[afarrell]

A dating site could work sustainably if it was a site for planning date nights. Make profiles based on activities and swipe right or left on the activities you want to do.

Revenue sources would include:

- Ads for local businesses, classes, and events.

- Annual subscription which is cheaper after the first year and gives you discount codes to events and restaurants.

Once you get the site to work for date nights, let people be open to getting matched based on similar activity interests. Then you can solve the problem of two users finding a specific joint activity.

Would this solve the problem of finding people to have sex with? No, but computers are bad at sex.

Would this solve the problem married couples have of picking a place to eat? Hopefully.

[com2kid]

I ran a startup making something similar to this pre-covid, it wasn't just date night, it was "find something to do in under 5 minutes". Groups of 4 to 6, partnering with local businesses who hosted the events. You opened the app, said what you wanted to do and when, and you were automatically put into a group. You could select how many people you already had going with you (date, or just a group of 2 friends who needed a few more people for a cooking class or whatnot).

No photos until just before the event started, because photos turn things into a beauty contest and people start judging on looks, which is where, IMHO, all my competition in the same space went wrong.

Events were scheduled for as little as 4 hours out, and only up to 72hrs in the future. The entire app flow was designed to be as close as possible to a "I am bored, entertain me now" button.

Investors hated it, two sided marketplaces are apparently something they like to avoid due to difficulties around execution.

People were desperate for this type of service though, for one marketing campaign my user acquisition cost dropped as low as 15 cents per user.

(If any investor reading wants to throw me a million I'll start it back up again. ;) Solving the loneliness epidemic in America's cities is a huge chance to do some social good!)

[mighmi]

You weren't able to scale enough initially to be profitable on your own operations, I presume? At what scale would you be able to support your burn rate?

This is a fantastic project. I also briefly worked on something similar, but left when I learned more about my coworkers.

[com2kid]

> You weren't able to scale enough initially to be profitable on your own operations, I presume? At what scale would you be able to support your burn rate?

Bootstrapped, COVID hit right before the launch date.

Infra costs were ~$200 a month to support 10k DAU. I'd just come off of working on embedded, so I was used to writing really efficient code. :)

> At what scale would you be able to support your burn rate?

Just needed to cover my living expenses mortgage and salaries!

Obviously to scale money was needed for ad campaigns, but people are lonely and offering to solve loneliness has a high conversion rate!

[Numeral4072]

I agree the idea seems solid enough, but accommodating the increased complexity of scaling it up sounds quiet difficult. Out of curiosity what did you learn about your coworkers? Something about their motivations for creating such an app or what?

[mighmi]

One guy liked to send dick pics, another was doing a lot of drugs and sent deranged messages for 48 hours straight to random people and the last was "just" a compulsive liar, who seemed to invite a prostitute to the office who then stole servers. I wasn't even sure why we even had the servers, since we barely bad any software written yet.

[TalEs]

Your idea is exactly what I would like to have in an app, with a ML twist and also more on matchmaking people based on their traits, personalities, morals and values. Below is my comment on it. It an idealistic solution, but I have an outline of such an app, that might need some refining. I would love to talk about if its it's even doable or feasible, and you seem to the the best person for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37520545

[afarrell]

Perhaps then it is better run as a feature of a city’s local newspaper. They already have the advertising department side of the marketplace. Does anyone at the Boston Globe want to buy your code?

[intended]

Theres a YC video that goes over tar pit problems. If i am not mistaken, this exact scenario is covered as a tar pit.

[com2kid]

> Theres a YC video that goes over tar pit problems. If i am not mistaken, this exact scenario is covered as a tar pit.

Yeah the final end goal was either to make lots of deals with local businesses (hard to scale) or to license an ML personality matching model to companies.

The app had a handful of personality questions that I copied over from research done at one of the Nordic universities (I forget which one) on what makes people get along together in a casual setting. The American universities have mostly done research on group cohesion in corporate settings, which maybe hints at what is wrong with American society at large!

Cruise liners and casinos would pay a fortune to know what guests would vibe together.

I had a partner website that allowed for self onboarding, but of course b2b2c is never that simple. :)

The operating costs were so absurdly low (~$200 a month per city it was running in) that letting people create their own events for free was in the near term road map, no reason not to.

[Plasmoid]

Why did you shut it down?

[com2kid]

$ and COVID.

I burned through my savings and was ready to launch in earl 2020.

Oops.

[flanbiscuit]

> Make profiles based on activities and swipe right or left on the activities you want to do.

Back in the early 2010s there was a dating site that was based around this premise. You would post a specific activity and see if someone wanted to join you for it. I didn't personally use it (as intended) but it was a great place to get fun date night activities with my partner. I think they realized that use case (date night planning) and eventually added this as a feature. I don't remember the name of the site unfortunately, someone else might. I would be surprised if it's still around.

edit: Found it! it was called HowAboutWe.com.

https://techcrunch.com/tag/howaboutwe/

https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/1...

[iamdbtoo]

That's also similar to a service OkCupid had separate from the main site called Crazy Blind Date.

With this one, however, you defined the qualities you were seeking and the times and part of the city you were available for a date. They would match people up based on the time, location and OkCupid match rating (mostly, I think) and would ask if you wanted to meet the person. It gave you just their basic info and a distorted photo.

I used it for a while and don't remember why I stopped but it was one of the best dating apps I've used. None of the dates went anywhere, but it was a really simple and easy way to meet new people.

[anigbrowl]

Would this solve the problem of finding people to have sex with? No, but computers are bad at sex.

Are they? I thought hookup sites like Tinder and Grindr were very popular.

[afarrell]

So is alcohol.

[janeerie]

There did used to be one like this and I can't for the life of me remember the name of it.

My friend didn't meet her husband on it, but she did meet her future husband's roommate.