Smarthlete is Now Called College Pipe
When we first set out, starting to develop our recruiting platform, we needed a name, well aware of the fact that pivoting along the way might require a different name at some point down the road. Smarthlete was first developed as a SaaS matching platform, created purely for athletes and college coaches. With the insights gained that many athletes will always require a certain level of support with elements of the recruiting process (athletes asked us for our support), we started aiding prospective student athletes in various sports and we quickly realized: we need digital solutions, rather than the prevalent very traditional and outdated “Excel & pen-and-paper approach”.The software grew bigger, better and more geared towards the needs of college counselors. With that said: we were not only serving consumers all of a sudden, but also companies who worked with prospective student athletes in one capacity or the other. What were we looking for? C - Stand-alone letter representative of “College”, easy to spot as favicon, mobile App logo. Pipe - Pipeline of recruits to screen amongst (for coaches), pipeline of athletes you are about to place and process through our system (recruiting services), pipeline of schools to research and pick from (athletes). Light Blue - Among the favorite colors in North America and Europe. Represents patience, trustworthiness and reliability, but also youth. Our platform symbolizes smooth operations, giving an idea about the efficient / productivity-increasing nature of our digital solutions. Announcing a new Chapter:
Introducing "College Pipe", our Dedicated Platform Within College Recruitment
We are beyond excited to introduce our new name, logo, color theme, as well as website.As our company has been growing and evolving throughout the past years, we have understood that the introduction of a new name & brand was a necessary step and yet another one into an exciting future for our company.While we are happy to finally unveil “College Pipe”, we are quick to add that our old name “Smarthlete” will continue to live on as a brand, including a separate website - a logical step for us and our customers, as we are splitting up our two very different business areas.Smarthlete's Journey to Date
The Rebranding
With a name that has been used for very different purposes and customer groups (athletes, college coaches and organizations), the increasing relevance of our software solutions for businesses both in the U.S. and around the world, made us understand that we wanted to introduce a split between our Tech solutions and our Service solutions.With a well-established name among consumers (athletes), the name Smarthlete was to stay for our Service area to continue building on our efforts in the market.However, we wanted to get a fresh name and look, which would make us fit for growth and at the same time, offer a clear line of demarcation to the users we don’t engage with in terms of offering (non-tech) Services.
Meet College Pipe
First and foremost, a name which didn’t require typing or spelling it out when asked about.
Second, while we do also find beauty in the (wrongly read) name “Smartathlete”, it was a constant reminder that we better find a name that leaves little to no room for confusion.
Thirdly, as our product has evolved and we are not only “college sports” any longer, we wanted this to be reflected by choosing a more generic name.
Finally, the tech side of things should come out more strongly than has been the case before.
We have worked hard on attempting to accomplish the above, running through various options and visual variations before arriving at College Pipe, accessible at collegepipe.com.
Some aspects we hope our new name and logo illustrate:
What Does This Mean for you?
The new name, logo, and website won't change anything about the company’s operations or nature, and it won't have any impact whatsoever on our current relationships with our users, clients, customers & partners.- If you have been a user (athlete or college coach) with an account on my.smarthlete.com, you will be logging on through app.collegepipe.com going forward
- If you have been a client of ours (athlete), getting support by a dedicated recruiting expert / college counselor, nothing changes at all and we continue to be “Smarthlete” for you. We’ll continue wearing our “Smarthlete” T-shirts and hoodies and our email addresses remain the same
- If you have been an administrator, manager, company owner (recruiting service, event organizer, club team, academy), nothing changes for the majority of you, but we’ll happily walk you through in 1-on-1 (demo) sessions as always.
Our Vision for the Future
“Redefining the College Sports Recruiting Process” holds true more than ever before, now also backed up by the right brand and website setup.We continue our journey of providing smart features for athletes & college coaches alike, which helps them identify whether there’s a potential good match.
We continue our journey of developing software solutions for organizations, representing an “Operating System for College Sports Recruiting”.
We continue our journey of listening very closely to our users and customers, who we consider valued partners of ours.We continue to fill our pipeline of exciting new features and develop smart software solutions: built in-house, bottom-up, used by Smarthlete for our work with athletes.
The world of college sports, college sports recruiting and sports / sportstech overall is incredibly dynamic at the moment, with lots of structural changes happening.
We feel that the timing of our name change is just right and we are excited to be part of this dynamic industry with College Pipe.
We invite you to have a look at our new website at collegepipe.com and welcome any feedback you may want to share with us.
In the upcoming weeks, there will be changes to our identity, website, social media platforms, and our new visual brand signature.
To see updates on our progress, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.
