Need advice launching membership site

Launching a new dating site is very ambitious. The market is so well dominated by many big players with huge numbers of members.

New sites trying to get into established markets like that usually have a huge front end cash burn - and then often fail anyway.

Assuming you don't want to do that, you would need a very good USP - otherwise it will probably never get off the ground.

I would consider whether you really want to enter that market. Maybe you could find something related that is less competetive and not dependent on having loads of members at startup. For example, if you do a free membership site with info related to dating, you could then promote one of the big dating sites as an affiliate, to make backend profits.

It's just a suggestion - you'll have to decide for yourself what sort of business you want.

Alan

Thanks.
Yes I know it's hard to get into this type of market but I'd like to try.

Anybody knows how the already established membership dating sites started?
Where did they get their first members from and what was their pricing strategy? Did they give memberships for free at the beginning and then switched to paid memberships?

Hi trozma,

I've done a lot of work with dating sites and the biggest reason new sites fail is because they don't get enough members quickly enough to reach critical mass. Unless you are targeting only a small geographic region even 2000 members won't be enough unfortunately.

I'd highly recommend white labelling an existing dating site. They give you access to millions of members to kick start your site with. You lose a lot of the functionality and freedom that comes with having your own site but you also lose a lot of the headaches.

I've only had personal experience with the service easydate.biz runs. I stopped promoting the sites I created because I could make more just sending the traffic to affiliate offers but they run a good system and seem like good people. It would be worth checking out.

KeenIMer thanks!

So if I understand it correctly, I need to get a critical number of users to my site. I guess to reach that goal I should give lifetime free memberships and offer incentives, like a free online dating guide or something similar. Then, when I reach a critical mass, I convert the site to paid memberships and just continue driving traffic to the site?

I guess even if I offer free memberships and incentives, I should already have some profiles on the site. Anybody knows any good resources for getting fake profile pictures or something similar? Or is there any other way to launch a dating site already populated with profiles? I don't want to do white labeling, is there any alternative?

Before you move forward with this venture, I have a few things for you to consider -

First and foremost - this is a business. Your business skills will be far more important than any other factor with regards to whether or not you're successful. If not your business skills, then the business skills of either a partner or an adviser, which you'll certainly need if your skills aren't up to par.

If you're doing this on your own, honestly ask yourself this question - If I was in a room filled with experienced, successful business owners and we each were going to take a turn discussing the mechanics of owning and operating a successful business, would I be able to hold my own or would I be in over my head?

Starting a business, any business, but especially one in a niche dominated by huge players, requires a great understanding of what makes a business successful and what makes one fail.

It requires tremendous vision. You need to know where the business is going and how it will look when it's operating at its peak.

You need to know exactly what your competition is up to - how they got where they are and what they do to stay on top - and then you need to differentiate yourself from them. As Alchemy already noted - a great USP.

It's all possible and I wouldn't discourage you from pursuing it if you're passionate about it and are willing to do what it takes to make it work.

Just make sure you educate yourself thoroughly before you start investing your capital.

Hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck.

Use a white label solution and save yourself the headaches.