有哗众取宠。但我在酒吧里既不相貌出众，也不幽默搞笑。所以我最不喜欢跟人比长相、拼幽默。我更愿意上OkCupid或者Match，在那里我可以写一段300个字的自我介绍。真棒！”

    许多约会者似乎都有同感，因此市值20亿美元的网上交友业发展迅猛，即便业内正在发生兼并——大多数都是被雅冈领导的Match公司兼并的。在创立OkCupid之前，他和同一帮好友创立了SparkNotes。这是一家类似CliffsNotes的教辅公司，在1999年以3,000万美元的价格卖给了iTurf公司。

    雅冈表示，起初获得成功后，他仍不敢确信自己是个企业家。他不知道SparkNotes的成功究竟只是运气，还是技术上的成功。他四处投简历申请白领职位的工作，却徒劳无功。他说：“它充分证明，如果你已经24岁了，履历上却只有CEO的工作经历，那你是绝对找不到工作的。”

    因此，索性回去再开一家公司吧。他与朋友杰德•麦凯莱布联手，创立了电驴（eDonkey），这是一项点对点的文件共享服务（类似于Napster的视频共享）。这家公司发展迅速，不过在唱片公司的压力下被迫关闭。尽管成功地建立过两家网络公司，但雅冈却说：“我还从未写过一行贸易秘诀。我也不会去写。”他扮演的总是商务方面的角色。

    因此，在以9,000万美元收购OkCupid的一年半后，IAC任命雅冈为整个Match部门的首席执行官也就是顺理成章的事情了。这意味着他不仅管理着Match.com，还负责了PeopleMedia（其中包括一系列针对各群体的小型约会网站如OurTime.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com和LoveandSeek.com），DateHookup.com和像Meetic和Twoo这样的国际公司。整个部门在2012年占到了IAC的28亿美元收入中的7.13亿美元。

    在线交友的网站军团如今构成了一个庞大无比、纷繁多样的网络。IAC坐拥其中的一大部分，而且还在雅冈的愿景下继续收购其他公司：“我喜欢收购小型公司，招揽优秀的企业家，希望鼓动他们留在Match或IAC这样的大型公司工作。”

    雅冈说他几乎每周都能从交友网站的创业者那里收到邮件。他们想知道他会不会收购他们，或者给他们一些建议。建一个网站很容易，但要让它成为一个像模像样的生意却很难，尤其是网上交友网站。但面向特定约会群体的网站有着诱人的市场，其中的许多在近几年都取得了成功，最终找到了买家。作为Match的首席执行官，雅冈表示，实际上他很支持新的网上交友的竞争者出现，因为基本上他会是唯一的买家。他把整件事形容得很简单：“你要创立公司了，你要取得些成功了，然后我就会廉价收购你，因为没有其他人给你出价。再然后我的公司就壮大了。”  

    Yagan is married to his high school sweetheart; they were already engaged when he launched OkCupid in 2004. And yet he might as well have been the target user for the site, whose members voluntarily answer, on average, 233 questions about themselves. "I hated meeting people at bars when I was single, because it's all about the looks and the funny line," he tells Fortune in typical self-deprecating fashion. "I don't have the looks to compete at a bar, and I'm not that funny. So the last thing I want is to be in a situation where that's what I'm competing on. I'd rather be on OkCupid or Match, where I can write a 300-word essay about myself that's really good."

    Many daters, it seems, agree: The $2 billion online dating industry is growing quickly, even as it is being consolidated -- mostly by Match Inc., which Yagan helms. Before they created OkCupid, he and the same friends started SparkNotes, an online alternative to CliffsNotes study guides, in 1999. It sold to iTurf, Inc. for $30 million.

    After that initial success, he says, he was still hesitant to consider himself an entrepreneur; Yagan wasn't sure whether SparkNotes succeeded because of luck or skill. He applied for desk jobs to no avail. "It turns out that if you're a 24-year-old whose only line on their resume says CEO, you are totally unemployable," he says.

    Thus: back to creating another business. He joined his friend Jed McCaleb to launch eDonkey, a P2P file-sharing service (akin to a Napster for video) that they scaled fast but shut down after pressure from record labels. Despite successfully rolling out two web companies, Yagan says, "I have never written a line of commercial code in my life. Nor should I." Instead, his roles have always been on the business side.

    It makes sense, then, that only a year and a half after buying OkCupid for some $90 million, IAC (IACI) made Yagan CEO of its entire Match Inc. division. That means he now oversees not only Match.com but also PeopleMedia (which comprises a host of smaller, niche dating sites such as OurTime.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, and LoveandSeek.com), DateHookup.com, and international companies like Meetic and Twoo. That entire segment contributed $713 million of IAC's 2012 revenue of $2.8 billion.

    The legions of online dating websites now comprise a vast and varied web. But IAC owns a formidable chunk of them and has continued the buying bonanza as a direct result of Yagan's vision: "I like bringing in small companies, great entrepreneurs, wanting them to be incentivized to stay and work at a big company like Match or IAC."

    Yagan says he gets emails, almost on a weekly basis, from people launching a dating site. They want to know whether he would buy it or at least give them advice. Creating a website is easy -- it is building one into a legitimate business that is hard, especially in online dating. But the sites that target a focused subset of daters find a rich market. Many of those in the last few years that scaled successfully have since sold. As CEO of Match, Yagan says, he actually roots for new online dating competitors to launch, because he is basically the only buyer. To hear him describe it, the whole thing is easy: "You're going to launch, you're going to get some success, [and] I'm going to buy you for cheap because you don't have another bidder. And then my business has grown."