Show HN: I paid an engineer $4k to build a dating site

[ngm1985]

http://www.percodate.com/ - DO NOT PAY FOR THE SITE. Use code HEYHN if you want to sign up.

I've had some experience with website development, but I'm not technical whatsoever. So I went on craigslist (in Los Angeles) to look for an engineer to build a dating site.

Luckily, I found someone amazing. We agreed on $4,000 in milestone payments and $6,000 in potential bonuses if the site does well.

We recently launched the site and would love your feedback. I know the design is lacking, but any feedback would be appreciated!!

[8_hours_ago]

Random impressions:

- The "Home", "Sign In" and "Sign Up" links at the top of the main page don't go anywhere. The "Home" link is unnecessary. The "Sign In" and "Sign Up" links should go to anchor tags at the sign in and sign up forms.

- The Birthdate drop down menus are broken for me on the sign up form. I only see a vertical scroll bar when I select the day and month, and I have both vertical and horizontal scroll bars when I select the year.

- The What I Want page should initially has nothing selected in each box. I think each option should start populated with "Anything". That way if I don't care about pets one way or another, I don't have to waste a few clicks setting it. Or do I need to actually change an option from "Choose Option" to "Anything"? It's unclear.

- When I finally select everything in the "What I Want" page, the red text "Please choose an option for each field." doesn't go away. Did I not select everything well enough?

- At the bottom of the "What I Want" page you have every percentage listed from 16/16 to 0/16. Is that really necessary?

- The Profile page has square images on top of other users, but when I resize my browser window too small horizontally they're squished into rectangles. In addition, those images are huge! It took a few seconds for them to load the first time I visited the page. They should probably be resized. Also, perhaps profile images should be stored as jpegs instead of pngs?

- Search form, perhaps it should be pre-populated with the options that I chose on the "What I Want" page? And again, even when I have every option selected, it still says "Please choose an option for each field."

- On someone's profile, under their Personality Type, there's a yellow circle that on mouseover says "They don't have your preferred personality type, but keep reading!". What? When did I specify a preferred personality type?

On a whole, it looks well done for a MVP. Some other people have criticized the lack of design, but personally, I like the minimalist look. These are just first impressions, I hope they help.

FYI, I'm using Firefox 29.0 on Linux.

[ngm1985]

Thanks for signing up and digging deep/doing the dirty work, 8_hours_ago!

I have all your comments saved and noted. To make a few responses:

I was worried people wouldn't understand the message filtering feature, so I probably overdid it with the 16/16 thru 0/16 copy.

The "Please choose an option for each field." copy is permanently there, but I can see why it's confusing after filling everything out so we'll have to change this.

The browser resizing has been a bit of a struggle. We're making it a responsive site, but we'll keep working on it.

Overall, thank you for your detailed response. It definitely helps. And I appreciate your comment on the minimalist look!

[tzaman]

Well, you paid $4k and it shows. No clear UVP (unique value proposition), no design, looks half done - if even. I would not use the word amazing with this - in any context.

[ngm1985]

Definitely an MVP, tzaman. And my apologies I wasn't more clear. In my opinion, he's done an amazing job for being the only engineer working on this and making it come to life. I also value our working relationship as we wound up being a great team. A lot can go wrong with someone you don't (OR even do) know.

[leepowers]

What makes you different? Why would I use this site instead of Tinder or Match.com or even craigslist? There's a ton of dating sites. What makes your matching algorithm and filtering tools special? The screenshots on the home page don't really communicate this.

Second, I'd allow users to search before registering an account. But contact details are withheld until account creation. That way I can verify the efficacy of the matching and filtering functions before paying money. Or put another way - if I find someone interesting, I'm more likely to whip out my credit card and pay to get in contact with that potential special someone.

[ngm1985]

Thank you for the feedback! I was hesitant about doing what you said with the search/registering an account. I didn't want it to feel too bait and switch. But I'll definitely be sending this to the engineer!

How it's different:

We let you filter your inbox with the exact same criteria as the search criteria (Ethnicity, Body type, Height, etc). This is mainly for women who normally receive a lot of messages on other sites.

We also let you know if you meet a certain threshold of what someone else wants (whatever criteria they are choosing to filter their inbox with). This is mainly for men so they don't waste time sending messages to women definitely not interested in them.

When all the other dating sites brag about number of messages being sent, we want to be the exact opposite. We're all about sending LESS messages.

[wiseleo]

Congrats on getting it done to this point. You underestimated how being on HN affects your traffic so it's a little sluggish. ;)

You have too much tiny text. Your signup form is not distinctive. Even adding a class of "bg-success" to your div with the id of "signup-form" (that will give it a greenish background) would be somewhat helpful. Spend some time reading http://getbootstrap.com and you'd be surprised how much you better you will get in a few hours once you understand which classes are available to you. It has a lot of decorator classes that will transform your colorless UI instantly.

Since you provided no test user credentials and I am not willing to skew your metrics by registering, I can't evaluate how the site functions for a registered user.

You featured a blog post very prominently and wrote it in a self-deprecating style. While I appreciate the creativity, that does not help in increasing conversions.

My biggest concern

I am not sensing product direction besides your innovative mailbox that filters by intent. This feels like "I wanted to try building a dating website and didn't think about a unique hook".

I agree that traditional dating sites have abysmal messaging. This can be a good hook.

[ngm1985]

Thank you, wiseleo. I actually didn't think this post would do too well. As usual, I was wrong!

Appreciate the UI feedback. We'll do some touch ups to liven it up a bit with the help of getbootstrap.com.

I'm a little bummed about the blog post not making at least a decent impression. My humor is all I have! (the blog post referenced - http://blog.percodate.com/we-built-a-dating-website)

The hook without a doubt is the messaging. The goal is to give women relief and men more time back/focus on who to message.

Thank you again!

[rwhitman]

Dating is the most aggressively competitive social media vertical there is. Dark artists lurk in this place, Harvard MBA geniuses with cold hearts and unfathomable amounts of cash. Backroom deals are made to carve up ad publisher territory. Data scientists are plucked from the recruiting pool like daisies from the meadow.

Is that the space you want to compete in? Are you positioned to win here? Step back and look at the big picture.

[leepowers]

FYI, the Birthday drop-down menus are funky in FF30.0 on OSX10.9.3: http://i.imgur.com/D9NF5A6.png

[abimaelmartell]

You really need to hire a designer :S

Or buy a premade template and adjust it to your needs (if you want the cheap).

[selamtux]

i want to give an advise to you as a software developer, please find a designer before find an developer, mostly users want to see "everything ready" web site/projects and most of the time you can show the ideas and flowcharts of project to developers and other business people.

drawing first, writing later.

[5414h]

Its looks ugly needs some css designs :/

[melvinmt]

Is this a prototype or the actual website?

[ngm1985]

MVP, melvinmt.

[vishalzone2002]

IMO, 4k is pretty high for this.