$50K is not enough to get a dating site to critical mass for a broad demographic. Most dating sites spend over $50K every day driving traffic. So the question t

$50K is not enough to get a dating site to critical mass for a broad demographic. Most dating sites spend over $50K every day driving traffic. So the question then becomes "How do we leverage this initial $50K to generate enough initial traction to demonstrate a scalable user acquisition model?" The best way to do that is to focus on a specific untapped niche (dating for hackers/geeks/reddit users?) or a small geographical area you can take over. Once you have a manageable, highly targeted audience, it becomes a lot easier to reach them in a cost-effective way. Then: 1. Seed the site with some profiles to start. You NEED to do this. Everyone does this, and it works. Either work out a data sharing deal with a small niche dating site to cross post some(mostly female) profiles to your site or just make some yourself. 2. Males join many more dating sites than females. Since you already have lots of female profiles, you can start by targeting males in your niche. Male dating traffic is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than female dating traffic. 3. Spend $10K testing _interest targeted_ Facebook Ads. Don't just target all single males- you will get destroyed by better funded competition. Target by specific interests "Like WoW- Meet Gamer Girls!" and optimize for the highest CTR possible until you get cheap clicks. Once your CPC is below $0.30 or so, up your budget and scale. 4. Spend $10K on carefully targeted Plenty of Fish Ads. They have an excellent, powerful self-serve ad system that many dating sites use successfully. Think about it- everyone on POF is interested in online dating, so it's super relevant. 6. Spend $20K doing carefully selected direct media buys on community forums, discussion groups, etc. If I'm targeting WoW players, there are many forums happy to sell banner space at a cheap CPM. Same thing if I'm targeting athletes, fishing enthusiasts, etc. The general thrust is "Meet someone to do X hobby with". You can also do this on AdWords(content network). 7. Deposit the remaining $10K with a reputable affiliate network. If you offer an attractive payout and have high converting landing pages, you can get thousands of affiliates to promote your site on all of the niche traffic sources you don't have time to test. Pay significantly more for female signups to balance out the site. This is where you begin to get consistent growth every day and can presumably raise more money or start monetizing your users.