🗞 What's New: The offline dating trend is exploding

People are getting out of the online dating game:

• People are burned out by dating apps, and want to find love offline. Build gamified social experiences or skill exchange networks to help them.
• Creating excellent content is only half the battle. These quick onpage SEO hacks can boost your blog traffic. Hint: Shorten URLs and anchor links.
• $5M ARR with a SaaS customer support helpdesk. Alex Turnbull used founder-led marketing through his blog, and SEO-driven support content.

Want your product seen by over 100,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 3 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter by Darko

Online dating is failing. Let's take a look at the data:

This is the stock price history of Match Group, the company behind Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, and Hinge.

Let's take a look at another graph:

This is the stock price history of Bumble Inc., the company behind Bumble. Bumble has had a series of bad quarters. Same story for Match Group.

Why are online dating companies shrinking?

People are getting out of online dating

• 79% of Gen Z is burned out by dating apps.

• The majority of college students don't use any dating apps.

• More than half of online daters reported their experience with online dating to be "very or somewhat negative," according to Pew Research.

• Many reporters have called on people to delete dating apps and find love offline.

Where are people finding love these days?

Offline activities are on the rise when it comes to meeting new people. Think running clubs, sewing circles, dance classes, singles mixers, speed dating parties, networking events, etc.

For many people, social events (where you're likely to meet a lot of new people) beat events with direct intent (like singles mixers). There, they can strike up conversations with strangers, and plan to see each other again if they hit it off.

Opportunities for founders

Online dating platforms lend themselves towards a winner-takes-all-scenario. People want to meet offline, but they find the IRL places or events online.

Here are some ideas for what you could build, based on the "offline dating" trend:

• Local event discovery platforms: Create a platform that curates and promotes local social events, focusing on activities where people can naturally meet and connect. These can be dance classes, book clubs, hiking groups, etc. The key here is to highlight events that aren't specifically marketed as "singles" events, but still provide opportunities for socializing.

• Niche interest communities: Develop online communities or apps that cater to specific hobbies or interests, where users can join groups and attend offline meetups. For example, a platform for cooking enthusiasts that organizes regular cooking classes.

• Event-based networking tools: Build tools or apps that help people break the ice and connect during social events. These could be in the form of conversation prompts, scavenger hunts, or gamified networking challenges that encourage participants to engage with others.

• Skill exchange networks: Establish a network where people can meet through skill-sharing workshops or classes. For example, someone might teach a photography class, while another offers yoga sessions. These skill exchanges can naturally lead to friendships, and more!

• Gamified social experiences: Create entire games that can be played offline, with the goal of people getting to know each other better.

• Volunteer matching: Develop software that connects people with local volunteering opportunities. This fosters a sense of community, while allowing individuals to meet others with similar values.

• Co-living and co-working management tools: Build software to help manage and facilitate social interactions in shared living and working environments, which are becoming increasingly popular among young professionals.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trendy Software Ideas for more.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

❌ A top court in Brazil issues a countrywide ban on X...

🌤️ ...and it's sending people to Bluesky.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

📕 Create an e-book from start to finish (templates included!).

💸 How to let customers know about a price increase.

✨ Mortuaries are getting a modern day makeover.

Check out Trendy Software Ideas to discover more software ideas inspired by recent news.

by AKM Aminul Islam

Creating excellent content is only half the battle. Follow these five simple onpage SEO hacks to optimize your writing and boost your blog traffic.

Shorten URLs

Embrace the power of concise URLs that make your blog posts more reader-friendly, and boost your search engine visibility.

Opt for clear, concise versions that convey the content. Avoid including dates or steps in the URL. That way, future updates will not require URL changes, preventing SEO disruptions.

The power of images

Search engines can't "see" images, but alt-text helps them understand the content.

Use descriptive alt-text variations of your long-tail keyword to optimize images for search.

The art of the meta description

This metadata informs searchers and search engines about your content.

Aim for 150-160 characters; any longer, and it will get cut off. Write an engaging, relevant description that includes your targeted long-tail keyword.

Remember, search engines might rewrite it, so focus on providing valuable information.

Anchor linking to boost credibility and user engagement

Link to relevant external sources to support claims or statistics. Link to other helpful blog posts on your site to keep readers engaged, and build a content "cluster."

Also, link to crucial conversion-oriented content for lead generation.

CTA magic: Guiding readers to next steps

Insert CTAs throughout your post to encourage readers to take desired actions:

• Consider a passive CTA (hyperlinked text) near the beginning to avoid overwhelming readers.

• Include image or text CTAs near relevant content in the post body.

• At the end of each post, offer a clear next step, like a downloadable resource.

• Explore pop-up CTAs to keep your message visible as users scroll.

Pro tips

• Open external links in new tabs to avoid directing users away from your site.
• Bold key sentences to help readers to grasp the main points quickly.
• A floating table of contents helps users quickly jump to specific sections of interest by providing a constant overview of the content structure.

By following these optimization strategies, you can ensure your blog posts are well-equipped to attract readers, improve search ranking, and ultimately drive results for your business!

Discuss this story.

💻 LTDs on AppSumo? Posted by Alexander Isora.

😵‍💫 A potential customer threatened to sue me. Posted by Adrian.

📧 Cold outreach isn't dead. Posted by Avery Hooks.

🛠️ Which skills should I improve? Posted by Elizaveta Tkach.

🤓 Creating test cases. Posted by Keploy.

💁‍♀️ What it takes to survive as a solo founder. Posted by Harsh.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

by James Fleischmann

Alex Turnbull exited his first company, then bootstrapped Groove to $5M ARR.

Now, he's taking Helply, one of Groove's add-on products, and turning it into a standalone, platform-agnostic product. He plans to grow it to double what Groove is bringing in!

Spending $350K on an MVP

I was working on another startup when I came up with the idea for Groove.

This was back in 2009, and I was wearing multiple hats, including product management and customer service. We had just started using Zendesk instead of managing support via email, and I thought there was a better way to do it.

We sold that startup for $15M. Then, I put on my PM hat, spinning up wireframes and mapping user journeys. I had no technical skills. I still don't. I used $350K from my exit to fund the alpha and beta versions of Groove.

Validating Helply

Groove is a SaaS customer support helpdesk. Currently, I'm bootstrapping Helply, a platform-agnostic AI customer service agent. It hasn't launched yet, as we're in the process of validating it. I'm 150 customer demo calls in, with a goal of 500.

The AI revolution is here, and it's shaking up customer support for better or worse. We're not building Helply on a whim. It originally started as an AI chatbot just for Groove, but as we conducted hundreds of interviews with existing and potential customers, something became apparent: The customers who used our competitors' solutions also needed our solution.

Bootstrapping

I don't raise outside funding. I'm completely bootstrapped.

Being bootstrapped allows me to be profit-driven, build a sustainable business model, and remain customer-led in my growth and profit strategies.

Even with Groove being at seven figures, we're staying scrappy. Being lean and capital-efficient needs to be in your blood if you are a bootstrapper or indie hacker. It is a core requirement.

Never transition away from being scrappy. The solution is to stay nimble, but have processes in place that allow you to execute your quarterly goals in a very aligned, efficient way.

Don't just have the entire company or team go off into a corner, and come back after a quarter. Consistently follow the Entrepreneurial Operating System of rocks, pitches, and weekly L10 meetings. This automatically puts checks and balances in place, preventing you from making irrational decisions.

Founder-led growth

Groove grew almost entirely through founder-led marketing via my "Journey to $100K" blog, and SEO-driven customer service content.

We were featured in over 100 publications, all from organic founder-led marketing efforts, and that fueled word-of-mouth and powered our growth.

All we had to do was publish and document everything with full transparency. The community grew organically, and so did the outside press. The only strategic move we made was using the blog as an opportunity to layer in SEO.

I'm currently using founder-led marketing for Helply, albeit on LinkedIn instead of a blog. I'm posting 365 days a year on LinkedIn, and building in public with full transparency.

Advice for indie hackers

Forget about the vanity metrics. Focus on the unquantifiable power of building in public, which has this insane power that opens doors you never knew existed.

It all comes down to the community, the energy, and the growth that comes from being open and transparent. It's all about creating a continuous stream of engaging, authentic narratives.

There's a fascinating playbook with inbound (your site, landing page, etc.) and outbound, paired with founder-led marketing.

With tools available today, like Clay and Instantly, you can do a lot of outbound alongside inbound. The goal is to have it be additive with your personal brand, so you can consistently create content that you can repurpose and leverage in newsletters, courses, and other opt-ins that lead to your email list.

This is where you'll develop your lead and pipeline generation!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Darko, AKM Aminul Islam, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing