I've seen a couple things about pictures, so I'll give a little bit of advice: remember your angles. When I was still on dating apps, a LOT of guys it seems take selfies either a) from below (holding your camera lower than your face, mostly at like boob height or lower) or b) in a mirror. Neither of these are your best angles and probably make you look less attractive than you actually are. Try taking selfies from at least eye height, or higher. If you do get a tripod/stand, when you're taking pictures with it, make sure it's elevated from you if at all possible, so it's higher up than you are, and looking down on you when you take the picture with it. Again, taking a picture with the camera being lower than you will not give great angles (especially if you're a little chubby (like me), this is just begging for extra chins in pics, lol).
And yeah, a harsh reality of dating apps is that there are a TON more guys on them than there are girls. So you're going to have to expect a competition, unfortunately. But honestly, just be yourself and don't try to use cheesy lines or try to be someone you're not, and you'll get much farther. Also! When you're going on dates and you are going to insist on paying for everything, a low-key first date - like coffee or a beer - is probably better on your wallet when you're just starting to suss out if you're actually physically into each other (EDIT: haha, Doober beat me too this). Don't try to do extravagant dinners/dates every first date. Honestly, you shouldn't start doing more extravagant dates until you actually know that you're into each other and maybe want to commit to exclusively dating each other.
Anyway, you can take or leave this, but I used dating apps for about a year (started out as just looking exclusively for casual relationships, but my now-husband ended up changing my mind on that, lol) - and actually got married to someone I met on Tinder.