Welcome back to the How to Build a Dating App Podcast, chronicling the journey of a group of Marketeers building and launching a brand-new dating app.

In this episode, our enlighting conversation John Kershaw, mastermind of niche dating app Bristlr, and founder of M14 Industries, concludes for now. We reflect on the journey of some of John’s previous clients from small start-ups to big businesses, what a good churn rate looks like, handling user data, and gender identities in dating apps.

Exciting points from this episode include:

01:31: Journeys of John's Clients

John recollects the journeys that some of his previous clients - niche dating and social apps – have taken and where they are now. Was it all smooth sailing? John talks about the main takeaways and learning experiences from building niche apps, and if social media platforms can also act as a dating app.

09:42: The Appeal of the Connection Economy

Is dating now ‘on-demand’? We discuss with John the expectations of modern app-users and how technology is allowing us to connect with almost anything we’re looking for; from food, to transport, to people.

11:40: Creating a Clean Feeling App

Can modern dating apps reflect the current trends of the KonMarie Method, minimalism, and the rejection of “things”? John takes us though the ramifications of ‘clean’ and uncluttered design on a dating app, and where that could lead us in future.

15:25: The Open Gender Project

Gender is complex. So are preferences. John founded the Open Gender Project – a library of software finding ways to accurately represent people in software in dating – considering this complexity and how many dating apps simply make gender a binary choice.

19:13 Who Owns App Data?

While John isn’t a lawyer by trade, he’s learned a lot about data storage, the easiest, most effective way of keeping users’ data secure, and the dos-and-don'ts of data and infrastructure handling in the era of GDPR.

28:20 Our Next Steps

John grills the team on what our next steps are and our learning experiences so far, and what our future plans and research looks like.

How to Quote a Dating App:

1. “…don't go all in from day one, you are guaranteed to fail”
2. “…if you are targeting a niche it's usually because you're in that niche and you're under-served and then you are a perfect person to come up with a solution for that”
3. “the fact that Facebook have brought out their own dating app feels almost redundant”
4. “If you're just going to divide people down a binary you might as well choose an important one like do you have a beard?”

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