Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

news.crunchbase.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 114 posts

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#91

Post by baby »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

I liked Meetup, I didn't like it enough to pay for it. It wouldn't give me information without paying so I stopped using it. I also note that they terms of the acquisition have not been mentioned. If it is an all stock transaction it could be an example of Wework exploiting their astonishing valuation to buy companies with stock. This was something that happened a lot in the dot com boom and didn't end well. The othe…

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've done many many meetups and never paid.

The organizers have to pay though, and that sucks. But I can understand the business model.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#92

Post by acjohnson55 »

timthelion wrote: post #87
hammerbrostime wrote: post #23

Having run Meetups for the last ~4 years or so, with my current one being a nice size (~100/month attend), I can tell you the absolute biggest challenge for myself and for others is getting a good affordable/free space to run the events. As WeWork has so much prime real estate, I can easily see the Meetups being a natural feeder to get more people exposed to their spaces, and also to create community events for those…

This is a strange phenomena. In Prague some meetups have had trouble finding places to host, while others have had multiple firms competing to provide free space and food.

Like so many things, I suspect it's all about differences in how effectively individual leaders access their social resources.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#93

Post by roguecoder »

CPLX wrote: post #85
solatic wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recall how McDonald's is more of a real estate company than a restaurant company. Owning the land which is then leased out to franchisees isolates failure with the franchise's owner while funneling franchise fees into buying more real estate, which creates a positive spiral whereby the value of McDonald's is always growing because the it keeps adding more and more lands as assets. If WeWork buys real estate to operat…

This comes up every time WeWork is mentioned, but their model is literally the opposite. They take leases on commercial space long term and then arbitrage short term. Meaning they lose out on massive gains but are totally exposed to a downturn in demand for the kind of space they provide.

They are riding the current bubble, and momentum investing is solid cash. It seems like they want to be Levi's, using this gold rush to do rapid customer experimentation and then commercialize those gains over the long-term. Diversifying the possible uses of their space via MeetUp is at least a step in that direction.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#94

Post by nunez »

hammerbrostime wrote: post #23

Having run Meetups for the last ~4 years or so, with my current one being a nice size (~100/month attend), I can tell you the absolute biggest challenge for myself and for others is getting a good affordable/free space to run the events. As WeWork has so much prime real estate, I can easily see the Meetups being a natural feeder to get more people exposed to their spaces, and also to create community events for those…

> getting a good affordable/free space to run the events.

OH MY GOD, YES.

Hounding people for sponsorships is almost a full time job. It is extremely hard to do this while travelling. In fact, most of the Meetups I've been to, and some that I've hosted, took place at WeWork offices!

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#95

Post by nunez »

estreeper wrote: post #38
hammerbrostime wrote: post #23

Having run Meetups for the last ~4 years or so, with my current one being a nice size (~100/month attend), I can tell you the absolute biggest challenge for myself and for others is getting a good affordable/free space to run the events. As WeWork has so much prime real estate, I can easily see the Meetups being a natural feeder to get more people exposed to their spaces, and also to create community events for those…

As far as finding spaces, I've found that local bars/restaurants/coffee shops are usually quite happy to host events during off-times like Monday through Wednesday nights. I always ask nicely, thank them in the event description, during the event, and in an email after, and try to go out of my way to make things easier for them (checking in with estimated attendees a few days before, helping put chairs back in order…

> I've found that local bars/restaurants/coffee shops are usually quite happy to host events during off-times

In bigger cities, bars will usually only host you if you can provide them with a revenue stream afterwards. This works for social events, such as speed-dating or social Meetups (I've run both types), but not so well for technical meetups UNLESS they get sufficiently large.

Also, companies are usually willing to host Meetups because it's free and easy recruiting that's nearly guaranteed to bring out top talent. This is usually why recruiting agencies are almost always totally willing to give up space for events and sponsor for food and/or drinks; it saves them a ton of time that's usually lost to prospecting.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#96

Post by nunez »

This acquisition makes total sense. It's totally fits the spirit of WeWork (building professional communities) and also gives Meetup that exit that (I think) they've been looking for for a while. (They took five funding rounds!)

Congrats to the Meetup team!

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#97

Post by nunez »

hellofunk wrote: post #37
siquick wrote: post #12

Most Meetup events and groups have become a vehicle for salespeople and self-promoters.

Hm, out of the nearly 100 meetups I have attended in recent years, all were about the content, with an emphasis on the speakers. Nearly zero self-promotion and never once met a salesman.

> Nearly zero self-promotion and never once met a salesman

We're totally out there :)

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#98

Post by sitkack »

forgotmypw wrote: post #35
sitkack wrote: post #28

I wish them luck. Meetup itself is stagnant kludge that could have been innovative, other than their stylesheet revamp like 8-10 years ago, Meetup has innovated on zero. I am sure WeWork will use the platform to drive bodies to their physical locations which is a smart move.

I loved Facebook in 2006. I would've kept loving Facebook if they didn't change a single thing about it for the last 11 years. As it stands, with all the innovation they've been doing, I deleted both my social account and my family account, and now only stick around for the event calendars. What parts of Meetup seem stagnant to you? What other innovation is there left to do? They let you create a meetup and describe…

> What other innovation is there left to do?

Biggest one, SMS broadcast to alert attendees of venue changes, gate codes, etc. It doesn't coordinate schedules or assist in transportation. The core site doesn't have to offer these things, but it sure as well could make it easy 3rd parties to integrate with Meetup itself.

Second is discoverability and even seeing what is on the timeline of events, or prediction about which events will be well attended.

Meetup could have been an amazing backplane for coordinating and mediating activities. Could have been. Hasn't been. Needs to be supplanted in the same way that overflow replaced experts exchange.

It is barely an MVP for coordinating multiparty activities. It still feels like a 700 line single file php application that updates a status masthead and sends email.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#99

Post by sitkack »

andygrunwald wrote: post #49

I am running a Web Engineering Meetup in Düsseldorf, Germany [1] since more than 4 years. This group is quite big (~1.600 people) with 40 up to 100 people per Event (depends on the weather, the topic, the day, if side events happen in the city or not). We run it 100% non profit and community driven. No money is involved for paying speakers or accommodation. This is a fact where we are really proud of, because we beli…

I think Meetup used to have all the mindshare, then Facebook took a lot of event broadcast traffic away from Meetup. With Facebook waning in mindshare (it is still terribly popular), I think now is a good time for a meetup competitor, probably looking at 6 months before anything new comes out of Meetup due to the acquisition, and if it does, it will be centered around WeWork integration.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#100

Post by jldugger »

lostcolony wrote: post #89
hellofunk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found that a really good library is typically a much better work environment than these coworking spaces, and at 100% less the cost. I tried Regus for a couple days, but it felt no different to me than a coworking space. Maybe it was that particular Regus location.

Yes! Whenever my wife and I have spent large amount of time at her mother's (where there's effectively no internet due to being so far out in the boonies), I'd drive the 10 minutes to a nearby library in town that actually had a decent connection, and would work from there. Only issue was the dearth of areas to take calls, but even that was only mildly inconvenient, since I'm usually on mute, and could duck outside f…

Every library I've been in has had a few small spaces available for reservation for maybe 2 hour blocks. They're sometimes kinda hidden though, and sometimes first come first serve, so not always what you need.
Post reply on HN