About to launch but can I do this?
I’m about to launch the first version of Stride on the App Store.
But it seems I’ve chosen hard mode. I’m a solo, female, non-technical founder who is bootstrapping a community based app as my first startup on the side of my day job.
It appears I’ve stacked literally every odd against myself. Is it even possible from here?
Why is being solo, female, non-tech founder a disadvantage?
Solo - more flexibility in making your choices.
Female - you’ll have a different, female perspective compared to male counterparts which can give you an advantage.
Non-technical - you don’t need big tech knowledge to bootstrap a community.
What's your question exactly? If it's possible to launch an app? Yes, it's possible.
As you don't have a big budget to make worldwide or national advertising you should focus on a single city or even a neighborhood.
Your app will work only if you have enough user density to make matches. If you don't have enough users from a single city, your app will be useless and people would use it only once and uninstall after a 1 minute test.
Focus on 1 city first. Validate your idea.Then push it to more and more cities.
Your app looks great! I can tell it's a rip of Tinder, but with a unique twist, and the promotional website was simple and easy to read.
I think you are only playing on hard mode if you feel like your application is going to require more custom code in order to be competitive. On first glance, your MVP features seem right to me: social timeline, matching mechanism, and in-app chats. So, I don't think you need any more technical resources in order to find your first users.
The issue with your app, though, is that it's dependent on a community in order to be successful. The app is great, but unless you have an equally great community, the application is going to struggle.
Solve the community problem, and the technical problems shouldn't be too important.
Most of us always start with B2C products, they are just more fun and interesting. However, they are extremely hard to monetize because you need tons of money.
Have you heard about the "Audience First Approach"? Most bootstrappers take this approach while building their projects and I believe they are much more successful.
I made a step by step guide to help out starting indie makers. Might be helpful for you :)