If you've only got 30 days to get this site up to speed, you'll want to do something big. Do something outrageous, then submit a press release. Get all of your friends to create accounts and post "just for fun," and then claim in the press release that this is the next big thing.
This advice in pretty generic, I know. What I'm trying to say is that you want to see growth similar to the million dollar home page or the ebay add where someone sold advertising space on his head for a month and it took off. In both of these cases the concept was not particularly novel or even useful, but the media caught on because it was interesting and the ROI for advertisers in both cases was much higher than it would have been on its own (how many people would normally see a forehead in a month?). Basically, a dating advice site can't stand on its own feet after only 30 days, but if you create a story that the media loves then you should see exponential growth.
I feel ya... and yeah, I'm giving myself roughly 30 days in regard to how much attention and funds I drop into the site. If after 30 days there is decent growth but it can't self sustain yet, I'm not going to cut my losses quite so soon and will move forward another 30 days.
However, there is a tipping point where this project will get pushed to the backburner if up-take just isn't happening. Mostly because I need to focus on income generation (finding more freelance work) so I don't have to take a desk job. :)
This advice in pretty generic, I know. What I'm trying to say is that you want to see growth similar to the million dollar home page or the ebay add where someone sold advertising space on his head for a month and it took off. In both of these cases the concept was not particularly novel or even useful, but the media caught on because it was interesting and the ROI for advertisers in both cases was much higher than it would have been on its own (how many people would normally see a forehead in a month?). Basically, a dating advice site can't stand on its own feet after only 30 days, but if you create a story that the media loves then you should see exponential growth.