I (although a developer of a dating script) will always recommend: GO CUSTOM. We develop abledating at http://www.abledating.net and have this site also: http://abk-experts.com/ Here you can order a completely unique solution, not to over-saturate the web with clones of different dating software scripts. There is only one piece of advice one can give here: GO CUSTOM!!! Get an open source solution and change it until it is unique. Of cource it is easier to do this when you have a script with a lot of features like abledating from the beginning. But it can be any other software script. Skadate, Boonex, PHPFox, whatever. But make your homework, imagine what you would like your site to lool like. And answer one simple quiestion: WHY THE USER WILL USE MY SITE AND NOT ALL THE REST?
It's a lot of work.. take it from someone who tried.. people dont give you the time of day unless you have thousands of members. So it will take you a LOT of advertising dollars to start a dating site. Worth it.. if you can invest that.
I think you would have to be pretty creative, business model would have to be substantially different than any site that is popular now.
dont forget the competition i know theres a lot of hype on how much you could earn with dating sites but it requires a lot of work to actually get started- people dont often like signing up to dating sites, the whole weary online situation puts many people off yet the embarrassment of being caught by someone they know in real is even more scary to them if you wanna aim for these things, maybe start an online christian dating site - targeted specifically to a kind of group . sounds like a good idea , yea? my friend married some girl he met in some christian community website so it sounds kinda good to go
I think you are too late. In 1999 the dating sites went big and becuase of that there's a million of them. Not only that but they all have had 10 yrs to establish while you have not. For good news, your script looks awesome. Way better than that phpfox crap, that's for sure.
I, being in the business for 8 years, do not get tired to see how creative and original people can be. There are customers that have really thought about the originality of the idea and they can still make sites that are amazing. For example, beautifulpeople.com The idea is simple, if not primitive, but the site immediately won its audience and popularity. There are sites for ugly persons, for dogs, for those living in one particular district of one town. Yes, these niches are small, but imagine if you have 100 sites and each of them has its peculiar small niche.. humm?