OPW INTERVIEW - July 20 - A dating platform that integrates web and mobile. DMCubed has an aerospace engineer as its creator/founder/CEO. Example Dating Websites are Saucy Dates web / mobile, and oooo Dating web / mobile. I interviewed David Minns to discover his founding story and find out more about his platform. - Mark Brooks
Why did you decide to launch a dating platform?
For some time I have operated a network of dating sites that shared a core platform for web and mobile web. I do this single handily, I'm the only person in my company. About 4 years ago I developed my first iOS app. These two platforms shared no common code although most of the functions were the same. For example, every dating app/site likely has login, reset password, chat, etc. It seemed very inefficient to be coding this in two different places, three, if you include Android. Regulations such as GDPR also meant considerable repetitive work.
I therefore wanted a solution that the majority of the code was shared across all possible devices and dating niches. If I want to adjust how my location based search work I can now make the adjustments once and it's reflected on every platform and niche. Additionally it centralizes hosting, moderation and security. It saves me a considerable amount of time which is a priority.
What makes you uniquely qualified?
I like learning. My bookshelf doesn't have any novels, in fact I have only ever read one fictional book in my life. It contains books on sales, marketing, PR, business, software development. The 792 paged book titled, "High Performance MySQL" is a great read!
Before being an entrepreneur I worked in engineering software and travelled internationally working technically with leading firms such as Mclaren, Ferrari, Airbus, Rolls Royce and The Ministry of Defence on complex aerodynamic simulations. Later in my career I worked more on sales and marketing before finished up in technical support management. That was 16 years of very broad experience.
How is it different and better than existing platforms?
Without knowing the internal structure of my competition I can only guess but I have worked hard on speed and performance. Having a fast platform is great for the end users and equally good for myself. Fast platforms need less CPU power and therefore have a much lower hosting cost. I track the average speed of every major function and its total CPU time. This means I can focus my optimization efforts on the right parts of the platform. For example, this week I ripped the guts out of most of my in app/site chat system and upgraded it. When a user sends a message I was using CPU time to write cache data that the recipient may never read. My new system does this the moment the recipient opens the message.
The other major factor is my ability to add/improve the platform quickly. As I wrote every part myself I know every line of code (about 2.3 million button presses!). I don't need to hold a meeting, write a specification and follow up on progress. My reworking of the just in time chat system was a total of 5 working hours.
What's the next couple of dating apps that you're planning on launching?
Over 50's dating will likely come next, the brand has been created and is called Lisa 50. If you're a female, aged 50 today and from the UK or USA the most common name is Lisa. A transgender focused app/site will follow, the brand name is still to be determined. New apps/sites are quick to create on my platform, the majority of work is graphic design for the website and app store listings. The code is simply a control file with a menu of features you want to turn on or off. I plan to create about 10 apps/sites before a major focus on PR, marketing and SEO. I also need to determine if I run all my niche apps/sites myself or license the platform to partners, if I do go down the license route then I would avoid any duplication of market sectors so partners do not have to compete and can work together.
