I’ll answer with some technical recommendations, as I’m not personally interested in a dating app (I love the name, though👍).
I’d suggest staying away from easy-site-builders like Wix or Wordpress. These could seem very attractive to not-yet web developers and maybe you could build some kind of (really) minimal prototype in no time, but on the long run you will most probably be missing some crucial features you need.
I might be wrong, because I’ve just used those tools (Wix and Wordpress) very rarely. But in my short experience, it’s like building with Lego: you can build anything… as long as the pieces you need actually exists. And you’ll never be able to build a Lego sphere (again, I might be wrong with this methafor. It’s been some years since the last time I played Lego).
What I’d recommend is building your MVP using:
a framework like Angular, React or Vue for the front-end: the “visible part” of your webapp.
That approach will require coding, and if you don’t know how to code (and don’t plan to learn) you might need to seek help from someone who is. Otherwise, reading your “I am not a web developer (yet)”, I suposse you might either already have some coding experience on a different field or feel confident to be able to learn whatever skills you need. In either case, if I was to recommend you a learning path it’ll be something like:
Learn HTML5 and CSS. Just the basis. You don’t need to be a pro to start creating something. You can go through the free tutorials at W3Schools.
Learn Javascript. At W3Schools you’ll find high quality tutorials too.
Choose a framework and learn the basics. My personal favourite is Vue, but I don’t have any reason to recommend it to you. Have a look, try and, when you’ve chosen one, learn to use it. There are so many talented people sharing their knowledge on Youtube, so I’m sure you can learn the basics there.
Atlas or Firebase? Not sure what’ll be best for your application. I might go for Firebase for a quick prototype, as it can easily handle all the autethication stuff, wich seems to be crutial with the kind of app you’re planning to build.
Play. Try to use all of these newly learned skills and mix them together. Start by something simple and stupid, so you can easily spot the bugs. Keep playing building increasingly less-simple stuff (even if it’s still stupid). Try combining things you’ve learn in interesting ways.
At some point, you might feel confident enought to start building the first prototype of your app from scratch.
I based these recommendations on my personal experience as a solo developer for the last few years. Being self-taught I might be missing some important points.
Courage!
Disclaimer: When I say stupid I don’t mean to scorn. I just mean you don’t need to build anything useful while learning. It’s much more important you’re having fun. Its usefulness lies in the fact that it helps you to learn.
I’ll answer with some technical recommendations, as I’m not personally interested in a dating app (I love the name, though👍).
I’d suggest staying away from easy-site-builders like Wix or Wordpress. These could seem very attractive to not-yet web developers and maybe you could build some kind of (really) minimal prototype in no time, but on the long run you will most probably be missing some crucial features you need.
I might be wrong, because I’ve just used those tools (Wix and Wordpress) very rarely. But in my short experience, it’s like building with Lego: you can build anything… as long as the pieces you need actually exists. And you’ll never be able to build a Lego sphere (again, I might be wrong with this methafor. It’s been some years since the last time I played Lego).
What I’d recommend is building your MVP using:
a framework like Angular, React or Vue for the front-end: the “visible part” of your webapp.
some service like MongoDB Atlas or Google Firebase for the back-end: to store the user data.
That approach will require coding, and if you don’t know how to code (and don’t plan to learn) you might need to seek help from someone who is. Otherwise, reading your “I am not a web developer (yet)”, I suposse you might either already have some coding experience on a different field or feel confident to be able to learn whatever skills you need. In either case, if I was to recommend you a learning path it’ll be something like:
Learn HTML5 and CSS. Just the basis. You don’t need to be a pro to start creating something. You can go through the free tutorials at W3Schools.
Learn Javascript. At W3Schools you’ll find high quality tutorials too.
Choose a framework and learn the basics. My personal favourite is Vue, but I don’t have any reason to recommend it to you. Have a look, try and, when you’ve chosen one, learn to use it. There are so many talented people sharing their knowledge on Youtube, so I’m sure you can learn the basics there.
Atlas or Firebase? Not sure what’ll be best for your application. I might go for Firebase for a quick prototype, as it can easily handle all the autethication stuff, wich seems to be crutial with the kind of app you’re planning to build.
Play. Try to use all of these newly learned skills and mix them together. Start by something simple and stupid, so you can easily spot the bugs. Keep playing building increasingly less-simple stuff (even if it’s still stupid). Try combining things you’ve learn in interesting ways.
At some point, you might feel confident enought to start building the first prototype of your app from scratch.
I based these recommendations on my personal experience as a solo developer for the last few years. Being self-taught I might be missing some important points.
Courage!
Disclaimer: When I say stupid I don’t mean to scorn. I just mean you don’t need to build anything useful while learning. It’s much more important you’re having fun. Its usefulness lies in the fact that it helps you to learn.