01 –
Understanding the problem
Dating apps keep people swiping and messaging for weeks before they ever see each other. Speed dating fixes that, but it is hard to get to and hard to keep balanced. 7:30 Dating brings the speed-dating evening online: a host, a few minutes with each person on video, and a private yes or no after every date.
CONSTRAINTS
Every evening is live. A problem shows up in front of dozens of people at once, so every change had to be safe to ship between evenings.
Video has to work on whatever phone or laptop people bring, with no app to install, and strangers on camera need to feel safe.
PROJECT TIMELINE
Launched in September 2026, with a live evening almost every week since and improvements shipped between evenings.
TOOLS
Designed and built with Claude Code, with AI in both the product and the process.
- Claude Code for building, testing and shipping the app, from the video dates to the host tools.
- Claude (Opus 5.5) powers the question box on the home page that answers visitors’ questions about the evenings.
- Claude Docs and artifacts for the UX analysis (72 findings, 25 recommendations), presentation decks and research boards.
- Claude in Chrome for browser testing, running Facebook ads and reading live numbers.
- Built on GitHub with automated tests on every change, Fly.io hosting with a Neon database, and WebRTC for the video.
02 –
Taking The Right Approach
Hosted the evenings myself, watched every round, and read the logs afterwards to see exactly where guests got stuck: at the door, on their dates, or after the evening ended.
An evening in four steps: gather, rotate, rate, match
The home page now leads with one action: reserve a free place
Followed every guest from sign-up to a second evening and found the biggest drop-off: of 762 people who had signed up, only 186 had reserved a place.
The home page asked for an email and promised an invite, with no way to book. I made Reserve a free place the main action, showed the date of the next evening, and carried sign-up details straight into the booking form.
The welcome email now names the next evening and offers a place with one button, instead of asking people to wait for an invite.
Designed the booking page around a balanced room: separate places for women and men, a waitlist, and pairing by the ages each guest says they want to meet.
When the host adds places, people on the waitlist are moved up and emailed straight away, so nobody has to manage the list by hand.
Upcoming evenings, with places for women and men and a waitlist
After each date, a private yes or no. Contact details are only swapped when both say yes.
Designed the guest side of the evening around comfort and privacy.
Between dates, guests wait in small rooms of up to six people from their own area and age group instead of one big crowd.
After every date each person privately says yes or no. Nobody learns about a no, and a yes is only shared when it is mutual.
A Report button on every date ends it at once, and the two people are never paired with each other again.
Designed the host tools so one person can run an evening of 60 guests. The next round is drafted automatically, each pair shows why it fits, the host can swap seats or choose someone’s next date, and nobody meets the same person twice, even across evenings.
Host panel during a practice evening with sample guests
03 –
Final Results
7:30 Dating is live at 730dating.com. More than 760 people signed up in the first month, most of them in North and South Carolina.
On 6 October, 63 guests came to one evening and had 199 dates between them, and 18 left with a mutual match.
Of the people whose first evening was 6 October, 22% came back for another within two weeks. The data also showed that guests who got no dates never came back, which made fair pairing the top priority.
Home page
Holding area and private yes or no