In a city working hard to shed its sooty roots and rebrand itself as a technology hub, new startups appear — and disappear — somewhat frequently in Pittsburgh. But some do stay the course and revolutionize their sector of the market, like locally-founded language-learning app Duolingo.
One frontrunner to potentially rise to Duolingo's level of success is Niche, which is headquartered where Polish Hill meets the Strip District. Niche is making waves and changing the way families choose schools, neighborhoods, and even places to work.
Initially founded in 2002 by CEO Luke Skurman, the company began as a series of print guidebooks on United States colleges. It has since grown into a large online resource that provides pertinent data about colleges, K-12 schools, neighborhoods, and companies.
“As a high school student I was fascinated with researching colleges and I dug through every resource I could find,” Skurman tells Pittsburgh City Paper, “but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was nothing out there that could help me understand what it was really like to attend each school.”
Skurman eventually did land at Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied entrepreneurship. Shortly after graduating, he founded the company that eventually became Niche, called College Prowler. The guidebooks College Prowler produced shared first-hand reviews and insights from actual students at each college, which was unique at the time.
“Choosing a college is an incredibly important decision — it is often one of the most expensive decisions of a person’s lifetime and it leads to lifelong friends and careers — it felt like there needed to be a better way to provide greater confidence in the overall process,” says Skurman. They were one of the first, Skurman says, to embrace user-generated content.
How Niche Works
Essentially, Niche incorporates data about schools, colleges, companies, and neighborhoods that comes directly from the entities themselves, as well as from publicly-available sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Education. That data is combined with actual user reviews to create a profile page for each school or entity, with information that spans from financial stats to a details on culture. Niche also provides comparison tools so users can see how various schools or places they’re interested in stack up against one another. Today, their website receives 70 million views per year and has over 140 million user reviews and ratings.
Niche is also known for its extensive rankings system. Colleges are ranked yearly not only for academic rigor, but by value, social attributes such as “best Greek life” or “top party schools,” for having the best athletic programs, professors, and even campus food. Users can also search for the top colleges for the area of study they aim to pursue.
Similarly, K-12 schools and neighborhoods have unique, annually-updated rankings that aim to help users find best fits based on factors that are most important to them.
In the Neighborhoods section of the site, users can look at clearly laid-out data on school districts, diversity, amenities, and more when seeking a place to call home. They can see what actual residents have to say about the area, or the school they might send their kids to, which has made Niche a popular tool for real estate agents, as well.
Beyond the numbers
Though Niche provides tools for K-12, job, and neighborhood seekers, the college search process is Niche’s bread and butter, and at this point, half of college-bound individuals have a Niche profile which allows them to peruse schools, build a list of those they’re interested in, and be guided through the application process.
Niche has leaned into social media, too. “Many of our high school users learn about the platform from their friends or on a recommendation from a school counselor,” Skurman tells City Paper. “We meet students where they are, so we engage a ton of our Gen Z users on social media like TikTok and Discord [@nichesocial on both platforms].” He adds that many families first learn about Niche from their real estate agents when they are relocating and seeking a community or school that meets their needs.
What does Niche bring to Pittsburgh?
With over 300 employees and growing, Niche is poised to play a large role in the edtech scene. As for the comparisons to Duolingo, another Carnegie Mellon brainchild, Skurman is happy to hear them. “It’s cool that Duolingo and Niche are both headquartered in Pittsburgh and neither is traditional ‘edtech,’ but both are in the education space. I think it’s fantastic that Duolingo is having the success that they’re having.”
Lawrenceville resident Linda Cheung is a senior software development project manager for Niche, and while she is local, she sees strength in the talent pool Niche is able to draw through a remote-first mentality. “This has benefitted us with a richer diversity of backgrounds, skills, and perspectives in our workforce. Our Pittsburgh headquarters serves as a great home base for our geographically diverse teams to come together and collaborate during various on-sites.”
Niche is also bringing new talent to the city. “I personally came to Pittsburgh to work in tech,” says Nate Bridi, who lives in Highland Park and is the vice president of design at the company. “Niche has been an incredible growth opportunity I don’t think I would have found anywhere else."
“We love that our platform supports people through many stages of their lives,” says Skurman. “From helping them decide where to go to college to researching where to live once they get their first job and, ultimately, supporting them in their school search once they have families of their own.”
Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify the Niche Direct Admissions program, specifying that students do not have to fill out any application materials.
