Unassorted thoughts on the last five months

I have decided to move Directory from “full-time project” to “weekend project” status. It’s been about five months since I started working on Directory (about three more than I had planned), so it feels like a good time to mark the transition with a little review.

But to be clear, Directory is only beginning! We just launched on Google Playstore yesterday. The app mostly works and I still plan to get this more polished and available on iOS.

I just wanted to be transparent that the updates and posts will be a little less frequent from now on, and I’m going to spend a little more time marketing.

I don’t really have a cohesive article for yall, but here are some unassorted thoughts on the last five months.

How it began

One afternoon, after a few days of hearing some friends’ disappointments with dating apps and scrolling through the comments of depressed redditors, I got the rather unoriginal idea that making a dating app can’t be that hard, so why don’t I just make one that’s better?

But the phrase “dating app” makes me cringe a little, I wanted to do something subtly different: create a system where local people can connect on an arbitrary set of criteria. I wanted users to be able to create their own labels and find people whether they were looking for a kinky polyamorous relationship, a monogamous marriage, or a group of casual soccer buddies.

The state of dating apps is disgusting

There’s a corporate shuffling game that is played by CEOs and investors that results in constant reductions in quality of life for the rest of us as the companies whose products we use constantly change leadership and direction.

Here are some fun facts I learned in my initial research:

• Match Group corporation owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and a myriad of other online dating brands. If you use Tinder for free, get burnt out of swiping and then get serious and decide to pay for Hinge, the money is all going to the same place.

• Grindr was briefly owned by Chinese video game company Kunlun Tech in 2018 because apparently you can still invest hundreds of millions of dollars on gay sex even when homosexuality is illegal in your country. The US government informed Kunlun that it considered this a national security risk, and they sold it to a US buyer about two years later.

• The founder and CEO of Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd, became the youngest female billionaire when she made Bumble public in 2021. Yay women are capitalists too!

How to make a mobile app when you’re allergic to mobile development

I’ve been programming for a long time, it was not too difficult for me to architect a webservice. But there was one caveat, I HATE mobile development. I hate javascript. For some reason all the technologies for making frontends are such a CHORE to use. I have based my personality on this and have no desire to grow. So why was I excited about making an app?

For those of you who don’t know me, I spend a lot of time making games with the open source game-engine Godot. It is one of the best pieces of software I’ve ever used and has an amazing open source community behind it. Godot exports to all major computer platforms, and for a long time I’ve felt that it’s an underutilized powerhouse for creating not just games, but cross-platform tools. The chance to test this theory was the icing on the cake.

Yes, I used a game engine to make a dating app that isn’t gamified. 😅

The real challenges

Marketing

I always knew that the technical aspect of building Directory would be the easy part, and marketing would make or break the project. We’re entering the marketing phase now, so we’ll see how it goes. (For my friends in Durham, NC - keep a lookout for Directory flyers this week 👀.)

Personal Conviction

I’m going to be honest with you, Directory isn’t that special. I don’t feel like Directory is fundamentally different from other dating apps. It’s just a better version of whats out there because I am a benevolent dictator and committed to not selling data, using AI in my algorithms or making that much money. And before I finish a few more features and get a sustainable amount of users, I’m not sure I can make the claim that its much better anyway.

The question of if I’m doing something worth doing comes up over and over again. I think the most important aspect in sustaining the energy to finish a project is really defining your conviction in the beginning and taking time throughout the project to reaffirm it.

The times where I had to do things I didn’t enjoy that much (making marketing images, filling out legal and business forms, and a nonzero amount of mobile development) were the times my conviction came most into question.

I’m honestly still not completely convinced, but some friends have told me that if even only a couple of people make lasting connections through Directory, it would make the many months of effort worth it– and that brings me some peace of mind.

Where do we go from here?

I had always planned on an initial development period to get Directory out there and then transitioning to a low-maintanence mode to keep it running. There were a few more major things that I wanted to add before doing that, but my soul is saying it is time to take a step back.

I’m going to focus a little more on marketing and let a rising user/ newsletter subscriber count be my motivation to keep going.

Whatever happens next, I have enjoyed making the website, using unconventional methods to make things work (Game Engine frontend + Rust server), and gaining a small following.

It’s not a big change, the updates will just be less frequent :)

Take care,

~ Cecilia

P.S. Leave me a review on Google Play!