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

7 点作者 deepkut超过 13 年前
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?

5 条评论

smacktoward超过 13 年前
Devil's advocate checking in...<p>&#62; Greeks have specific needs that Facebook and other sites do not meet.<p>Such as?<p>&#62; At UPenn, the average budget is ~$125,000 a semester, and that's money each house MUST spend.<p>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.<p>&#62; CollegeACB had 900,000 hits its 2nd day, now its down.<p>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.<p>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.
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pkamb超过 13 年前
I know that these guys do a large majority of Greek payments:<p><a href="https://www.greekbill.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.greekbill.com/</a><p>They're universally hated, although that might be hard to avoid as a thousands-of-dollars-per-semester bill collection service.<p>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.<p>Not to mention their major technology issues... such as passing the Username and Password in plaintext in the URL when you log in.
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joshstrange超过 13 年前
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
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brudgers超过 13 年前
It's not just too niche, it's too fickle.<p>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.<p>Not to mention how do you compete with Costco on bulk?
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ariabov超过 13 年前
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 +<p>Are you trying to do web app or physical product?