I am building https://firedating.me/. This is a community of people interested into FIRE (Financial Independence / Early Retirement) & looking for friends / romantic partner. My goal is to decrease amount of loneliness in the FIRE community by helping people to build meaningful relationships.
I was looking for projects to do and this one seemed quite obvious, but at the same time FIRE folks are extremely frugal, so this couldn't be a for-profit project. I decided to try it as a passion project instead.
Kickstarting the community was a challenge - definitely experienced chicken & egg problem, but eventually reached critical mass.
https://firedating.me/ - the first and only community of FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) enthusiasts looking for friends and/or romantic partner. This is my passion project - it is 100% free and there are even no ads.
https://firedating.me/ - the first and only dating website for FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) community. It is cool, because it dramatically affects people lives, e.g. I am aware of multiple couples marrying as a result of meeting through the site. Looking forward to FireDating babies :)
1) people - everyone knows what FIRE is and more financially minded than an average person
2) profile questions - some are FIRE related and can matter greatly for FIRE folks, e.g. fat vs lean FIRE
3) design - no swiping, incentivizing talking to people today instead of waiting for a perfect match
In most dating apps these days (especially after Match Group bought most of them), you're shown one potential date after another and swipe across your phone to either indicate interest (say yes) or pass them by (rejecting them).
Typically I think you swipe left to ignore them or right to indicate interest. But it's been a while and I could be wrong about that.
I am working on https://firedating.me/ - a community for FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) enthusiasts seeking friendships and/or romantic relationships.
This passion project of mine aims to decrease the feeling of loneliness within the FIRE community. The site is 100% free and doesn't even have ads.
I am working on firedating.me - a community of people interested into Financial Independence / Early Retirement (FIRE), who look for friends and/or partner.
FIRE people rarely advertise they are into FIRE for many reasons: - at work this sends a message "I will leave soon" and may have repercussions - socially this might be perceived as "I am rich" or "I am retiring early" = weird and crazy.
As a result, it is hard to meet other FIRE people. At the same time, this interest defines lots of their life - they are usually frugal & save a lot, so dating non-FIRE people is also a challenge. That's why I made the website and my goal is to reduce loneliness in the FIRE community.
I am working on firedating.me - a community of people interested into Financial Independence / Early Retirement (FIRE), who look for friends and/or partner.
FIRE people rarely advertise they are into FIRE for many reasons:
- at work this sends a message "I will leave soon" and may have repercussions
- socially this might be perceived as "I am rich" or "I am retiring early" = weird and crazy.
As a result, it is hard to meet other FIRE people. At the same time, this interest defines lots of their life - they are usually frugal & save a lot, so dating non-FIRE people is also a challenge. That's why I made the website and my goal is to reduce loneliness in the FIRE community.
I've spent 9 hours coding firedating.me (my hobby project and community of people interested in FIRE (Financial Independence / Early Retirement) looking for friends and a partner).
Features:
1) Searching for multiple specific genders. Previously this was only 'one gender' or 'any'. However, often people want to search for 'one gender' + Non-Binary. Unfortunately, the code didn't support the new functionality well, so I had to refactor a lot (especially tests). Now it should be much easier to maintain though.
2) Searching by children preferences (whether their matches have and want children). This just reused logic from (1).
Overall, it is surprising how much complexity there can be in a dating site :)
This is awesome, you seem to be in touch with what your users want and then work to deliver it (whereas with many side projects I see it's more the developer building exactly what they want). I wish you much success!
These days I am doing my best to know what users want, but it gets harder and harder. Previously I could talk to 1-2 users and already get a lot of insight. Nowadays there are often conflicting requests or just too many of them. I think this is the price of growth. Still didn't figure out how to scale this well. The stats are public, by the way, https://firedating.me/open/ :)
I wouldn't call it 'advertising', but I do mention it in FIRE subreddits every now and then. r/financialindependence is (understandably) super strict about self promotion, but the existing users mention the site in comments there. Thank you!
I've been developing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27627381 using Django and its templates for UI. This became unmanageable fast. These days there are wonderful volunteers, who help me. We've chosen React for the UI and I learn it to be able to contribute to and maintain the new UI.
I am working on https://firedating.me - a dating site for FIRE (Financial Independence / Early Retirement) enthusiasts. One can also look for friends there. The stats are public: https://firedating.me/open
The site is 100% free and even ad-free. It is my hobby project and I just enjoy helping others, meeting interesting people and learning while developing it.
Looks like loneliness is widespread in the FIRE community especially during the current times, so there is a large demand for meeting like minded folks.
It took me at least 517 hours and 211$ so far, but I met a lot of people and learned so much. It definitely gets harder and harder to continue developing it on my own, since the code base and complexity grows. But I try to fight that and use more ready-made solutions.
Seriously cool idea, sounds like fun and it might be quite refreshing for the fire-folks to talk to like-minded people, it can be hard not to talk about your passion too much.
It is interesting that so many people think of gold diggers, but so far this haven't been a problem (there is a way to report users and the number of reports is very small).
My impression is that FIRE folks are not that good of target. But I understand that this could become more of a problem when the site grows and I have couple ideas how I could tackle it then.
You should absolutely submit this to /r/fire and /r/fatfire on Reddit. Finding a financially compatible partner is crucial for long term life success. Wishing you much success.
If you want to work together on building an app, let me know! I have several decently successful iOS apps on the store including Hacker News client HACK.
I don't want to artificially slow down the users, so I am considering donations. This would align my incentives with the users' the most. There is a vague idea to use financial contribution as a way to validate account and seriousness. Some people are extremely serious about their search. They can feel frustrated by the people, who spend less effort. I could make some "super serious" club with profile moderation and some contribution.
I was looking for projects to do and this one seemed quite obvious, but at the same time FIRE folks are extremely frugal, so this couldn't be a for-profit project. I decided to try it as a passion project instead.
Kickstarting the community was a challenge - definitely experienced chicken & egg problem, but eventually reached critical mass.