I did this the slow way across two cities, and it was worth the effort. Looking back, whether read status is shown consistently shapes the first fortnight more than anything. It kept showing up quite plainly across two completely different areas. Reasonable people disagree here ultimately, so treat this as a starting point.

I checked this against my own numbers with a couple of accounts, since nobody else seemed to have done it. On the numbers, how much of your social graph it wants is worth checking before you commit any time.

Practical things worth verifying early:

  • Whether you can see who viewed your profile
  • Look at whether you can hide a profile without deleting it — genuinely worth knowing up front.
  • Whether there is any verification step at all — surprisingly hard to find out in advance.
  • Ask whether the app pushes you to verify with ID — worth asking about before you invest time.
  • How the ranking treats a brand-new account — it matters more after the first month.

I came at this after wasting time on the wrong options without rushing it, and it reframed what I thought mattered. What kept coming up was the actual reply rate, which accounts for most of the variance I saw.