$140K MRR Niche Dating App in Just 6 Months

While finishing school, ran a singles-only run club in Paris (from April 2025) as a test of 'dating for sporty people'. Kept groups small: of 40 sign-ups for the first run, took only 10 so people could actually talk; later runs drew ~100 sign-ups. First run was half friends, second only strangers. Did matchmaking himself. Also checked that two French sports-dating apps existed (one at ~40-50K MRR with a weak product).

Created the run club Instagram account, made Reels himself, and boosted posts ('put a bit of money on your post') about two times with no prior ads experience.

Before launch, built a ~3K waitlist and ~500 Instagram followers through the run club; in the two days the app was on the store before launch, asked friends and run club regulars to create profiles; launched Dec 26.

Available only in France for the first 6-7 months; expanding step by step to Belgium and Switzerland, then UK, maybe Australia. First English-speaking market deliberately not the US (not enough cash; US budgets much larger). Argues small countries may be easier because users concentrate in big cities.

With no consumer app experience, downloaded all dating apps he knew or found (Hinge, Bumble, Feeld and niche ones), studied every part of the app (onboarding length, hard vs freemium paywall at end of onboarding) and copied what they liked while adding a sporty brand.

Launched Dec 26 without payments (not yet built) to test features and retention without a monetization blocker; rolled out subscriptions ~a month later on a Friday. They did not actually compare before/after numbers.

Started paid ads after week one: one Meta campaign at 20 EUR/day, to keep steady growth rather than spiky organic (a social app can't have 1 user Friday, 10 Saturday, 0 Sunday or users churn). Rule of thumb: non-social apps can grow on organic TikTok and skip paid UA early (fine for ~5K MRR); social apps and anything aiming at ~100K MRR need paid UA.

Ran Meta app-install optimized campaigns for ~3.5-4 months before moving to deeper-event optimization on Meta and other networks.

1) Technical check: put ~$5 on a throwaway campaign and verify installs, trials and subscriptions fire to the right networks. 2) Start at ~$50/day (or $25 or less). 3) Wait until spend is 'clean': CPI / cost per trial / cost per subscription stable and profitable for 1-3 weeks (he sanity-checked numbers with industry friends). 4) Stack additional ad sets, each ~$50/day. 5) Change anything on a network at most once a week so the algorithm stabilizes; some ads have run 4-5 months. Expect a 'honeymoon' of great early CPIs from Meta before real costs appear.

Founder made all ads himself from 'rushes' (raw footage) of the run club, himself and friends, plus some AI; video only, no statics yet. About a month in, added one creative agency, then a second, and kept pitting agency videos against his own to find winners and iterate.

After a near-miss 50/50 deal with a previous partner, set up BPM with an unequal split (exact split withheld) so one person has the final word on split decisions; advises others never to do 50/50.

Non-technical founder reached out to everyone he knew, used Y Combinator co-founder matching, and got a list of tech profiles from a contact at an accelerator; met Clément from that list and worked together for a few weeks as a test before committing.

Two co-founders only; the tech co-founder uses Claude daily to code, the growth co-founder uses it daily for operations, growth and UA.

Dating app only for 'active singles' (sport at least once a week), with sports-themed branding and features (competition stamps). Guest believes the niche is why Apple did not reject it as design spam, which others building dating apps hit.

Albo (friend Isaac's social app) grows only on organic, via a big creator program. No details given.

Surf (sports dating app, US/Australia) has a brand deal with Hyrox despite a less developed product.

Client fitness app flow changed from onboarding -> register -> paywall to onboarding -> paywall -> sign up. Recommended to Footsteps with Jesus: no account creation for non-social apps; onboarding then paywall.