The upside of dating app bootstrapping is that it's an inherently local phenomenon. People want to meet people near them, which means you can gain traction one locale at a time. Maybe some kind of promotion where you cut deals with some local bars or restaurants to get some kind of discount / freebie if you match with someone (with the implication being that they'll use it for the date). Still takes capital, just not "nation-wide aggressive advertising push" levels of capital.
Nationwide is much easier in countries with a large primacy index, for example Thailand where Bangkok has 9x the population of Thailand’s second largest city, and Moscow where it has 4x the population of St Petersburg.
Everybody is nearby when you have subway trains connecting half the people in your country together in under an hour.
