I am wondering if anyone here has started or is thinking about starting an online dating website, similar to match.com or any of the other ones out there. If so, what would you estimate the web design costs to be? I have talked to several designers out there and I am getting quotes as low as $2,800 and as high as $7,000. What should I be looking for in hiring a web designer? How do you know that you're choosing the right one, since there are so many out there? I see that some of those sites have millions of members and charge a monthly membership fee. I was hoping to start my site and hopefully grow to become a large site like some of the others out there. Even a site with 10,000 members at $30/month will earn me $300,000/month and the site would pretty much run itself with very little effort on my part. Credit card charges from members would automatically be deposited to my bank account daily, assuming there was activity for the day. Does this sound like it could be a potentially lucrative venture or is it just a waste of time and money, since there are already other dating sites out there?
I run several subscription and affiliate sites and can tell you the following: The site estimates are ok leaning towards the 7k. Your marketing budget would have to be huge. Search engines would not cut it. You'd somehow have to have thousands of members at the time of launch. No one is going to join a dating site with a small number of members. Where would they come from? You'd have to make the site free for quite some time before you could charge.
I really don't want to pay any money for advertising the site. I was hoping the right keywords in the site would have it rank high in a search engine. I was looking to offer a 2 week free trial, maybe even 4 weeks, just to get some traffic to the site. If they don't cancel before the free trial is over, then their credit card would get charged and each month thereafter, until they cancel. I know it's tough to get members at first for a new site, but every site started out the same, with zero members and grew. By not offering a free trial, I don't think people would be too happy if they paid $30 upfront for a 1 month subscription, joined the site, and saw that there were very little or no members.
Listen, you gotta be realistic. You want to enter an established marketplace that is saturated and somehow succeed while doing a fraction of what the other new entrants do which, in turn, does not guarantee success for them either. Most of these sites come and go, like your average low barrier to entry popular ideas & businesses. There are only a few established ones, which were the early movers, like match.com Also, why do you think that starting a dating site is the right business move for your capital? What exactly is it about your site that will make it succeed to any reasonable standard? These are some basic question you need to ask yourself, because it does not seem you have.
Niche sites are the thing these days.. Like dating for blacks, italians, greeks, people with one arm, comic book lovers, whatever...
It's hard to make a site different than others, since there are many out there. I'll see if the web designers have any good ideas. My goal is to make tons of money without much cost or effort on my part, and then spend my time travelling throughout Europe and sailing the Caribbean. For a $7,000 investment with the opportunity to make millions, I think it's worth the risk. All I need is 230 people in the entire country to join at $30/month for 1 month and my web design cost will be paid for and I'll be even. After that, any money made is pure profit minus some chump change for the monthly web hosting fees, annual domain name registration fee, and $18 per month for a merchant account to be able to accept credit and debit cards online. If the site really took off, perhaps I may someday have 1 million members per month and I'll be earning $360 million per year. I think I'll start praying for that. Maybe God will answer my prayers.
There are lots of free sites out there I also notice. How do they make money? It looks like I'll have to come out with something unique to be able to charge money.