A few people in Thailand often ask me:
“Hey Harvie, why don’t we start a Thai dating site together, it will be easy!”
To which I always laugh.
As someone who has some experience in this market as a promoter and makes their money from online marketing, I like to think I have more experience than most, especially in the Thailand dating niche.
Here’s why I never started a dating site in Thailand (I never had ideas too, the title was for effect) and why you shouldn’t either.
Building A Website Is Not The Problem
You might say that Thai Friendly sucks or that Thai Cupid isn’t user-friendly, but they both dominate the market and provide everybody with a service they value.
Something most people tend to overlook when criticizing websites.
Both sites are easily making at least $15,000+ a month and crush the market.
Building a Thailand dating site is not hard, in fact you can buy out-the-box websites that only require you to brand your platform. You don’t need to hire a developer or anything else.
If you’ve ever made a website before, you’ll know that that’s not the hard part.
Promoting and driving traffic to your site is why so many websites fail.
You Don’t Have The Money To Start A Thai Dating Site
Not a week goes by where a Bangkok massage, escort or a brand new Thai dating site doesn’t contact me asking to advertise on my site.
The smart business owners (less than 5%) accept my rates and I serve their ads on my website.
All the others, well they tell me that they are just starting out and don’t have that kind of budget to advertise just yet.
And that’s the problem.
If you don’t have that kind of money now, you will never have it. ( I ask for very little too)
The key to setting up an awesome Thailand dating site is to have the money to promote it.
I’m nowhere near the biggest Thailand dating or nightlife related blog, but even if I charged them $1,000 (I don’t) for a single blog advertisement, they should snap my hand off and take it before I change my mind.
At $25 per-average sale of a Thai dating membership, I would need to bring them 40 new customers lifetime for them to break-even.
That I can guarantee to any new Thai dating website. So already they are at a positive return on investment for an ad standpoint. In fact if they refused to take this imagery offer, they are bound to fail because they don’t know anything about the niche they are trying to crack.
Furthermore, my website (and many others) are a useful resource for guys who want to visit Thailand to have fun and meet Thai women.
The social proofing that goes with that should be a good enough reason for them to happily accept a $1,000 blog advertisement. (Once again, I don’t ask anybody for $1,000 or even close to that. I’m just making a point).
Most site owners will rebuff my offer and instead tell me to join their affiliate platform.
But why would I do that? I know Thai Friendly and Thai Cupid have great support and thousands of members. The stats show that people join these dating sites, but new Thai dating sites cannot provide the same proof.
Don’t start a brand new Thai dating site thinking that you can setup an affiliate program and bloggers will promote your site. Most of them won’t unless you’ve already built up a reputation in which case, they will come to you, not the other way round.
How Much Money Do You Need To Start A Thai Dating Site?
I may as well be pulling this number from my buttocks as I’m not that experienced with all the back-end stuff that goes into running a Thai dating site. I would imagine you need anywhere between $10,000- $20,000 to get started and if you wanted to knock off either Thai Friendly or Thai Cupid.
Realistically you can get started for a few hundred dollars but you’ve failed already if that’s all you have.
Even a starting budget of $100,000 is reasonable giving that the top two sites will make that back within six months.
Most of that money would go towards recruiting people to use your site. Which is hard because why would anybody use a brand new Thai dating sites over other tried and tested ones?
Closing Comments
Drink enough beers with anyone in Thailand and they will talk about all the awesome businesses ideas they have.
People have told me that if they ran a bar in Soi Cowboy they would make more money than all the others. If they opened a street-food stall in On-Nut Market they would make more than everyone else. And if they started their own Thai dating site, they would make it the best.
The fact of the matter is this: unless you got the cash flow, I personally believe that 95% of people who think about starting a Thai dating site will fail or struggle.
Running a dating site is a full-time job, don’t think you can work a regular job or do other stuff and expect things to get done.
That’s my $0.02, maybe I am a little off the mark? What do you think? Either way, don’t start a Thai dating site, instead learn how to freelance online. Trust me, it’s the better option.