Niche Brings Data to Market, Launching a New Product in Three Months and Capturing 5x ROI

By Ryan Bell, Senior Principal, Strategy & Product at Niche

Having too much data might sound like a champagne problem, but the real stumbling block comes at the next step: turning that data into a valuable consumer product.

Niche, an online platform that helps students and families discover and connect with educational institutions at all levels, gained a leg up by finding the right analytics partner.

Turning Data Into a Viable Product

Niche supports over 3,000 schools and colleges with enrollment marketing so institutions can identify their ideal students and families and market to them effectively. About 55% of all U.S. college-bound students use Niche, providing all sorts of high-intent signals. In 2024, we conducted extensive market research to explore how that data could add value for our partners, and discovered an opportunity to create a new product line that would address customer pain points and generate a new revenue stream.

Our team had a wealth of experience working with colleges and universities and understood that we could use the data from our platform to drive better, more strategically-aligned enrollment marketing outcomes for our clients. Still, several obstacles stood in our way:

1. We needed to meet a high usability standard and elevate the product experience beyond a static report.

2. Whatever we built had to fall within a cost-effective timeline that made sense for our business.

3. Niche’s internal resources and expertise weren’t available to meet these demands within the desired time frame.

We saw this as an opportunity to level up our reporting capabilities. Although Niche has long provided reporting for our products, they have primarily been static and supplemental to the product itself. We have data engineers who build Tableau dashboards for internal use, but creating external-facing dashboards as a standalone product is a different beast. It was time to find a partner who could support our Tableau development and engineering journey and bring our product idea to market.

Finding Expertise and Experience in One Package

When exploring our options, several things led us to DataDrive:

• Our head of data engineering had an existing relationship with DataDrive’s CEO, and we thought it would be helpful to start with a positive rapport.

• Our Tableau rep recommended DataDrive for their expertise in Tableau and Snowflake, which we also use. Instead of just having powerful visualizations in a dashboard, we wanted a robust interactive experience that could solve specific customer questions through foundational tech we could easily scale. It was a tall order, but DataDrive’s fractional data team's experience with building embedded analytics products would help us get there.

• Most importantly, the DataDrive team was incredibly interested in our business. Instead of trying to win the contract by meeting minimum requirements, they wanted to build a product we would be excited to take to market.

• DataDrive also had experience working with customers in the education space, which I didn’t see from other vendors. Understanding our end user, who appreciates the importance of data but may not have an analytics background, meant DataDrive could create something that wasn’t intimidating for people to use.

“Instead of just having powerful visualizations in a dashboard, we wanted a robust interactive experience that could solve specific customer questions through foundational tech we could easily scale. DataDrive would help us get there.”

Launching Within Months, Achieving ROI Within a Year

We knew we’d made the right choice based on our experience during the development process. Because they understood our goals, the DataDrive team wasn’t afraid to push back on some of our previous assumptions. Hearing them question our ideas gave us a fresh perspective, and we used that feedback to make tweaks and improvements.

From the start, they felt like an extension of our team. Our working relationship was collaborative and flexible, and when we needed DataDrive to carry more of the project, they pulled additional resources from their fractional data team. If we wanted to push for a release ahead of a big event, DataDrive ramped up their efforts to accommodate. It was very productive, and we always felt supported.

Within three months of signing the contract with DataDrive, we launched Niche’s first SaaS data product, Market Intelligence, which provides enrollment management offices with real-time data insights on how to optimize their recruitment strategies. We quickly engaged about two dozen customers, booking nearly $500,000 in new revenue within the first year. Seeing how quickly we could get a high-quality product to market was exciting, especially given our limited internal resources.

“Within three months of signing the contract with DataDrive, we launched Market Intelligence and shared it with our customers. The speed to market resulted in us quickly engaging about two dozen customers, booking close to $500,000 in new revenue.”

Then there’s the expected future ROI. It often takes more than a year to see a return on the initial upfront cost of building a SaaS product. With Market Intelligence, we expect to recoup our total spend with DataDrive well within 12 months.

And because we built our new product to scale, we have a clear roadmap for the path ahead. DataDrive's solid technological foundation allows every new release to be an iterative development, rather than a complete overhaul.

A Partnership With Compounding Value

By collaborating with DataDrive, we’ve developed a repeatable model of turning internal data into new SaaS revenue streams that deliver incredible value to our customers.

Their data engineering experience enables them to speak the same language as our internal data engineers, hastening collaboration and results. Our internal team is stronger thanks to their education and resources, and we continue to rely on their advice. For example, they put together a complete tutorial that walked us through what to do if we need to deploy independently or make changes. From answering our questions on Slack to celebrating our first Market Intelligence sale to planning our next feature set, the DataDrive team has been right by our side.

To any company wondering how to build a data product to solve real customer problems, quickly and at scale, DataDrive can offer clarity. They’re now our go-to partner, ensuring every new feature on the roadmap builds on this foundational technology, providing Niche with an ongoing revenue stream with compounding value.