Dating App as a business idea: 5 steps to take before launching

More and more people are becoming incentivized to set up home businesses, so the next question to ask would be: what type of enterprise might be worthwhile? One area worth consideration would be a dating site – after all, this is an industry worth over $3 billion in the USA alone. What essentially started as an electronic version of those "lonely hearts" columns in newspapers and magazines has transformed into a multi-billion dollar industry, attracting tens of millions of devotees in every continent to dating online. If this is a business idea you might be attracted to, here are five things to know.

Write a business plan

Much as a dating app is all about designing software to be accessed online, the first step you need to take is committing your idea to paper. A business plan should contain an overview of your idea, an analysis of the market you are aiming to capitalize on, the degree of competition, financial projections, and who the key players or stakeholders will be. You should also include an element of risk assessment, and outline how you will evolve to counter any issues that might arise.

Find your niche

Dating App as a business idea: 5 steps to take before launching Picture 1

There are many long-established dating sites, some commanding global memberships running into millions. You would be hard-pressed to encroach on their customer bases. But you can easily grab your slice of this potentially lucrative market if you can identify a niche area, preferably one where there is a high demand, but a lack of existing sites catering for it. You"ll need to conduct fairly exhaustive research to determine where this area of interest might be, but many tools can help, including keyword analysis and special dating review services similar to https://bestincontri.com/ which writes about different dating platforms in a specific region.

Design a welcoming app

Your app must be well-designed, legible in the restrictive smartphone screen environment, and easily navigatable. If you possess the expertise to action this, then you"ll certainly save a lot of money. Web development can be a costly business. But there are websites dedicated to providing bespoke solutions for apps, which can be modified by someone with an enthusiastic, creative mind, rather than a coding expert. It might be beneficial to draft in outside assistance, especially when it comes to integrating a financial transacting platform for processing payments.

Monetize your venture

More and more dating apps are being launched on a "freemium" basis. You need to consider the functionality you will be providing customers, how much of it you will offer free – as an incentive to newcomers to check out what"s on offer – and what you will charge for subsequent subscriptions. Before launching your app, you will need to ensure the finance side of things is robust and will account for payments being made from different parts of the world. Even the slightest glitch here, where clients might be inputting credit card details, would be disastrous for your reputation in the dating business world. With so many potential competitors, you"ll need to provide a reliable service from the get-go.

Consolidating your customer base

When you finally launch your dating app, this should never be viewed as the end of your journey. On the contrary. You should see this as the beginning of an exciting project, one you will constantly be striving to improve. As your reputation grows, more customers will come. As well as providing them with an experience they"ll come to rely on, you should reward the loyalty of existing members with all sorts of incentives – add them to mailing lists, offer freebies, and so on.

Micah Soto

Update 06 December 2020