3,000 followers.
I thought reaching this number would make me happy. It didn't. To be honest, after almost 10 months of DanceNetwork, I probably have more questions than answers.
The whole project started because of my son. He dances competitively and had always danced with a partner. Then that partnership ended, and we had to start looking for someone new.
It took seven months.
Seven months of asking coaches, checking Instagram, looking through stories, talking to clubs and parents, hearing about someone who might be looking, writing to them, waiting, and trying again.
And I should probably mention something important here: I don't dance. I'm just a dad. Not that long ago, I was still learning how to tell Cha Cha from Jive.
But you don't need to be a dancer to see when something doesn't work.
Finding a dance partner was much harder than I expected. Information was everywhere and nowhere at the same time: Instagram stories, WhatsApp groups, coaches, clubs, friends of friends. There wasn't one normal place where you could simply say: this is me, this is how I dance, and this is who I'm looking for.
So I built one.
That's how DanceNetwork started.
Almost 10 Months Later
Today, DanceNetwork has 3,000 followers, and around 460 partner search profiles have been submitted. The project has also grown beyond partner search. There are competitions, clubs, dresses and other things I'm slowly adding because I keep seeing the same problem: useful information in dancesport is often unnecessarily difficult to find.
There were no investors behind any of this. No advertising budget. Mostly just a lot of evenings, weekends and very late nights.
And this is probably where my frustration comes from.
Out of those roughly 460 partner profiles, I can remember maybe five people who came back and simply said:
Thank you.
Five.
I'm not saying that everyone owes me a thank-you. They don't. I decided to build DanceNetwork, I decided to make it free, and nobody asked me to spend my evenings doing this.
But after a while, you start wondering:
Is this actually helping anyone?
Sometimes someone finds a partner and I only discover it by accident. Sometimes a profile becomes inactive and I never know what happened. Some people find a partner but don't even want us to say publicly that the search was successful.
And that's okay. But from my side, it means I often have absolutely no idea whether all this work actually changed anything for someone.
And Right Now, It's the Middle of the Night
In a few hours I have to get up because we have another dance competition. I need to get the kids ready, pack everything, get in the car and do all the normal things dance parents know very well.
I should definitely be sleeping.
Instead, I'm sitting here writing this.
And one slightly uncomfortable thought keeps coming back to me:
You don't forget to pay for private lessons, do you?
We remember the lessons, competition entry fees, dresses, shoes, camps, hotels and travel. Because all those things have a price.
DanceNetwork doesn't.
Maybe that's part of the problem. When something is free, it's very easy to use it, close the page and move on.
And again, this isn't really about needing someone to say "thank you." It's about knowing that the hours I put into this are useful to somebody on the other side of the screen.
So About Those 3,000 Followers...
I don't really want congratulations. I'd rather know something else.
Has DanceNetwork ever actually helped you?
Did you find a partner? Did someone contact you because they saw your profile? Did you discover a competition you didn't know about, find a club, sell a dress, or simply find some information you needed?
If any of that happened, tell me. A short message is enough.
Because after almost 10 months, 3,000 followers and hundreds of profiles, that's the number I actually care about.
Not how many people follow DanceNetwork.
How many people has DanceNetwork actually helped?
And if you really read all the way to here — thank you.
Although it's almost 1 a.m. while I'm writing this, and part of me still thinks nobody will.