A working alumni portal that turned into a product
AlumDeck was not designed in a workshop with sticky notes on a wall. It was built to solve one institution's problem, used in anger for a while, and then generalised into something anyone can install. That order explains most of the decisions on this site.
AlumDeck is new. There are no customer logos on this page because we do not have any yet, and borrowing somebody else's would be the fastest way to lose your trust.
Built first, sold second
The starting point was an ordinary problem that alumni offices everywhere will recognise.
An institution wanted an alumni site. It had a list of graduates spread across a spreadsheet, an old register and a messaging group, a committee of volunteers, and a budget that would not survive a monthly subscription. The quotes it received were priced for universities with development offices and a full-time database administrator, which it did not have and was never going to have.
So the portal got built. A directory with proper search, registration that a human approves, events with capacity limits, a giving page, news, galleries, a committee page, mentoring. Ordinary requirements, but requirements that had to work with volunteers running them and shared hosting underneath.
The second and third times someone asked for the same thing, it became obvious that the specific version was worth turning into a general one. AlumDeck is that: the same software with the institution-specific parts pulled out, an installer added so it goes onto anyone's hosting, and an admin panel over the settings that used to be edited in code.
Why that history matters to you
It means the module list is not a wish list. Every module exists because someone needed it while running an alumni programme, which is also why there is no module for anything glamorous. It also means the awkward parts, like verifying that a registration is really a graduate, were solved for real people rather than sketched for a demo.
The choices that set the price
Everything about how AlumDeck is sold follows from three decisions, and each one has a cost we would rather you knew about now.
Sold direct, not on a marketplace
Script marketplaces take a large cut and push sellers to split features into paid add-ons to make the maths work. Selling from our own site is why every module fits in one $49 licence with no add-on store. The cost to you is that we have no marketplace review count to point at, so you are trusting the product rather than a rating.
One payment, not a subscription
Alumni programmes are funded in fits and starts, and a monthly fee is the thing that kills them in year two. So it is one payment per installation, with a year of updates and support included. The cost is that we do not have recurring revenue smoothing our year, so we have to keep earning renewals with actual work.
Self-hosted, not a cloud service
Your alumni data sits in your database, on your server, in your jurisdiction, and nothing about it reaches us. The cost is that the server is yours to look after. Backups, security patches and the day the host has an outage are all your responsibility, and for some institutions that is reason enough to buy hosted software instead.
Where we are today
This is a new product from a small operation. Here is exactly what that means, so nothing on this site is a surprise later.
- The software is at version 1.0, and every module described on this site is in it.
- There are no customers to name, no testimonials and no case studies. When there are, they will be real and named with permission.
- There is no public live demo. What exists is a screenshot tour taken from a running install with real content, and no demo logins are published anywhere.
- Checkout is not open yet. Buy buttons take you to the pricing page, where you can leave an email address and be told the day it opens.
- The documentation is being written alongside the first release, and the unfinished parts are listed as unfinished rather than linked to empty pages.
- Support is email, from the people who wrote the code. There is no phone number and no account manager.
None of that will read as impressive next to a vendor with a logo wall. It is, however, checkable, and every one of those statements will still be true when you go looking.
What we will and will not do
We will
- Publish the price, in public, in a number
- Ship the full source code, not encoded
- Answer support email as a person, not a macro
- Say when a competitor is the better fit for you
- Write down every release on the changelog
- Keep your data out of our hands entirely
We will not
- Invent customers, reviews or star ratings
- Hold features back to sell them as add-ons
- Add a kill switch or a licence check that phones home to load a page
- Quote a competitor's private price as if it were published
- Promise a cloud version we are not building
- Chase you for a renewal you do not need
We cannot yet
- Show you a customer list, because there is not one
- Give you a live demo login, because there is no public demo
- Take your money today, because checkout is still being finished
- Offer phone support or an account manager
- Run the server for you, or migrate you from another platform
- Point at a complete manual, because it is being written now
Judge it on the product, because that is all we are offering
A complete alumni portal on your own hosting, for one payment of $49 per installation, with unlimited members and a year of updates and support.
Questions we have not answered here? Email hello@alumdeck.com and a person will reply.