BPM · B2C · dating app for sporty singles
Split co-founder equity unevenly so one person has the final say
What they did
In their words
$140K MRR Niche Dating App in Just 6 Months
… do it um and after that i was some sort I was like vaccinated around, I don't know if it's the right expression in English, but I was like, all right, I'm never going to do a 50-50 again. I also came out on a few articles talking about 50-50 splits and all the bad things that can come out of it. So I was like, I'm definitely not going to do a 50-50 split from now on. And I think, and I always advise now people that come to me for a few advice,
I definitely tell them to never do a 50-50 split. So we're not on a 50-50 split, as you can imagine. um but yeah we just started working and on the app itself so i had no app i wanted to have one he was like all right let's start doing the app we started to design it etc etc so i see two questions on the on the chat about uh about this one is about what's wrong with 50 50. um basically is the company can be um can be blocked because of the 50 50. at the end of the
day you need someone to decide and i'm not gonna decide something that's gonna piss off my co-founder because afterwards he's not gonna trust me anymore so eventually it's still a relationship of trust that you need to build um that you need to build but yeah it's just you need someone to decide like it's mandatory for a company to have someone that decides and that has the final word in case of um um a splitting opinion I like it dude and then the other question was like and I think you know
Gabriel you're trying to do something difficult like dating app is such a hard product because you need supply you need demand it's like a marketplace right and so it's one of the toughest ones to in my opinion one of the toughest like social app categories one of the toughest and so that's why I'm building up this question why did you decide to build this is there a deep reason was the motivation and was it purely up to up to whatever yeah i …
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More from this episode
- Run a singles-only run club to test a dating app ideaDemand confirmed; couples formed; runners became the launch audience
- Make your own Reels and boost a couple of posts to fill an eventGrew to ~500 followers; people signed up for runs
- Build a 3K waitlist before launch and have regulars make profiles early~500 installs on launch weekend
- Launch a dating app in one country only, so users are close together140K MRR in six months from France alone
- Download every competitor app and copy what works in each part
- Launch free, then turn on subscriptions about a month later1K MRR by the next Monday, 10K MRR 30 days later; no before/after comparison
- Start Meta ads at €20/day after week one to keep new users flowingProfitable; main growth driver to 140K MRR
- Set up Meta ad campaigns to get the most installsReached 20K MRR, but founder calls it the worst choice in hindsight
- Test ad tracking with $5, start at $50/day, add ad sets once costs holdStable costs; some ads ran profitably for months
- Make your first video ads from event footage, then test agency videos against themAn agency's videos worked well; no numbers
- Ask everyone you know for a technical co-founder; work together a few weeks first
- Run the company with two founders who both use Claude daily
- Build a dating app only for people who play sport every weekPassed App Review; 140K MRR in six months
- Grow a social app only through a big creator program
- Get a brand deal with a sports event like Hyrox for a dating app
- Show the paywall before asking people to create an account+52% sales
Tags: cofounder, equity-split