We usually think of geeks, techies, product developers et al as being glued 24/7 to their computer screens, but they actually, every once in a while, socialise OFFline and gather to drink beers and eat pizzas.
Meetup.com, a NYC start-up, has become an offline social networking success story. Founded during the dotcom boom era, it has grown to a 9.5 million member strong international community (across 45,000 cities!). Up to tens of thousands of people gather every day to discuss potentially any subject, obviously fulfilling a need for more human, more life, more physical interactions. But with more than 300 Meetups on just “entrepreneurship” and “start-ups” in London, how can you differentiate your meet-up? And how do you select the right one?
I am very fortunate to be a modest contributor to the London entrepreneurial scene through Flagons Den, a Meetup group founded by Jay last January. Here are a few thoughts I’d like to share with you.
Your Meetup is your Members: For an event organizer, members are everything. They reflect yourself and the way your appeal to them, the way you recruited them. And they will also be the essence of your meet-up. You can clearly judge a meet-up by its attendees. For instance, FlagonsDen’ members: the Flagons, are a really cool bunch of start-up founders in any sector (mainly tech though), who like to change the world and drink ale. There are currently 495 Flagons and they rock!
Pitch-practice: Everyone -yes, everyone- has great business ideas in their heads, but either because of fear or shyness, people refuse or delay their throwing of an idea into the real world. These people should be encouraged to be bold. Pitching in front of 40 people, from concept to prototype, and getting constructive feedback are all invaluable and an amazing time-savers for the ‘pitcher.’ For the attendees, it is inspiring, stimulating, and a good mental exercise.
The importance of diversifying: Listen to your members as they will surprise you! You will find great benefits in occasionally diversifying your meet-ups in terms of subject nature and scale. Keep your members stimulated and entertained. FlagonsDen organised an event on grant-funding with TSB (Technology Strategy Board) after hearing a growing interest amongst the Flagons. Flagons Den also organised a Demo Day at the Innovation Warehouse, where 15 start-ups took to a table, brought devices and demo-ed to 130+ people, got feedback and even sign-ups.
The varying scale of events also allows different levels of interaction, which happen to be very fruitful.
Build a community: I guess the ultimate goal of a meet-up is learning. Your meet-up will, 90% of the time, naturally split itself between core members and the more infrequent members. So count on your core members to interact and produce knowledge and don’t hesitate to ask them questions or share knowledge. After the meet-up the relationship almost always continues online.
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