Genius Way To Start & Run Free Dating Service
Well, I remember how I was impressed after reading Matt Inman’s blog post about his 65,5 hour work on a dating site It looked so easy to conduct an industry market research and come up with some concept to develop.
Then I got even more impressed to read the announcement that the dating services was sold a few months later to JustSayHi
Yes, the site was developed perfectly – design & code. But how could it attract an established company within that short period of time? There was no information about some missing ‘insignificant’ details.
This week I was lucky to discover the secret of that dating site quick rise. Yes, this is the fact of life – you get just some information that people want you to get, the most important details remain unclosed.
Matt Inman has found a great way to MARKET his new dating service. The guy is not only a talented designer & developer, but also a great at marketing
He has created a few quizzes and widgets that thousands of people posted on their sites. And in this way a brand new dating website got thousands of backlinks.
As a result, the website has got GREAT rankings in Google and other search engines in no time and attracted tons of targeted traffic AND the interest of JustSayHi. The deal amount is certainly undisclosed, but we can guess it was a nice one.
So, after reading this story it looks like OKCupid just copied the idea with their ‘speed dating button’ and they do not look so smart in my eyes anymore, do not you agree?
As you see there are ways to enter even so competitive niche as dating unlike I have stated in my post, but one should be so smart to get an IDEA and properly implement it…
Dating Services: Smart & Clumsy Ways To Get Monetized
Just in continuation of the last week post about your own dating site launch and chances to enter the dating market. There are many experiments that smart guys carry out with online dating projects – just read how OKCupid tries to compete with monsters like Canadian Plenty of Fish (though run by the team of two only) and Match.com
Despite all that funding and smart idea with speed dating button widget it is not yet clear if the site will be turn profitable. To tell the truth, I have a feeling that they have min chances to succeed – judging by the amount of traffic they get and need to break even. And this just proves that the market is so tough.
This story has reminded me of some other idea to monetize an online dating service.
The former Russians have set up an agency, I do not remember the State and am not certain – probably they are still in the business. The way to make the money was quite smart. They charged their male database for every OPEN e-mail letter that they read from Russian ladies. They also have to pay to send them letters. Each open/ sent letter was charged for about $5.00. Not much until you start opening or sending letters in tens or hundreds. Then the dating service would arrange tours to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to meet those ladies.
The idea was not bad, but it is too easy to abuse it. And the backfire was fast and inevitable. A lot of fake letters from fake lady profiles that cost the guys thousands of bucks. The dating service have tried to introduce some screening system, but all in vain. I remember the dating services was blacklisted, not sure if they run their dating business at this time.
I guess there are many more stories of successful/ failed online dating services trying to get rich providing their services. Would you like to share any?
Best way to start your own dating website
Those who are in the dating industry now and then play with the idea of starting their own Plenty of Fish, OKCupid or something else
But only a few people who have some knowledge about the niche competition make an attempt. And those few have a few options to go:
- make dating site from scratch
- make use of some free dating software that no doubt needs much customization
- just join some program running dating white label site programs
What are pros and cons of each option?
To tell the truth, I do not see any pros, but cons.
OPTION 1: to go this way you should be either well funded or simply out of your mind… but probably you are good at coding and months to toy with this project.
OPTION 2: if you think that free dating software is an easy way to build a decent dating site – you are wrong. Customization can take the same amount of time and funds as option 1. It is extremely difficult to edit someone’s code.
OPTION 3: white label site… No problem with software, and even no problem with user database. At first glance. Firstly, the user database is likely to be months old – so the users are likely to be inclined to actively interact. Secondly, you will run into the problem with search engine rankings and Google will filter most of your pages for duplicate content – this very user database is crawled with some other website.
There are probably more options to enter the game. For instance, go some niche. But you face other sort of problem – most popular niches are filled by top general dating sites. And if you target some less popular niche you will get LOW demand and too small user base.
My conclusion:
FORGET ABOUT STARTING YOUR OWN DATING SITE
Do you share this point? Would be great to listen some others ideas.