Many large dating app companies create dating apps for niche markets. On the surface, this looks like something great – if you consider that you want to find people with specific lifestyles, races, ages, etc. Unfortunately, it also results in multiple sites/apps that are almost identical to each other – with a different group of singles – and with a smaller number of users. The market has been fragmented.
Chances are, you belong to several of these user groups. Let’s say, for example, that you are a:
- single parent
- black
- over 50
What if?:
- Potential Match A has joined the single parent app
- Potential Match B has joined the black app
- Potential Match C has joined the over 50 app
If you want to be able to match with all of these users, you have to pay for three sites/apps to get to them. It benefits the people running the app immensely. It costs you a lot of money and you have to manage three profiles.
Filters are Better then Fragmentation
A better solution – at least when you are actually focussed on the users – is to have one large app that has a very robust filtering system. This will be a central feature of the app that we will develop. With one single profile, you will have access to members that fit into every niche market, every race, every religion, every hobby, body shape, height, ability. And you will be able to filter them stringently… so that if you only want to see Christians or Asians you will also only be made visible to other users that ,meet this criteria.
No more likes from people that you would never match with. No more wasting time deleting likes and certainly no paying to see if the people who liked you are real or a strong match (because seeing likes must also be free).
In this scenario, all three Potential Matches (A, B and C) are in one app. One place, one price (if it costs), one profile.
Don’t Fragment for New Features
As explained above, many large dating app companies create dating apps for niche markets. Others fragment the market just by having different features on different apps. Or they offer different levels of service within different apps and so have multiple apps with different service styles.
Of course, this makes business sense for the company BUT you are still single and now you are paying to try different apps, maintain multiple profiles, manage several chats and juggling a lot of extra conversations and matches.
We firmly believe that when you sign up for an app with one company, that you should be able to access all of their features, apps, fragmented markets within a single subscription. When a dating app developer buys out a competing product, they should merge the user base and features into one single app.
Apps that are Actively Fragmenting the Market
