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Comment by personlurking | Hacker News Reader

>What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform?

Since finding the right person is a numbers game, I'd say the best path is an easy path. Something between speed dating and a normal date, where the goal is to check for chemistry as well as advance past the initial, in-person interaction. Start with having a few like/dislike parameters met, then get you both face to face.

Here's my idea for that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356401

If we simplified and just went for a real-world, slower version of speed dating, where each pair would get 15 minutes with each other, it wouldn't control for like/dislike parameters. IE: I definitely wouldn't date a smoker. Having it start online then move to real-world, asap, helps to match likes and dislikes more closely.

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If you don't mind bit of a downer, I see three major obstacles in your idea:

1. monetization. How do you ensure your platform can at least cover its costs? The users want to know your platform wont go dark one fine day because of an overdue server bill. Better yet, that it won't get yanked like many of Google's cool projects due to insufficient profitability.

2. incentives alignment. How do you ensure the incentives for your platform are to get the users paired up permanently, which usually would mean they stop perusing your platform? Unlike typical services, a dating platform is one such that most people want to be able to ultimately do away with.

3. fulfillment. How do you make users feel they are putting in reasonably hard effort? How do you let them increase the effort if they so desire? People do feel fulfillment from putting in effort; cf. a lot of computer games that grant satisfaction through daily grind.

[edit]

A throw-away thought:

current dating platforms operate in "push" model: the singles make themselves available.

How about you make a "pull" platform - let already established couples find & match up great candidates to join their social circles - as new couples.

Making the already established couples your main users would solve the obstacles 1, 2, and 3. You would take money from the already established couples for finding & matching up new great, interesting, friendly couples for them. You would have the already established couples "grind" (put in the effort) for finding & setting up new ones.

The idea doesn't sound like it would require much monetization. It isn't a site you actively browse, it just makes matches and dolls out notifications. You could probably run the entire operation for a major metropolitan area on a raspberry pi.

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