In less than three months my Datemyride site reached several thousand registered users. I did most of the SEO myself (thanks to tips in this forum). But it still seems like an uphill battle when you compare yourself to those start-ups that receive millions in investor funding. How do I keep growing and competing?
Continue what you are doing. Getting thousands registered registered user is a big achievement in 3 months span. Also, if you want to spread it easily, do a referral program that can benefit the other users, this way getting another thousands of referral in a short span of time is pretty achievable.
I think you should now prepare for a long period of hard-working cycle (1-2 years) while you constantly improve the quality and popularity of your website. And then you can get to the next level when your site is established and recognized in the market. What to improve? Ask you members! You should be in a two-way communication with them, encourage them to use your feedback form, or try live support software. You need to understand what they like and dislike, and then to constantly make changes. That's basically the structure of this cycle: - get feedback - make changes - make members aware about your changes and so on and so on. I have a network of online dating sites and that's what I actually did during the last 5 years. By the way, if you would like to exchange links, please see my signature.
I'm a big believer in asking your current members for feedback, as Livedatesearch suggested. Also, how is the site monetized? Is it free to the users? You might focus on selling something to them - some sort of info product, like an ebook or something similar.