Ask HN: Is the Fraternity/Sorority market too niche? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is the Fraternity/Sorority market too niche?

7 pointsdeepkut11 comments

Greeks have specific needs that Facebook and other sites do not meet. CollegeACB had 900,000 hits its 2nd day, now its down.

Greeks are:

1. Predictable: If they purchase stuff for an event one year, they will the next 2. Bulk: Everything they purchase is for their entire house 3. Lucrative: At UPenn, the average budget is ~$125,000 a semester, and that's money each house MUST spend.

How many customers must spend that much money, in predictable ways, in bulk? So the question begs, do these pros outweigh the con, the size of the market?

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Devil's advocate checking in...

> Greeks have specific needs that Facebook and other sites do not meet.

Such as?

> At UPenn, the average budget is ~$125,000 a semester, and that's money each house MUST spend.

Perhaps, but what fraction of that do they spend on software, social networking or otherwise? A frat budget of $125K becomes less interesting if they spent $110K of that on Natty Light.

> CollegeACB had 900,000 hits its 2nd day, now its down.

I'm too old to have experienced it directly in school (thank God), but from what I can tell CollegeACB was basically an anonymous message board that got canned when the discussions (predictably, given the "anonymous" part) took a turn for the offensive. Another previous site that did the same thing, JuicyCampus, also failed in much the same way.

But neither of those sound like reasonable comparators to what you're talking about anyway, since (1) they were both targeted towards students in general rather than just towards Greeks, and (2) they were free, whereas you're talking about charging. So it's kind of a lose-lose comparison; if your product is like CollegeACB and JuicyCampus, it's likely to commit suicide via user-generated douchebaggery; if it ISN'T like them, those 900,000 hits don't really speak to the existence of a market for what you're selling.

> Greeks have specific needs that Facebook and other sites do not meet.

Online recruitment tools, online bill pay tools (LOTS of money here), Online chapter management tools (Email/SMS blasts, calendars, philanthropy hours tracking, event planning)

> At UPenn, the average budget is ~$125,000 a semester, and that's money each house MUST spend. > > Perhaps, but what fraction of that do they spend on software, social networking or otherwise? A frat budget of $125K becomes less interesting if they spent $110K of that on Natty Light.

Please don't fall prey to common stereotypes, not every dollar we collect goes to alcohol, in fact 0% of my chapters budget goes to alcohol. Also "Frat" has negative connotation, please refer to them as Fraternities.

> CollegeACB had 900,000 hits its 2nd day, now its down.

I never had and never will support CollegeACB/JuicyCampus type websites as all they are used for is spreading rumors and hate. Any idiot can throw up a copy-cat website in a few hours and slap ads on it to make a few bucks.

There is plenty of money to be made marketing to Fraternities and Sororities as most of the companies operating in this sector are are doing a horrible job and are years behind tech-wise. I would be happy to work with anyone who wants to write web apps for Greek's.

-Josh Strange University of Kentucky FIJI - Phi Gamma Delta

Press on!

I know that these guys do a large majority of Greek payments:

https://www.greekbill.com/

They're universally hated, although that might be hard to avoid as a thousands-of-dollars-per-semester bill collection service.

I think they also contract with the national organization of the fraternity, as opposed to each chapter house. Get in the contract that each chapter MUST use that service.

Not to mention their major technology issues... such as passing the Username and Password in plaintext in the URL when you log in.

Yes and there is also BillHighway which has signed almost ALL Sororities at the national level, OmegaFi, LegFi (Based in Lexington), and I'm sure there are a couple other that are less popular.

They all suck, majorly, we use LegFi and simple things like "I want to get an email when anything is charged to me" is not available and they don't store my CC info so I have to re-enter it each time, SMS support is non-existant even thought I wrote a standalone implementation of how it could work and offered to add it to their system FOR FREE... I never heard back. I was hoping that at least I could make the product suck less for my chapter but that wasn't even an option. I would love to start my own Greek dues collection company but can't take the time to build it out only to have to fight for scraps (As in I would have to sell it to each chapter). Note that the golden goose is that you get paid Yearly/Semesterly so it's the gift that keeps on giving. (We are talking $40-$60 PER member PER year/semester). Hit me up if you are interested.

I am Greek (FIJI at UK) and a web developer and there is a LOT of money to be made in the market. If you are interested in talking just email me Josh[at]JoshStrange[dot]com

Love how there are 3 Fijis in this thread (including myself)

Oh god, another Fiji checking in.

To contribute something of substance, my chapter was very technical (engineering school). We had our own website, servers, email listserv, shared google docs, etc.

However, when we visited a few other chapters they were universally amazed by our listserv. Many of them just had big mass email chains to do house business, or no email lists at all.

I imagine there are quite a few houses that have no such service internally but might be willing to pay for it externally.

The "fickle" comment mentioned earlier is legit though. Cabinet and house turnover can drastically change where the house budget is spent. That said, if you can lock down four years of service, it becomes "The Way Things Are Done", and it is usually very hard to change.

If you have some more questions (I'm a recent grad), my email is in my profile =)

It's not just too niche, it's too fickle.

Even if you sell Robert Hoover today, next year Pinto Kroger becomes president of Delta Tau Chi and you have to sell all over again.

Not to mention how do you compete with Costco on bulk?

You don't compete with Costco, you partnership with them.

It may be too niche if you are trying to build Twitter or Facebook, but I believe it is large enough to generate passive income +

Are you trying to do web app or physical product?

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