Introducing firedating.me - The World's First Ever FIRE Dating Site

Introducing firedating.me – The World’s First Ever FIRE Dating Site

In case you haven’t already heard, an exciting new website has just been launched for the FIRE community – firedating.me. We thought we’d grab the chance to interview its creator and find out all about it.

What is firedating.me? Can you sum it up in a couple of sentences for us?

firedating.me is the first ever dating website specifically for the FIRE community. If you’re all set with dating (lucky you!), you can use it to look for like-minded friends instead.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got the idea to create a dating site for the FIRE community?

My name is Viktor and I live in Munich. I am into FIRE and I struggle with dating. I am scared to tell potential dates that I am into FIRE, because they will put two and two together and conclude that I have money. Then I can’t be sure whether they’ll like me for me or only for my money.

However, hiding the fact that I am into FIRE is hard. For example, I live well below my means and people (especially women) notice this immediately. Some people have even thought that I have psychological fear of spending money (which is an interesting way to describe FIRE). So I am single.

In 2019 I attended a couple of FIRE meetups in Europe and noticed that other people have similar problems. At the same time, the community itself resonated so amazingly well internally. I’ve never met so many random wonderful people at the same time ever before. So the idea was born and others were super interested (full disclosure: I was publicly “volunteered” to do this after sharing my idea with the organizers).

What other incentives did you have for creating firedating.me?

I’ve learned a lot from this project. I suck at web design (ok, at any design) and communication and marketing and many other things. At the same time I am interested in startups. So this is an amazing opportunity for me to grow.

Was it a lot of work to create the site?

I am doing everything myself and trying to keep things as lean as possible. I even have a goal for 2020 to spend at least one hour a day working on one of my side projects. So far I’ve spent this time exclusively on firedating.me. As a data point, as of the 1st of May I’ve spent 139 hours and €36.89 (I track everything).

Are you looking to make money from the site?

No. The site is completely free and doesn’t even have ads on it. Obviously, many people are worried that most free projects die. That’s true, which is why I’m trying to keep it lean. I’m also currently getting a lot of feedback and this motivates me to keep working on the site.

How many users does the site have so far?

Over 800 people from all over the world have already signed up, and that number is growing every day. (You can see the live stats here.)

What about privacy?

Privacy comes first. You just register using your e-mail address, which we never show to anyone. You have complete control over what information you choose to disclose about yourself. The site includes built-in messaging, so you don’t have to use private messenger services to communicate with other users.

What do you hope to achieve with firedating.me? How will you define it as a success?

My success criterion is attending a wedding made possible by this project. Ideally it would be amazing to meet the couple in a couple of years to be sure, but that’s too long for a success criterion 🙂

My super success criterion is finding a partner for myself through this project. At the same time I am using the website myself too (I’m currently looking for friendships all around the world) and I’ve met so many amazing people! So this is already a success for me.

How can people out there help to support the project?

My main challenge right now is spreading the word. I get the impression that the technical side is okayish already (even though there is so much room for improvement). But people just don’t know about the website so the community of users is small, which makes it less fun for everyone. So if you want to support the project, consider signing up. and spreading the word. Any feedback is also welcome!