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IndieHackers event organizers: what's your #1 advice for people who want to organize their first meetup?

Hey folks,

I have a podcast about marketing called Everyone Hates Marketers and I'd like to let folks in the community organize their own meetups around the World.

What's your #1 advice for people who want to organize their first meetup?

@csallen,

I dig the way you're letting folks in your community organize meetups. What would you advise me to do to get started?

Thanks,

Louis

  1. 5
    • Plan in advance
    • start small
    • focus on serving and helping the people who do show up
    • if others are organizing events, make sure they have the right intentions
    1. 1

      Thanks!! I hope you don't mind if I have some follow-up questions:

      • Plan in advance, but what exactly?
      • How did you handle the promotion of the first meetup?
      1. 4

        Have an idea of what the event will be and start promoting 1-2 months in advance. You won't always need this much time for a meetup, but as a first one I personally find it easier to not feel so rushed with it all (which can then lead to a panic if people don't sign up).

        Normally I would opt for Meetup.com to start something. It's a bit annoying and dated, but it's useful to attract initial members. And then, probably more powerful than meetup would be your own network, email list, podcast, etc.

      2. 2

        This post is a great experience tale of a first meetup:https://www.indiehackers.com/post/3073d11f35

  2. 4

    I wrote my advice for starting a meetup here: https://makermag.com/2019/03/18/growing-an-indie-hackers-meetup/

    From my experience with indiebeers.co, I'd suggest:

    My #1 advice would be a very common YC trope for starting anything: Do Things That Don't Scale.

    Be very willing to manually recruit your first attendees, make an effort to learn their names and follow up with them after.

    At the start of IndieBeers, I wrote a personal message to each person who RSVP'd on Meetup before the event, for example.

    That's the kind of experience that makes people likely to talk about your meetup and invite others.

    Eventually, if you get enough momentum from this, you may run out of time to do it. But the goal is to get to this stage! It's a great problem to have.

    Happy to answer any other questions dude.

  3. 3

    What's your #1 advice for people who want to organize their first meetup?

    Start small. Keep your attendance expectations low in particular. You know what a great first event is? You and 1-3 others getting dinner or drinks and talking informally! If your meetup eventually fails, it will most likely be because you quit, and if you quit, it will most likely be because your expectations exceeded reality. So keep your expectations in check, build up slowly, don't quit, and you can get somewhere truly impressive with time.

    I dig the way you're letting folks in your community organize meetups. What would you advise me to do to get started?

    Not sure if my approach will work for others. IH was already a thriving community far before we started meetups! But what's worked well for us is allowing our community leaders to have control to shape and set the agenda for their meetups in whatever way works best for them.

    1. 1

      Great advice all around, thanks so much.

  4. 2

    Get started! Keep it Simple. It is easy to do an Indie Dinner, Bar, Coffee, or Jog meetup. These formats are easy to bootstrap because the venue is free. Pick one that works best with your personality so this meetup will be fun for you! Use Facebook events or Eventbrite to set up a free calendar invite. Don't forget to post to https://www.indiehackers.com/meetups/new I am happy to help you with getting started. If you're interested in becoming a community leader yourself, apply https://airtable.com/shrH3FggzE27LVgLL

  5. 2

    Everyone Hates Marketers is an amazing podcast. Highly recommended to Indie Hackers who want to improve their marketing skills!

  6. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

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