Online Dating Startups

Online Dating Insider delivers cutting-edge insight and commentary on all aspects of the online dating industry. Topics include industry news, site reviews, emerging trends, analysis of dating site features, discussion about safety safety, finance and other issues important to the online dating market. Don't miss our Startups directory, useful to anyone running dating or social networking sites. Subscribe to the RSS feed (you can subscribe via email as well). Your comments and suggestions for stories are welcomed.
We offer consulting services to dating sites and social networks as well.

Over the years many people have asked questions about how to launch, grow and improve dating sites. Many questions are remarkably similar, so I decided to put together a greatest hits version of questions and answers.

Caveat: This is a work in progress and will be updated often.

Digicraft Consulting Services

We have helped dating sites at various stages of development, from marketing strategy to software due diligence, product conceptualization to site development. Learn how Digicraft can help you grow your online dating and social networking sites.

Q: Should I start a dating site?

A: My short answer is often a polite, “No”, followed by a remark about the fact that if they want to make extra money on the internet there are plenty of other ways to go about doing so. In general, I am not a fan of people who want to make a few extra bucks on the side running a dating site in their spare time. Those are the people I try to turn on to affiliate marketing.

Running a dating site means you are effectively becoming an Internet Marketer. Do you want to be an expert in Internet marketing?

Over a thousand dating sites already exist, from small niche sites to enormous warehouses of dating profiles. Companies with large marketing budgets most likely currently compete in your chosen market niche. Do you have $5,000 to $50,000 a month to spend on acquiring traffic? If not, you’re most likely going to be disappointed with the results of your efforts starting a dating site.

Obviously there are a number of edge cases like Plentyoffish, but odds are, you’re not an edge case. [insert discussion about luck, timing, management, resources, funding, etc].

Think long and hard about the type of site you want to start, the demographic you wish to cater to and if you *really* want to run a dating site. Ideas are fun to develop and the excitement of building something that will make money while you sleep can be initially intoxicating. Pretty soon that turns into a hangover, and you’re stuck with a so-so website, no money to market it in a competitive niche.

Q: I need money to get started

A: No you don’t. You can launch a white label dating site in a few days. The problem is, they take approximately half of everything you earn and you can’t run a free dating site supported by ads. [Examples of hosted, white label free dating sites]. What you need is money for marketing your dating site. Large sites spend up to 30% of their revenue on marketing. Google Adwords is probably out of your reach at this point, unless you are purchasing hyper-targeted (geographically or niche) keywords.

Developing a cost-effective marking strategy is incredibly important. I’ve watched many companies over/under-spend that magical “sweet spot” where out of the blue you’re getting the traffic you need and it’s not costing you an arm and a leg. That’s an incredibly difficult place to reach, but it’s attainable.

Financing

How to Pitch VC

Angelsoft - Angelsoft is an ecosystem of early-stage investors.

34 More Ways To Build Your Own Social Network

Dating Site Fundraising Just Got Easier

Online Dating Insider Posts about dating startups
Bookmarked web pages about dating startups
Tips and Resources to Make Money Off Of Paid Memberships

Interview with OSDate.

You need a place to keep your notes, assign tasks and collaborate with your team. Give Basecamp a shot, I’ve worked on many sites using it.

Dating Software

There are many types of dating systems and software to choose from. What works for one type of site might not work for another. If you don’t have a lot of resources (time and money) and your site isn’t going to have much customization, you’ll want to look at white label dating services. White Label Dating and World Dating Partners are arguably the two top providers of dating sites that are built on top of a shared database of users. Click the links in the sidebar to learn more.

Dating Site programs like Boonex Dolphin and SkaDate are good for sites that can be customized, from light reorganizing of content modules to heavy custom feature development. Expect to pay anywhere from $2,500 - $20,000 on a dating site based on these systems. SkaDate has a hosted service as well, which helps alleviate some of the problems you will run into hosting your own site.

When I help a client figure out what platform to build on, the first step in the due diligence process is to understand what the client is trying to accomplish, site functionality, their goals, available resources and other issues that are addressed at the very beginning of the process. Once we know what you’re thinking about building, it becomes much easier to recommend a suitable solution that meets your needs.

Custom Development
If your site is totally over the top in terms of customization, never-seen-before features and functionality, custom development might be the right answer. Again, it depends on your answers to the above questions.

Forums

ModMysite

Low Cost Usability Testing

Check out Usertesting.com.

Advertising

Marc Porcelli worked for Azoogle, then was the Chief Marketing Officer at SinglesNet and is now back at Azoogle’s parent company. Suffice to say Marc knows of what he speaks when it comes to online advertising. His blog post, Does Banner Advertising Still Work?, is worth reading, really. I charge people a lot to tell them about points 9 through 12, go learn, for free.

Many free dating sites advertise using Google Adwords. No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and their advertising network. Pay only if people click your ads.

Dating Ad Network

Dating Ad Network works with dating websites demanding affordable high-quality traffic. Dating Ad Network is based on the same proven ad-serving technology and run by the same dating industry advertising experts as Romance-Net. Romance-net.com, has serviced international matchmaking websites since 2003, controlling over 60 million ad impressions/month and more than 5,000 dating site owners subscribed to its services.

Take a look at Dating Ad Network if you are interested in banner exchanges. Dating Ad Network is a free and robust online advertising engine for companies and webmasters who run dating and singles matchmaking websites. Dating Ad Network uses a state-of-the-art banner exchange system that offers a multitude of benefits, compared to other exchange services. You will get a healthy exchange rate 5:4 and detailed traffic statistics.

Generating Revenue

Dating sites earn revenue several ways: free, free (ad-supported), subscription based, tiered subscriptions and several permutations of free-paid.

Many sites start off free, until they have reached a certain number of members, at which time they begin charging. Usually when this happens the site experiences a high rate of attrition.