What is a Real Business?

There have been some pretty strong reactions to this month's cover story on Markus Frind, the soft-working founder of PlentyofFish. Most readers seemed to find the story inspiring, but a few didn't. Here's a particularly harsh (and interesting) one, written by Mike in the article's comments section:

This story actually makes me want to cancel my subscription. I liked Inc since it talked about real businesses with real-life issues and how to approach them. This article is basically about how one guy won the "lottery". Plus, as many other commentators have noted, you can`t find any independent verification of POF`s stats and claims. As in any endeavor, business or otherwise, there will be people that claim that they got lucky. Not sure if it`s worth devoting a front page article about it.

Mike has two objections to the story that are worth addressing—(a) that we have no way of knowing whether or not Frind is lying, and (b) that even if he isn't lying, he is simply lucky and therefore not worth listening to. I actually think these are essentially the same objection: Mike wants to know why he should listen to a guy who is accountable to no one. More to the point, is a one-person business even a "real business"?

Senior contributing writer Max Chafkin has profiled companies such as Yelp, Zappos, Twitter, Threadless, and Tesla for the magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. @chafkin