Rarely do we talk business on our blog, because quite frankly, most business talk has the effect of an Ambien cocktail during an overseas flight. Yet along with building amazing fraternity and sorority websites over the past few months, we’ve had the pleasure of working with one of the greatest companies in Silicon Valley, and they deserve a shout.
That company is WePay, and if you haven’t heard of them yet (gasp!), WePay helps groups collect money online. It’s that simple. (Click here to see how easy it really is.)
Alright, back to my story. In one word, WePay is “phenomenal.” And I’m not just labeling their product, their team, or the customer service. I’m talking about surpassing expectations in everything they do. Here are a few examples to back up my stance (in no particular order):
1) They spend more time working for their customers than Kanye spends talking about how awesome he is. For anyone that has followed Kanye at all, you’ll know how hard they must be working to accomplish this feat.
2) Instead of building a company culture, they live one. Bill and Rich (founders) are the exact same people in and out of the office, which sets the tone for the rest of their team. For example, I was working from their office one day, minding my own business, when suddenly the silence was broken by hideous techno and Rich doing the bump dance while “air spanking.” He looked like this… (Click here). Though still scarred by the image of Rich’s gyrations, every one on the WePay team had a smile from ear to ear. They love their jobs.
3) It takes a lot to run a business. Spearheading and funding killer events like Jason Putorti’s (lead designer for Mint.com) “Design for non-designers” in front of hundreds of entrepreneurs is so far beyond the call of duty, words can’t describe.
4) While dreaming up a business idea is simple, executing a billion dollar (with a B) vision in the time that they have, all while never letting the importance of their customers slip from their #1 priority, is heroic. WePay has never taken their eyes off of the customer.
5) This is the most important one. Charity. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen WePay employees tweeting about various charitable fundraisers online. Granted, they’re using WePay, but charities are not even close to their number one target and they make more noise about them than any other group.
A personal example: Our chief blogger and the head of our Being Awesome Department, Spenser, recently ran a marathon for his 26th birthday. In conjunction, he raised over $17,000 for Haiti relief using WePay. Not only was the fundraising successful, but Rich was kind enough to waive all the fees for it, as well as dropping in a donation on behalf of WePay unsolicited. Bravo, WePay.
This list is not nearly as exhaustive as it could be, but it’s for reasons like these that Webgreek has choosen to work with these guys over everyone else in the market (our WePay app is launching next month, stay tuned!) Not to mention they (we’ll) save Fraternities and Sororities thousands of dollars a year when compared to every other billing service in the space.
WePay walks the walk, while letting others talk for them. Other startups should aspire to do the same.
If you’re not already using WePay to collect dues, money for rush t-shirts, charitable donations, or to sell tickets, do yourself a favor and visit WePay.com right now. Signup takes less than a minute, you’ll save your chapter thousands, and the WePay team will have your back. The choice is easy.
Too bad wePay doesn’t have a system set-up to collect from non paying members(collection agency). Probably why they are so cheap. So for now most greek based organizations have to collect with programs such as OmegaFi. Would be awesome if so.
Hey Mitchell,
That’s a great point, and we agree agree with you! It would be nice if WePay had collections and perhaps they will in the future. That aside, I am very curious to hear your thoughts on the following points:
1. There are a ton of transactions that really don’t warrant collections… rush t-shirts, retreats, im sports, fundraisers, special events, etc. WePay makes it quick, easy, and WAY less expensive.
2. WebGreek allows chapters to continue using their existing billing partner (Omega, etc) alongside WePay, so if they want collections, by all means, they can use them. We did this because we completely agree with you; there is definitely still a need for these services.
3. Chapters can use WePay for making money too, which you really can’t do with those other services. All WebGreek chapters can now sell tickets, collect donations, and manage fundraising campaigns on their websites, Facebook, and Twitter. We hope to triple or quadruple our chapters’ ability to make money. This is a HUGE advantage for our chapters.
4. With WePay, you can still send members to collections, albeit individually, but you won’t have to pay the premium for everyone…only those that need it. Some chapter’s spend 10′s of thousands of dollars a year for their billing service, when in the end, they would have saved tons of $$$ using WePay by simply sending the very few individuals that defaulted, to collections.
5. It’s yet to be determined, but it will be very interesting to see what the social pressure of every chapter member being able to see who is behind on their payments will do to deter members from not paying. That said, we give the chapter the ability to make this information transparent OR private. When we have more data on this, I’ll be sure to let you know.
In the end, I really believe that having both options available makes the most sense because some chapters definitely need a safety net, like collections, to ensure they don’t go under water. But then again, there are others that would benefit from a more lightweight, less expensive solution. I think it really depends on the chapter, which is why we decided to give them a choice.
What do you think? Can you foresee chapters using an Omega style solution for big ticket items (rent, yearly dues, etc) alongside a WePay style app?
I look forward to your thoughts.