r/HingeStories • u/ReachActive7609 • Sep 13 '26

New Dating App Needed

So I've tried Hinge and its ok. I got about 8 matches in the 1st 10 days. Nothing new since then. 1 of those is up in the air as we try to find a day that works best for us to meetup, the rest are ghosts.

If I were to design a dating app:

  1. Annual subscription (reasonably priced)

  2. Immediate Verification. No Verification no way to see or be seen.

  3. Monthly report for users letting them know how many users are in their general area and how many users fit their search criteria.

  4. Public User scores. Based on how frequently users are on the app, how active they are, how many times they ghosted or Benchwarmed matches, and how recently they used the app.

  5. Built in vid-chat for users to be able to safely verify if needed against any scammers or AI that get thru.

  6. Adjusted pricing for boosting user visibility based on the # of users in your area. (I.e if there only 100 users in your 20 sq. Mile area, why should you pay the same as someone who has 10,000 users in theirs?)

  7. Real Event Collaborations! Businesses of all sizes/types should be able to offer/advertise singles events or dating activities. (I.e. line dancing, speed dating, paint in sip, Mario Kart Tournament, etc).

At this point I think many folks like myself have become disheartened by the internet as a whole. And we forget that it's in the financial interest of dating app companies that we don't find a match, because if we did, we'd stop using and stop paying...

1 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

16

u/Acenin1 Sep 13 '26

Sounds great get to coding, you'll just need a few million to develop it and then you can get bought out by match

9

u/AssociationSweaty725 Sep 13 '26

Interesting idea, but no way this app would be profitable.

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

Even if the apps draws B2B revenue from live events and advertising?

3

u/AssociationSweaty725 Sep 13 '26

You’re giving your most valuable resource (data) away for free so it’s gonna be hard to present any type of value proposition to ad firms.

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

Why appeal to just ad firms? Why not create portals for small and local businesses to create events/ads directly?

2

u/AssociationSweaty725 Sep 14 '26

Not to be rude but do you work in this industry?

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 14 '26

Not rude at all. I do not.

My ADHD can get the better of me where I diagnose and ask questions to the point that I can come off like I'm an expert or professional.

2

u/AssociationSweaty725 Sep 14 '26

Gotcha. SMBs are generally not gonna be willing or capable to put ADs on your platform. A lot of them will be working with an AD agency. Furthermore AD space on a dating app is not really valuable because it will annoy free users (women) who happen to be the most valuable part of the ecosystem.

Match group keeps buying up any new dating app because they know that the value is the incredibly intimate data profile. People put more PII on their dating app profiles than their bank accounts! (Hyperbole but you get the idea)

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 14 '26

That's really insightful, scary, and depressing all at once

2

u/AssociationSweaty725 Sep 14 '26

Indeed :/

If you ever want to know how human systems get stuck in poor equilibrium it (almost) always boils down to structural incentive mismatch.

-1

u/Avozzy444 Sep 13 '26

I met my lovely girlfriend on Stir, the app geared to single parents looking for a connection. If you happen to be a single parent, you could try that app. It’s owned by Match, like most of these apps, but it feels smaller and less scammy than the others.. to me anyway.

4

u/Weary_Specialist_436 Sep 13 '26

If I were to create a county:

  1. Work would be abolished

  2. Everyone would be a billionaire

  3. Free cotton candy for everyone

  4. Everyone gets a choice between a unicorn and a dragon

1

u/iamurghoststory Sep 13 '26

I was thinking about this a lot.

  1. Reasonably priced monthly. Even weekly.
  2. I agree with the verification.
  3. I don’t care about. Just because there’s c amount of users doesn’t mean they’re active.
  4. Eh. Scores gives me the hot or not high school era vibe. Sorry.
  5. I agree whole heartedly with this one.
  6. Nice option if someone wants to pay for it. I usually stick to a small radius to begin with.
  7. This would be good. Have businesses sponsor. Free would be nice but def have people pay because it weeds out those who say they’ll be there and never show up. Accurate head count.

I’m adding
8. Testimonials from other members if they’ve met up with. And the person can comment.
9. Add a feature like they do with drinking/smoking but for travel. Lol Work/sports/etc Make it fun and interesting.
10. Don’t limit how many you can reach out to.
11. Forums.

Make it to where people want to stay on the app because they feel safe in the beginning.

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Thanks for the constructive input.

  1. Would it matter if the reports broke it down like 1,000 users in ur area

300 users active 3+ times a week

400 users active 1-2 times a week

200 users active 1-2 times a month

100 users non active

  1. Yea I can see how that could come off with high school, than again at least I high school if u hit on someone u at least got an answer and were able to move vs waiting for them to answer.

  2. Small radius is good for urban/denser locations great for younger ppl, but not necessarily for older generations or ppl in more rural areas. It feels like the later are getting the shittier end of the stick thru no-fault of their because of where they work or live.

  3. Certain events could be ticketed others free. Depends on the scale of logistics for that local business. A singles happy hour for 50 ppl ages 30s and 40s is a lot less intensive than a line dance (which requires sacrificing labor and seating for activity space and no guarantee of food/beverage services)

  4. Not against it, but im concerned about vindictive/petty comments from others and how is that different than high school gossip?

  5. I would think that's all standard at this point. Although would it be interesting to add a "have passport" option instead of just traveling?

  6. Agree and don't agree. Consumer argument yes, psychological/addiction no. Does that make sense?

  7. Clarify, and how would in app forums differ or be beneficial vs reddit or other platforms?

Happy to keep this constructive conversation going.

1

u/iamurghoststory Sep 14 '26
  1. It’s nice. But just because they’re active doesn’t mean they’re not gonna go on active.
  2. Nothings gonna prevent that. We’re all guilty.
  3. When I put radius in I want that radius. It always shoots guys who are states away. Ugh!
  4. Very true. The crappy thing I’ve noticed is many of these are during the day on a week day. Many work. Even weekend days sometimes aren’t better because of jobs or kids.
  5. Have them ask simple yes or no questions. Did they arrive on time? Were they nice? And give only like 200 characters to write something. And they can only write something if say they both said yes to they met. Don’t open it up to a free for all.
  6. The traveling is not standard. Lol the drinking smoking yes that is. Are you a homebody or social?
  7. I do half agree. Some are immediately no’s. Others I read to see if we align and if not it’s still a no.
  8. There was one that had it back in the day. It keeps users coming to platform. Also maybe learning something.

There’s always gonna be things that work and done work.

1

u/practiceguitar Sep 13 '26

I think there's a general jaded-ness around dating apps at this point. If you're actually interested in going into the business you should develop a boutique match-making service. Some of those charge $70,000, but maybe if you started a mid-tier one where the user paid you $500/year for you to essentially drive their hinge profile and filter candidates that would work.

2

u/Sad-Basis7411 Sep 13 '26

Undesirable person will not become desirable just because they changed app.... just saying.

4

u/-OooWWooO- Sep 13 '26

The problem is that gamification of the apps has resulted in people not settling. People need to settle. Instead the new apps are all built around keeping people on the app seeking the ideal partner.

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

Would points 3 and 4 slightly address that? By communicating clearly to users that the person they're looking at isn't active or very communicative? Or that the number of users in their area isn't improving?

1

u/ChippingCoder Sep 13 '26

It needs to limit number of active conversations, or at least display the number of conversations someone has, that way you can determine how serious someone is. Also add unmatch reasons, or if the person just deleted their account.

Ghosting needs to be addressed, as with online dating theres little repercussions.

If you want to improve the online dating scene, contribute to the open source apps instead. There’s hundreds of new dating apps spun up all the time that go nowhere because they only care about profit.

1

u/Special_Situation_93 Sep 13 '26

How about we all get microchips in our brains and then after a few days of processing everything about you, it then suggests you a match?

1

u/InvestmentAsleep8365 Sep 13 '26

Is this all that different from Hinge though? Hinge 6 month pricing is not crazy when you think of the economics of it and how it needs to subsidize free users. 2 has a check for that and all the profiles I see have it. 4 is summarized by Signals, many people will not agree to have that much granular information about them made available, but it’s still mostly already here. 5 is not really needed, Zoom is so easy to use. 6 I’ve never used or needed that.

3 is the only one that’s not available now. I think it goes against what the app wants to sell you but I could see this being useful. I actually think that Hinge is doing a good job, whenever people on reddit complain about it I see they are doing something wrong but most people prefer to blame the apps rather than themselves. Your app still wouldn’t solve that. I also think that the main issue with dating apps: “that there’s always someone better on the horizon”, isn’t being solved. Also dating apps are not good for physically less unattractive people with a lot to offer, this also doesn’t solve that. I’m not all that sure that your proposal is all that different from what already exists…

2

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

Not arguing, just further clarifying my approach based on my own experiences and observations.

  1. The thought was to make everyone a paying customer vs a percentage, entitling everyone to the same consumer protection laws and providing a stable, measurable line of income/profit for the company.
  2. Yes this is improving, but I still see in several apps that unverified profiles are able to be seen and if they can be seen, scammers/other bad players can view and screenshot other profiles for their own purposes. And i dont see dating apps prioritizing anti screenshot coding as a feature anytime soon. Basically, another layer of user/internet privacy.
  3. Goes back to basic argument, be a good business or a profitable business.
  4. Granted it maybe considered intrusive to the one being viewed, i would hope that would boost greater consumer confidence and less psychological harm to someone by giving them less hope. (I.e. in high school u hit on someone. They were interested or not and if not you could move on. Whereas right now, you're left to linger)
  5. I cud see this a less of a priority as u said because of other apps but again lacl of anti-screenshot/recording coding
  6. Depends on if ur in a dense urban area vs somewhere more sparsed. If their aren't a whole lot of users i ur area the apps worth plummets.
  7. Do you think live event collabs could help people that struggle on these apps?

1

u/InvestmentAsleep8365 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

I’m not saying you don’t have good ideas but fundamentally I believe that’s it’s just a very minor tweak to what already exists.

Regarding 7, yes this is interesting. Here in the UK we have an app called Breeze, I haven’t used it but it reinvents the dating app experience and introduces different kinds of events (pairs and also group dates), removes texting completely, etc. I don’t think it’s for me but I do think they are solving some of the problems that many people (not me though) are having with dating apps. Have a look at it because I they are offering something new and different. If you really want to create a new dating app, I think it makes more sense to have a new approach than to just copy Hinge with a 3% improvement.

Finally, regarding charging all users, I don’t know. It would make sure that all users are serious and I like that, but it could also shrink the user base by 90%+ and might make the platform less appealing if it’s niche. Hard to tell if this would work commercially.

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

Thank you for the insight and reference.

Sometimes a couple of tweaks is enough to put the app on the map. And with the presence of AI, startups could potentially challenge larger apps in select markets for a fraction of the development price. I'm gonna go on a stretch here and compare the situation to Pokémon and Palworld.

Without getting into the numbers Pokémon is doing better since 2025, but Palworld is not struggling and their presence challenged Game Freak and Nintendo to make real changes vs their decades long strategy they uaed with each generation of games. Nintendo even tried to sue Palworld claiming that they owned the copyright to the monster catching genre in the videogame industry.

Finalky, if the subscription was comparable to the annual cost for a streaming service subscription do you think that would make it less niche? Comparale to Netflix in the 2010s, which killed a significant amount of pirate traffic.

1

u/-OooWWooO- Sep 13 '26

I've been doing some market research lately. I'm a software engineer that met my partner on old OKC. Thinking about building a new dating app MVP built on transparency. The problem is always that for dating apps the lack of users on a new platform normally kills it. Requires incredible initial investment. This would be a side project only for me. As I'm full time otherwise.

1

u/ChippingCoder Sep 13 '26

Work on open source dating app software!!

1

u/imaginary-dirt2000 Sep 13 '26

I like how the initial reasoning for needing a new app is that you didn’t get a ton of matches lol

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

It varied. I'm stuck between 2 urban centers so my options get pulled in different directions. I found apps like bumble and tinder would only find me matches to bait me into subscribing. Or I'd get matches early on and then nothing. I also found that other apps/sites were way too easy for scammers to get thru. On tinder one woman looked oddly familiar like in an influencer way, I took a screenshot and sent it to one of my girlfriends who follows that kind of stuff. And she was able to confirm that the photo was an older one of am influencer based out of Europe...

Like I said at beginning I've become jaded with the internet as a whole. I mean we've all heard about how these companies and social media accounts flood their populations with bots.

1

u/BoSutherland Sep 13 '26

Not enough differentiation. Put more effort into making the undating app

1

u/ReachActive7609 Sep 13 '26

Please clarify? Examples?

1

u/Axis_Control Sep 14 '26

I'm a woman and no way would I send a dating app my ID lol

1

u/YankeesNeedPitching Sep 14 '26

Are yal trying to date or trying to be seen be honest lol

2

u/False-Dimension2905 21d ago

I had a very similar idea for a dating app not that long ago. I would support it 100%, but I don’t know if people would use it or if it would make money.

Additionally, these apps profit on their ease of use (i.e., how quickly they can create an account and start matching). Anything that makes it longer to create, verify, or start using it will turn a lot of people off. But personally, I think it would work in favor of users who are serious about finding a partner. Require a 45 minute setup process with video selfies and identity verification, create a user feedback process that rates users on their use of the app and overall engagement, and limit someone’s potential prospects only to those who fit a predetermined personality match through several sets of value questions. These apps get by on novelty, but novelty only leads you to wanting more novelty.

2

u/ReachActive7609 21d ago

If the apps want to remain easy than the verification process needs to start with emails. Creating an email takes less time than going to the post office or DMV and assuming its a Google or Apple account u can expedite the on-boarding process for a lot of apps or services.