How would build a Dating App and Site?

[bopeep]

I know it is kind of a generic question but I need to build a Dating site and an App. I am willing to spend only about 10K on the development. Is it too low?

What options do I have?
If the site takes off, I would be willing to invest more, but initially I can only spare about 10K ball park.
This won't be a Niche but it will have an angle so it has the potential to take off.

I am willing to sacrifice features, but I don't want to have to rewrite the entire code of the site and app if the website does take off.

So what would you do?

I want it to be a mobile first, but I will still want a Website with similar features.

Just like we have CMS for content sites, and ecom sites, are there any off the shelf good dating engines?

I want a very good messaging system, like a chat interface.
I want a good inbuilt flagging mechanism for inappropriate content.


If you were to start a dating sites, never mind that it is saturated, how would you go about creating the actual site. Could I get this done with a freelancer with the said budget etc?

I have never had a entire site built forms scratch. I am hoping there are good engines, on the lines of WP, Shopify and Magento etc for dating niche since I see a ton of niche or adult dating sites on affiliate networks.

Thanks Bros.

I have a pretty good idea of promoting it, but I don't know how to build the site on a budget.

If you have any experience building similar sites, do let me know the kind of effort it will take, so that I will know what to tell the developer if I hire one.

Technically what are the challenges, how long one developer might take etc.

please help

 

[CCarter]

Imagine you have a wad of cash and want to build a house, but you have no idea how to build it. What do you do? You will probably need a realtor to find land, and the architect to listen to what you want and look at the land and create the blueprint of what needs to be created. Then you need to hire a contractor to build the thing.

The contractor may hire sub-contractors to get the smaller parts done like electricity, plumbing, etc. You'll probably want someone advanced in security to put in some high tech security systems and depending on the other amenities you want in the house, you'll have to hire other individuals to "figure it out", like a tennis court or private jet landing strip.

All this depends on knowing what you want. Only once the professionals know what you want can they give you proper estimates on how the job should be done, who to hire (who won't scam you), and how much it will cost. But no one can give you an estimate on anything without knowing your TRUE end goal. Vague concepts leads to vague estimates.

Your dating app could cost $1,000 to come into existence or 1 million dollars. There is no way of knowing that without sending out vague guesses. As well since you do not actually code (contractor, architect, or realtor) you'll need someone to manage the whole operation.

If I were in your shoes I would first consult some former employees of dating Apps or dating sites, and get them to partner up on the project, so they can oversee the work and building out the thing. They may not have all the skills from A to Z for above, but they'll have more knowledge than you currently have. I would also hire a consultant that specializes in APP build outs, so they know who to go for for A to Z in their Rolodex.

You see that architect that is going to take your idea and interpret it and create a blueprint and instructions for your developers - they get paid for that. They might be the perfect consultant to approach for this project.

I personally don't see anyone giving you an exact blueprint of what you will need to have your developer do for free and especially without knowing exactly what you are looking to create in a non-vague manner. Why would anyone work for free - that knowledge the consultant has acquired over the years of how to build, maintain, and scale will save you thousands if not millions of dollars down the road. The biggest factor being that you only have money yet have no real solid idea on how to get the "job done". So you can be in for a real whirlwind by a developer taking you for a serious ride if you are not careful and you don't have someone who has your back.

It might even make sense to bring on the consultant as the overall manager, paying whatever they are worth and/or a percentage of the company, if not take him on as a full partner.

Or you can go to CodeCanyon and input "dating" and find a pre-made app for $50 and see if you can find a developer to add the features you want. "Dating" - CodeCanyon

 

[miketpowell]

Starting a "real" dating site/app isn't about the development cost of the product, it's about getting users. If you don't have a bank roll, plan and experience on the user acquisition you will have trouble. Do you have any experience driving leads to dating sites?

The reason I say "real" is because the majority of dating offers you see on adult sites and adult affiliate offers don't have any real customers. It's just a big funnel to get a guys CC. There are nothing but bots on the sites and they aren't designed like a real dating site at all. So those you don't need to worry about getting users besides the guys you are tricking into thinking they might get laid on the site.

As far as raw development cost you could definitely get something built for $10,000. The key thing to understand though is you will have to fully rebuild it once you get a decent amount of users. Lots of people can build something that works OK with 50 users. Only about 1% of those same people have a clue how to build something that can take 50,000 users or more. That's the difference between developing something for 10k vs 250k in most cases. If anyone tells you that it's not an issue because of "cloud" based servers and CDNs they don't know WTF they are talking about and have no actual experience with high traffic loads.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

If you can find a copy, the last series of The Apprentice UK had a dating app in the final. Obviously the show is full of the usual fluff you'd expect but they interviewed a bunch of big dating execs about costs, strategy, time to become profitable after launch and so on. The tl;dr (or didn't watch lol) is that they were worried a £250k investment wouldn't be enough because of the stuff @miketpowell is talking about in terms of the long time to market it and the redevelopment costs after it reaches scale.

 

[bopeep]

CC: I guess I didn't frame my question correctly. I was generally looking for technical tips. Like, If I had to scale, what I would look for in terms of technology stack, what kind of skill sets I would look for etc. I am only looking for simple features, like I said, I am willing to sacrifice features, And I can and will write a complete functional spec doc for the features that I will want initially. It will have generic profile pages like any dating sites or app, fb integration, and the most complex feature will most likely be the messaging feature.

At this point, I cant afford to hire a consultant, and with my budget I won't like get one even if I wanted. It is a generic dating sites, so no consultants will likely like to take a stake. I couldn't even get a technical co founder for that matter. I have to hire a contractor.


I am not looking to build out a multi million dollar enterprise. I just want a small dating site where I can drive my users instead of directly slinging "how to get back your ex" ebooks, and see if I can make it work. I mean I am not trying to build the next tinder.

I have some "users" in the dating and relationship niche, and I want to see if I can built out a small free dating site as the first step.

MiketPowell: I have some existing lists and have a plan to get more users in a budget. Also I am not targeting US/UK/AUS/CA, and I am not going to brute force users and see if it sticks. If it doesn't work out as I plan, I will just move on.

But I want to build out something with a good foundation and I know what you mean, about the 50K users, and that is why I said I will compromise on features, but not the foundation. And that is why I want to build from scratch rather than using a membership plugin from wordpress or a dating script.
Lol maybe I should learn to code myself

Steve Brownlie: Is it on youtube yet?

 

[lion1978]

I just want a small dating site where I can drive my users

there are scripts ready to use out there some are free and some are paid, however I do belive you'd have to convert them into apps yourself, but there are even softwares that can do this for you, haven't used them so I won't recomend any

 

[CCarter]

@bopeep You need someone that has experience or knows who to hire to create a foundation that is scalable. Scalable also means making sure the code is coded for scale as well. Knowing the limits of the current infrastructure (databases and servers) as well as the code (some languages or methods of pulling data just don't scale well.)

I honestly wouldn't waste time trying to get the foundation perfect. Cause even I had to go back and rewrite code for a SAAS I own to scale for new obstacles. It's impossible to predict future new problems caused by new tech. You need to consider that coding software is different than designing websites.

There are versions for a reason. 0.1, 0.8, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc. There will be features customers demand that didn't fit perfectly within you original blueprint, and there will be things that break often cause the pressure on it was more than anticipated. I would remove the attempt at having a "perfect foundation" requirement cause that is fantasy and was one of the reasons I was hesitant in even replying cause it showed you never wrote software. When things break in the middle of the night and you need developers working on it through the weekend and their nights to fix it so when the morning comes it's back online you soon realize there is no way to predict or prepare perfectly for the future.

On top of that if you hire a bad "cheap" coder you'll need to rewrite the thing at some point. As well if you hire a great developer, but they take you on a ride cause you can't tell if they are working on real things or trying to milk the clock, which I had a friend of mine have that happen to from another person this community considered a "great developer" - you'll be trying to run uphill blindfolded if you don't have someone on your team that has your back.

It's very difficult to create software if you can't write software. Just like it's very difficult to bake cookies if you can't bake. You can have all the ingredients and equipment, but that doesn't mean you know how to cook. You need someone that knows how to cook to cook it for you or manage the cooks in the kitchen so they aren't fucking around pretending to boil eggs for 2 hours a day.

 

[hehejo]

At this point, I cant afford to hire a consultant, and with my budget I won't like get one even if I wanted. It is a generic dating sites, so no consultants will likely like to take a stake. I couldn't even get a technical co founder for that matter. I have to hire a contractor.

You are competing in a very saturated niche. Dating sites thrive by having a big userbase. You won't be able to compete like this, so it will end up a money sink.

Either build something at least 10% better than the competition and go all in on this or don't even bother. You will just end up losing money otherwise.

Maybe you can find a simple script, but then don't expect a lot of quality or customization. Cheap third party code mixed with cheap contractors ends up in a real big mess very fast.

So my advice is either do it properly or stay out. Anything half-assed is a waste of money and time.