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Old 04-04-2022, 07:31 PM
 
1,152 posts, read 2,134,025 times
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Hey everyone. I have had an idea for a dating app for a long time and finally have more time in my life to sit down and flesh it out. The problem? I have no idea where to start. It would resemble something like a Tinder or Bumble but with a different twist.


What programs should I be looking at if I want to create an app on iPhone and Android? What places can I go to start learning how to code an app? I know this is not going to be something super quick to understand and implement but want to use my free time to start learning and building towards my dream. Appreciate any help you can give!
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Old 04-04-2022, 08:49 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,773 posts, read 13,308,056 times
Reputation: 9786
I don't want to rain on your enthusiasm, but I am not sure you realize how non-trivial any part of this is. It takes years to become truly proficient in software development. The existing dating apps have first-mover status and are highly refined, not only technically, but as to marketing and operationally, with name recognition and backed by going concerns with at least dozens if not hundreds of employees.

I would advise you to learn the craft of software development if you enjoy it, and then see where you can go with it. Maybe your concept is better, and maybe it's not, but does the world need yet another dating app?

Also, software development is a very different headspace / mentality from that of entrepreneur. Almost no one can successfully wear both of those hats. It may seem like it from the stories out there, but many of the successful tech startup founders are stealing credit from their own people who do the real gruntwork.
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Old 04-04-2022, 08:52 PM
 
1,152 posts, read 2,134,025 times
Reputation: 783
Totally understand. I have had a vision of what I feel like dating apps are missing out on. I have floated it to several people that have used the app and they all have said it sounds like a good idea. Maybe it goes nowhere, but I think it's something that would be pretty cool if I could scale. I know what a huge endeavor it would be. I would be down to hire, but even that I don't know the best way to go about it. Just have the idea and what I would want, just don't know how to do it myself.
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Old 04-04-2022, 09:28 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,773 posts, read 13,308,056 times
Reputation: 9786
Sure. The biggest technical challenge ultimately for that kind of service is, as you say, scaling to arbitrary numbers of users.

That's less costly than it used to be because you can set up servers at places like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services that will scale up automatically based on demand, "so you only pay for what you need" as the insurance commercials put it. You have to understand how to write the app to access databases efficiently, how to select and implement a caching strategy.

I work on commercial credit bureau internals and as we grew, I had to move some of our database tables into in-memory data structures to take the strain off the database so it could keep up with users. It is almost more art than science, because each application has its own access patterns and stress points. And businesses always evolve. We went from ad hoc interactive reports to dashboard-based products, and that meant we had new problems that we had to invent ways around.

In general terms to build phone apps you have to start by getting pretty intimate with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Native phone apps (write it once for IOS, then rewrite for Android) used to be popular for the best user interface and performance, but as the tech stack gets more sophisticated and hardware gets faster, increasingly people are writing web apps that are designed to adapt to any form factor -- phone, tablet, desktop -- and which people can access from their web browser of choice, or you can package it into essentially an embedded web browser in a phone or desktop app. The objective is to have one code base for everything, to the extent possible. Less to maintain.

TBH I never cared for this aspect of development so have tended to be mostly a backend developer -- the guy turning the wrench in the sub-basement so the boiler doesn't explode. I let other people build the pretty edifices that present my handiwork to the world. It is really hard to be a generalist these days. Anything like what you're talking about ends up being a team accomplishment -- it might be a small team, paid in stock options, but a team nonetheless.
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