Time for some advertiser love and some considerations to ponder regarding what it takes to build a dating site with pre-fab’d dating software.
Boonex announces an updated iPhone Android app for Dolphin, Mobile Licenses for $199. Dolphin replication and Dolphin cluster setup (is anyone else doing this with packaged dating site sofware?) Places Module with Events integration: create locations like hotels, clubs, restaurants, bars, business-companies and much more. You can create events inside locations as well.
SkaDate has improved their pre-sale support and has added a ton of new features. Lots of tutorials as well.
Speaking of help, one thing that will never change is the fact that people who aren’t versed in web application development tend to make a lot of negative noise when it comes to dating-site-in-a-box systems.
That said, I think most dating site software companies have a ways to go in terms of customer service. It’s clear that there are issues that need to be addressed in the post-sale support arena. Its not that I get lots of complaints though, and it feels like much of the ranting is from competitors, but thats just a hunch.
Sometimes its not the software thats the issue, its the people behind the often-questionable concepts driving sites and their lack of knowledge about how to go about launching a dating site. Thats where the frustration comes from.
The online dating industry portion of my consultancy is based on getting people up to speed on the decisions they need to make, getting them to revenue faster, and sometimes helping them out tactically along the way.
Having done this for a number of years, I’ve learned the following.
As I always say to clients, if you have a bit of money and you want to make some more on the Internet, starting a dating site is probably the last thing you should consider unless you satisfy certain criteria like previous entrepreneurship, technical knowledge, project management, wrangling developers, advertising optimization, etc. And a sizable marketing budget of course.
Mark my words, if you are a regular joe working with a web developer and designer, of course you are going to run into problems. Lots of them. Every day. You don’t know the net, or servers, or design or marketing or ad optimization or sales funnels. Or maybe you do to some extent, but you’re not an expert at:
- Raising money
- Sorting out bank account/merchant account/e-commerce system
- Deploying a website/database with redundancy
- Managing a branding project
- Figuring out the feature vs. simplicity vs. money equation
- Wrangling a team of talent (around the world perhaps)
- Other topics too numerous to mention here (but part of my dating site startup bootcamp)
I’ve done many, many advisory calls with people who are preparing to select a dating site platform, or stuck in the middle of the development process. The build vs. buy vs. white label conversation is often an eye-opener for potential dating site owners.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Careful consideration of things like experience, the team, vision for the company, available resources (cash and talent) and expectations all come into play when deciding how to launch a dating site.
When its done right, its gratifying on many levels, but when dating site development goes south, you’re often in for a world of hurt.
Thats why its better to contact me before you get started so you can launch quickly, get to revenue faster and avoid all of the pitfalls your competitors suffered.
