
Ask HN: Is the Fraternity/Sorority market too niche? - deepkut
Greeks have specific needs that Facebook and other sites do not meet. CollegeACB had 900,000 hits its 2nd day, now its down.<p>Greeks are:<p>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.<p>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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smacktoward
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.

~~~
joshstrange
> 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

~~~
carlsednaoui
Press on!

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pkamb
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.

~~~
joshstrange
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.

------
joshstrange
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

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

~~~
polyfractal
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
=)

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brudgers
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?

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

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ariabov
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?

