RFC: Let’s Disrupt Dating Apps

Which brings me to my next point: the incentive should always be meeting in real life. Matching, exchanging numbers, texting is great, but the end goal of the app should push the meet. It’s strange that apps haven’t done this.

Finally, dating is extremely culturally-sensitive. Women don’t want to be explicitly messaged by creepy men and they don’t want to meet you at night in a dark alley. Men try to balance the fine line between confident and pushy. In fact, just merely the word — dating — has a lot of baggage associated with it.

You might be thinking “big whoop, online dating marketplaces are slightly skewed, not a huge deal” — after all, a slight skewing is expected. People that have phones, use apps, have time to online date, etc. will most certainly fit certain socioeconomic characteristics. However, the skewing would not lend itself to the fat-tailed distribution obser... See more

2. Focus on having a good time. The “conversion” shouldn’t be a match, it should be having a fun night out.

4. Organize occasional group events. Without becoming a meetup app, the app should push events — concerts, hikes, movie nights — with groups of 6-10 people.

Even ignoring the “natural” outcome misalignment that might happen when dating: some people are looking for marriage and kids, others for casual dating, others for a quick hook-up — misalignment on dating apps tends to be a lot more egregious.

5. Avoid ELOs and other ranking algorithms.

3. Enforce a 50:50 ratio. This might bring DAUs down, but without enforcing a M:F ratio, you end up with asymmetric markets.

6. Have a vetting process with a zero-tolerance policy for bad apples (harassers, catfishes, etc.).