
Calculation on dating pool if we were to date outside our cities - taigeair
I&#x27;m working on a dating app idea that lets people date safely outside their cities.<p>I crunched some numbers and would love some feedback to see if there&#x27;s any holes in my assumptions and calculations.<p>Thank you!<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;spreadsheets&#x2F;d&#x2F;1TmZFt6GpOIMkA9qI-HBH9n_oVh5mWlB4eqk9E656jmw&#x2F;edit?usp=drivesdk
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p1esk
Would be great if you could summarize your assumptions and conclusions here.

1\. A 2017 survey of 1000 internet users over 18 reported that 19% are using
online dating. Even that number seems to be high imo and might include those
who are not using online dating at the moment [1]. I'm not sure how would this
change your stated 50% of those who use online dating (after additional
filters you have there).

2\. There are fewer women than men on dating sites (e.g. 38/62 according to
[2]). The total matches number for men will be smaller.

3\. There are 8000 dating apps currently, and 1000 new ones are launched every
year (!). Not saying you should be scared of that, but here marketing is a
much bigger challenge than everything else. Are you a good marketer?

4\. It's not even clear to me what is "dating outside your city". Seems like a
significant obstacle to dating.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/topics/2158/online-
dating/](https://www.statista.com/topics/2158/online-dating/) [2]
[https://www.datingnews.com/industry-trends/online-dating-
sta...](https://www.datingnews.com/industry-trends/online-dating-statistics-
what-they-mean-for-future/)

~~~
taigeair
Thanks for the comments!

1\. I got a rough 40% from these sources [1][2][3]. I know for [1] it's not
directly saying 40% of single adults use online dating but a decent proxy.

I don't really trust Statista as I was doing research on total users and it
was pretty off from other sources. Do you trust that Statista? If so, why? I
think it has good SEO because of how the site was made, rather than its
accuracy. It doesn't even tell you the source of the data unless you pay.
There's no decent way to see the methodology, so hard to say about the 19%.

I am already filtering for age and single, so I thought 50% would be fine. The
19% doesn't care about if they are single or married.

2\. Yeah it isn't 50-50. But that would be across the board, and I'm trying to
determine the effect of remote dating. [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-
male-to-female-ratio-on-Ma...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-male-to-
female-ratio-on-Match-com-eHarmony-PlentyofFish-Zoosk-and-OKCupid)

3\. Haha-- thanks for that number. I'm a product person and feel dating apps
suck because of limited diversity and poor experience. (It's optimized for
matching.)

4\. That's what I'm trying to determine-- if the negative effects of the
obstacle can be offset by the positive effects of greater exposure. It is
interesting how people are open to jobs outside their city but don't really
think about dating outside their city, especially given the increase in
mobility and remote work.

So I did some polling myself and hired a research company to investigate. We
found people are very open to dating outside their city, but can't be sure
until we launch and see if people do what they say.

I'm going to ask a couple friends for feedback and then write a conclusion!

[1] [https://qz.com/1546677/around-40-of-us-couples-now-first-
mee...](https://qz.com/1546677/around-40-of-us-couples-now-first-meet-online/)
[2] [https://www.eharmony.com/online-dating-
statistics/](https://www.eharmony.com/online-dating-statistics/) [3]
[https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/dating-apps-and-
sites...](https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/dating-apps-and-sites-are-
almost-as-common-as-they-are-disliked/)

~~~
p1esk
How would this work? Say I have a match (I like her, she likes me). What's
next? I'm guessing a few video chats, then a road trip/flight to see her. Then
what? If we kind of clicked, but both have jobs we are not ready to give up?
Long distance relationship? Compare this to a quick "Wanna get a
coffee/dinner/drink tomorrow night?"

Check this out: [https://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-la-affairs-diana-
dinerman...](https://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-la-affairs-diana-
dinerman-20190713-story.html)

I guess I'm also "open to the idea", but it would:

1\. further shrink the pool of matches: what percentage will you assign to the
row "open to remote dating" in your spreadsheet?

2\. make me more selective: if normally I'd have marked 20% as "attractive
enough" to meet, then now, keeping in mind 4 hour drive, I'd probably only
select 5%.

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taigeair
The idea is people are hyper mobile now due to the changing landscape of work.
I shared some data here: [https://blog.fairytrail.app/2019/08/why-i-made-
fairytrail.ht...](https://blog.fairytrail.app/2019/08/why-i-made-
fairytrail.html)

I re-did the calculation with a focus on intra-USA dating. For the average
city, it increases by 26531%.

1\. Open to dating range 25%. That's a guess though.

2\. Regarding the 5% instead of 20% attractive, that's already factored due to
the 25% open to long distance variable. We want to see how many people are
open to dating, not 100% all targeting marriage. Turns out many people use
dating apps because they want more fun and friends in their lives:
[https://www.toptal.com/finance/business-model-
consultants/on...](https://www.toptal.com/finance/business-model-
consultants/online-dating-industry)

That's an interesting article. The insight is every city has its own type of
people and in LA, I guess that's the type.

------
RaceWon
>but don't really think about dating outside their city, especially given the
increase in mobility and remote work.

I had an idea for a dating App this morning (I have like 1000 business related
ideas a week--what a fking nightmare) and your app would make sense for what I
had conceived... but I digress: you say cities and it appears to me that you
overlook the suburbs where Millions and millions live and everyone drives.

~~~
taigeair
Great point! We could do a population radius for 1 hour driving.

r= 1 hour driving range @ 60 miles per hour (no red lights!) area = 3.14* r^2
= 11,304 sq mile US density = 92 people per sq mile area * population density
=> 11,304 m2 * 92/m2 = 1,039,968 people

This is still less than the population of NYC which is 8,398,748. With this
calculation, remote dating would give an improvement of 3146%.

Density source: [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-200-years-
of-u-...](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-200-years-of-u-s-
population-density/)

