Recently, I announced SolSistr, a platform that I have been building since October 2024 that organizes sorority recruitment data into a unified system, enabling chapters to manage and enhance their recruitment process through the power of AI.
While I shared the business motivation and launch story on LinkedIn, I wanted to write a technical reflection for those interested in the engineering side of building a SaaS from scratch.
In the following series of posts, I will cover:
- Tech stack overview: Why I chose these tools and frameworks.
- Main Features: Integral pieces of the puzzle.
- Pitfalls I encountered: What broke, what was harder than expected, and what I would do differently.
- Lessons learned: For anyone looking to build and ship their own SaaS.
I hope to document the major wins and setbacks I’ve encountered during this development journey and share advice for others on a similar path.
An Overview of How Sorority Recruitment Works
Sorority recruitment is a multi-day process in which chapters meet with Potential New Members (PNMs) across several rounds/days in order to narrow down a pool of people to extend bids (offers to join the sorority) to those who are determined to best align with a chapter's values and culture. Each round typically involves structured social events where members and PNMs engage in conversations to give the members a better idea on where the PNMs' values and character lie while giving the PNMs' a sense of the chapter’s culture and community.
To manage these interactions, chapters use bump groups, or small teams of members who "bump" each other in and out of conversations with PNMs during a party, which is a slot in which PNMs are assigned to talk to a certain sorority. This allows the PNM to speak with several members in a short time while ensuring their conversations are flowing naturally and don't become stale. For example, a member may talk to a PNM for a few minutes before seamlessly passing them to another member and picking up another PNM that has been passed to them, allowing the chapter gather multiple opinions on each PNM that comes through.
PNMs are matched to these bump groups based in shared interest, hometown, intended major or other points of connection that they share with member's of the bump group that can help create an initial state of relatability in the conversation. Throughout recruitment, chapters track conversations by rating their interactions to whittle their pool of PNMs as they approach bid day.
The Problem I Wanted to Solve
During the 2024 sorority recruitment cycle, my girlfriend took on the role of recruitment analyst for her sorority. While I knew recruitment was a complicated and stressful process for everyone involved, I had no clue how things truly were. She described pulling data from multiple spreadsheets to cross-check PNM information, manually assigning bump groups, and consolidating notes from dozens of chapter members after each party. Even small updates like changing a PNM’s hometown required digging through scattered tabs and group chats, creating constant opportunities for errors and frustration during an already high stress week.
Despite all this effort, chapter members often went into conversations with little more than basic cue cards listing a PNM’s hometown and intended major. Matching PNMs with bump groups was often based on vague similarities like “they're both from Tennessee” rather than any meaningful or structured criteria. The entire system was put together with good intentions, but, in my opinion, it lacked the tools needed to support thoughtful, scalable recruitment decisions.
At the time of this post, SolSistr is still in the late stages of development so some of the features are subject to change, but the key components I wanted to focus on are:
- Profile Management: Allows chapters to view and rate profiles in a structured format.
- Member Dashboard: An organized overview of all of the PNM's a sorority member is set to speak with in a given round, including their similarity to each PNM, AI generated conversation starters and required action reminders to comment on their profile after having spoken to them.
- Bump Group Management: A custom built drag-and-drop component where users can organize members/PNMs into different bump groups.
- PNM rating form: A way for sorority members to jot down their thoughts on a PNM while it is fresh on their mind
- Admin Tools: A centralized hub for sorority administrators to view PNM ratings, set each round's schedule and invite
Profile Management
This page displays the general view of a user profile, with some subtle differences between PNM and member accounts. All users can upload gallery images and list their interests, while PNMs have an additional comments section under their profiles. Sorority admins can view all comments left on a PNM’s profile, whereas chapter members can only see the comments they personally submitted. This design ensures that individual opinions remain independent, preventing overall comment sentiment from influencing a member’s perspective when rating a PNM.
Member Dashboard
This is the member dashboard where chapter members can view the bump group that they have been assigned to along with its PNM assignments. These assignments are separated into party views so members can organize their talking assignments by what time of the day they will occur and in which order. There is also a user required action task bar which reminds members if they have been assigned a PNM to talk to and have yet to leave a comment under their profile in the current round.
Here is a detailed view of a PNM profile within the party assignments dropdown on the member dashboard. This component sends an API call to the Flask backend to break down the exact reasons behind the similarity score, providing a clear breakdown of interest, major, and hometown similarity contributions. Additionally, it leverages the OpenAI API (using GPT-4o) to generate personalized conversation starters and provide a natural language overview explaining the main factors contributing to the similarity score, providing chapter members flash-cards to prepare for meaningful interactions during recruitment.
PNM Rating Form
This image shows the PNM rating form that appears in the comments section of a PNM’s profile for chapter members. This form allows members to quickly record their impressions and notes immediately after an interaction, getting rid of the need to remember details and manually enter them into a spreadsheet later.
Admin Tools
The images above show the club configuration page, a dashboard available to chapter admins for managing recruitment operations. From this page, admins can control the total number of rounds (and progress to the next round when needed), manage sorority join requests, share a club join link or generate a QR code, and access a centralized area to assign PNMs to specific parties. They can also mark PNMs as cut or active and view all current comments under each PNM’s profile in one place. This page also allows the admin to export all of their club data to an organized excel spreadsheet in order to fit into their current workflow if needed.
Here you can see the PNM Matcher screen, which allows chapter admins to assign PNMs to specific bump groups and parties with a custom-built drag-and-drop interface. On the Club Configuration screen, Admins can specify which party each PNM will be visiting in, enabling the Auto-Assign algorithm to automatically match and balance bump group assignments across parties. If no party is specified for a PNM, that user remains available for assignment to any bump group in any party. I also created a sister page to this one that allows the user to define the bump group members in the same drag-and-drop interface.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for my next post regarding the tech-stack breakdown and backend logic for SolSistr. -Evan
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