> Decisiveness
> Past: We spend too much time building consensus
> Starting now: Everyone else stops debating and gets on board once the decision is made
The Mess at Meetup
61–70 of 99 posts
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#62I'm really conflicted by this article. On the one hand, it's always a shame to read of cases where a company with a great culture which people clearly enjoyed and valued is changed for 'bad' reasons - takeover, or profit, or similar. ...but... > “I really don’t think they would have been able to attract the talent they did without it because the product wasn’t there. They didn’t innovate. Meetup is not attractive exc…
The greatest reason I believe a company should prioritize for cultural excellence is for its causation effect on product excellence. I firmly believe this causation exists and this mutually exclusive scenario you mention doesn't exist.
A) what constitutes cultural excellence? I’ve worked in diverse, toxic workplaces, and workplaces that ran extremely well with little diversity (and vice versa).
B) your assertion seems to be disproven by the world. Look at the top tech companies with the best products; they are all embroiled in drama with regards to toxic culture one way or another. The market does not seem to select for workplace culture.
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#63I've often thought about what a new meetup-like startup would look like.
A few ideas from frequent pain points:
-A point system that gives you points when you actually check-in to a meetup you RSVP to. Points can be used to gain priority access to the most in-demand meetups or special events that otherwise fill up fast. On the other hand, a penalty system for people who RSVP but fail to check-in, which can help curb the current problem with people RSVP'ing to events with limited capacity with no intention of actually showing up.
-A real chat UI for those who RSVP that "lives" +/- a few days before and after the event date.
-For organizers, the ability to search for venues that are open to hosting meetups (either paid or sponsored)
-Better recommendations and search UI. Better filters. Upranking high quality meetups and downranking all the low quality ones I have to normally scroll through to find something worth attending.
-Ability to rate public meetups and/or provide feedback back to organizers.
-Ability to host "instant meetups" i.e. organizing a spontaneous happy hour same day at bar X for people who are learning Y.
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#64>>...where they rub elbows at yoga, swimming, and concerts—perks some Meetup employees viewed as evidence of a bro-centric culture...
Yoga and swimming are bro-y now?
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#65I'm really conflicted by this article. On the one hand, it's always a shame to read of cases where a company with a great culture which people clearly enjoyed and valued is changed for 'bad' reasons - takeover, or profit, or similar. ...but... > “I really don’t think they would have been able to attract the talent they did without it because the product wasn’t there. They didn’t innovate. Meetup is not attractive exc…
The weird part about this article/thread is that the product didn't suck. It did a thing, and it was as good as the groups in your area.
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
WeWork is growing rapidly and has a product people are willing to pay well over the cost for. Meetup doesn’t seem to have those same tailwinds. If you could buy either company outright for $50MM, I think it’d be a grave mistake to choose meetup. If you could buy 0, 1, or 2 of them for $50MM per, I still think meetup is a hard pass. I’m thinking WeWork overpaid especially if they bought in cash. (Maybe less so if they…
Although I haven't studied Meetup in any detail I've known people who use it for various activities including a group that I used to be involved with. On the one hand, the $100-200 a year they charge to organizers might seem totally trivial. But, for often loosely organized volunteer activities, it's actually a surprisingly high-friction amount. The outdoor activity organization I was involved with actually debated w…
Yep. Used it to organize a social entrepreneurship meetup and as the group grew, the cost quickly ended up being too much and we moved over to email newsletter with Eventbrite. This isn't fundamentally expensive for a business, but when you are just running a group to casually meet people and there's no commercial value to your group, this quickly end up being an expense that you want to avoid. We were told to just ask members of the group to contribute, but that's another friction. The other friction is that meetup emails were getting a little bit too much and most people don't want to get emails every week telling them which group they should join, which makes Eventbrite more attractive (a simple reminder the day before the event and that's it).
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The greatest reason I believe a company should prioritize for cultural excellence is for its causation effect on product excellence. I firmly believe this causation exists and this mutually exclusive scenario you mention doesn't exist.
A) what constitutes cultural excellence? I’ve worked in diverse, toxic workplaces, and workplaces that ran extremely well with little diversity (and vice versa). B) your assertion seems to be disproven by the world. Look at the top tech companies with the best products; they are all embroiled in drama with regards to toxic culture one way or another. The market does not seem to select for workplace culture.
Studies like the one from project Aristotle (https://nyti.ms/20WG1yY) are a counterpoint. Hire to create the best team, not to create the best lineup of individuals. You only hear about successful teams that have drama because they have drama, not because being a successful team requires drama
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
WeWork is growing rapidly and has a product people are willing to pay well over the cost for. Meetup doesn’t seem to have those same tailwinds. If you could buy either company outright for $50MM, I think it’d be a grave mistake to choose meetup. If you could buy 0, 1, or 2 of them for $50MM per, I still think meetup is a hard pass. I’m thinking WeWork overpaid especially if they bought in cash. (Maybe less so if they…
Although I haven't studied Meetup in any detail I've known people who use it for various activities including a group that I used to be involved with. On the one hand, the $100-200 a year they charge to organizers might seem totally trivial. But, for often loosely organized volunteer activities, it's actually a surprisingly high-friction amount. The outdoor activity organization I was involved with actually debated w…
Yes, especially since you hit them so quickly without actually having traction for your meetup. People join every group they are tangentially interested in, even if they then never make it to an event, and meetup's design encourages that. If you don't have a corporate sponsor (or only a small firm providing a room) that's a problem.
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
WeWork is growing rapidly and has a product people are willing to pay well over the cost for. Meetup doesn’t seem to have those same tailwinds. If you could buy either company outright for $50MM, I think it’d be a grave mistake to choose meetup. If you could buy 0, 1, or 2 of them for $50MM per, I still think meetup is a hard pass. I’m thinking WeWork overpaid especially if they bought in cash. (Maybe less so if they…
Although I haven't studied Meetup in any detail I've known people who use it for various activities including a group that I used to be involved with. On the one hand, the $100-200 a year they charge to organizers might seem totally trivial. But, for often loosely organized volunteer activities, it's actually a surprisingly high-friction amount. The outdoor activity organization I was involved with actually debated w…
If I create a shared office (with lower price and similar service) right next to a WeWork office I would be able to take business away from WeWork. Hoever if I cloned the Meetup website I probably couldn't take any business from Meetup. Because Meetup is protected by network effects.
But yeah. People don't see any growth prospects for Meetup and now it has been eaten by WeWork.
Re: The Mess at Meetup
#70I've often thought about what a new meetup-like startup would look like. A few ideas from frequent pain points: -A point system that gives you points when you actually check-in to a meetup you RSVP to. Points can be used to gain priority access to the most in-demand meetups or special events that otherwise fill up fast. On the other hand, a penalty system for people who RSVP but fail to check-in, which can help curb…
+1 to all of those ideas.
> A point system that gives you points when you actually check-in to a meetup you RSVP to.
For this to be reliable, the organisers would need to do roll call, which would get tedious for meetups with 10+ people.