Free Dating Site

I've had some domain names for over 10 years now, finally going to use it.

http://www.1free.com/

I just installed Dolphin7 - but I'm not a programmer. I'm a project manager and designer for a large internet company (Publicis-Modem) in NYC.

It's a labor of love.

Would any developer with some time to spend in the next 2-3 months be willing to help me in exchange for a partnership?

(It's going to be a 100% free website with no advertising, so the payoff would be in 1-2 years when I sell it off to Match.com or one of the big guys)

Anyone?

Thanks in advance.

Lawrence

It sounds like you have a good job.  Why don't you put some money on the table and offer to pay at least something?  Any dating site is a high risk long shot.  You want a developer to work for a few months now for free and then wait two years when you "sell it off to Match.com or one of the big guys".   How likely do you think that is?  Most developers would probably prefer to spend their efforts on their own long shot ventures.   From your message, it doesn't seem like you are offering much except an ok domain name - that is not much to hang your hat on.

Rob

The first thing I would do (my free advice) is getting someone to design you a nice logo.  I had a contest for my in digitalpoint forums.  I offered $20 and had lots of people post their suggestions. 

You can see the one I picked if you click on http://www.ustillup.com 

I would also shop around in the Market place here for a nice template.  Also, many of the people who make these templates will also do custom modifications for you for a good price.

1.  You asking someone to do the work and split a potential "Google Risk" profit with you.  Your offering a domain name and maybe paying the server bill. 

2.  You want them to do all the hard coding, fixing of errors and so on to make the site attractive in a heavily competitive market.

3.  It's more than 2-3 months to get a site truly functional that will attract users.  Alot of people here can attest, it can take a year or so to truly code a site the way you want it for your users.

4.  It takes advertising dollars and time to grow a site.  2-3 years will get your site kinda found, but not super well known.  Twitter was around for 5 or 6 years before it went viral as an example.  Same thing with lots of other sites out there. 

Strongly suggest that you find a reputable coder to help you out in building it and pay them for their work.  No coder is an expert in all areas of Dolphin so your going to need to hire those who are good at what they do and that means multiple coders. 

yup yup it's true
ever since d7 came out i have been working on the site now im waiting for d7.1 to upgrade and finish up the remaining touch ups :)

I got involved in a situation such as this recently, and it didn't end well. I'll be honest with you (and follow the words of the wise, said above): hire an actual developer, and ensure they are payed, and while you're at it, find a way to quickly monetize the web site, because your dreams of being snatched-up by the big boys will never happen. They have their own web site, which blows this script out of the water in dating functionality, and even if it's not for the features, you will never become large enough to be a threat.

I'm being honest, as I've seen far too many people make this disappointing mistake. Find a niche community, and serve it while finding different ways to make money off your web site. This is how everyone else uses this script and makes any form of living off of it. They don't flip their web site like houses, as by now, they've realized what they can and cannot do, along with what they should and shouldn't do.

It seems to me that there are two types of newbies, there are that are new to the software, and then there are those who are new to having there own sites like Dolphin on the net. Myself i run in a fairly niche market, which is that of spiritualism, and that is hard enough with the competition out there, running a dating site, and trying to compete with the big boys, i would just forget it, its like trying to compete with facebook, it just cant be done, unless of course you have the money for main stream TV ads which have been estimated at around one hundred thousand per 30 secs, which is where ive seen ads for match.com. The best bet for anybody now is to concentrate on your region, thats the only chance anybody has now. ive been doing the internet thing now for some years, and ive noticed a trend develop. It seems to me that no matter what you do, there are those big sites that you just cant compete with, want to sell, youre competing with play.com, wanna do dating, match.com, sex site, competing with adult friendfinder, with 32 million members and on and on. The only thing you can do now with sites like these is do something you love to do, do it for yourself, forget about making money, its not going to happen. In business in the real world, which is my background, you had to be prepared for a stark two or three years before you started making any real profits, the same rules dont apply though for the net. On the net there were slots to fill, the big boys have filled those slots, the rest of us will struggle to make any real money. Its just the way it is.

Dating sites are what economists call a "natural monopoly".  Once established, it would be very hard to offer any noticeable competition to Match, Plenty of Fish, etc.  Having said that, I have seen some very clever niche dating sites here that I think have a good chance of being successful.

lol!

If that's true, then I should be a millionaire with the first ever towing & recovery dating site ....