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But I do wonder if Discord for community and event planning + self-hosted website for member growth / publicity is the way to go in 2022?
Meetup.com is now rubbish (mostly singles events, walking tours, scam investment talks etc) and Discord is too geographically distributed to be the right answer.
I've seen a handful of apps that claim to work but none have achieved network.
Been thinking about launching a no code app that basically sets up whatsapp distribution lists plus a low touch website. That's all that's really needed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21257661 lists other alternatives
Now that restrictions are lifted in Ontario we will be going back to in-person meetups and probably by the end of the month we will be posting them on Meetup. I am optimistic that we will be able to bring people back.
I one of the organizers of a meetup called Coffee and Code in Toronto, Canada. We used to be a bi-weekly meetup in cafes pre-pandemic. After the pandemic started we moved online to a weekly Discord. We still posted the meetups on Meetup and now attract an international audience. 2 years later we are still going. Now that restrictions are lifted in Ontario we will be going back to in-person meetups and probably by the…
It sounds like your success can be attributed to, at least in significant part, having a strong/sticky "base" BEFORE the pandemic started.
Would you agree/disagree that? More applicably to guiding the OP here, would you say that if you guys DIDN'T have that sticky base of attendees that you'd be as well-off or even around at all post-pandemic?
In other words, was it just popularity that got ya'll through (obviously you and yours did all the work, not saying otherwise!), or can you point to something else that the OP can replicate?
Again, not at all to "throw shade" at you here, just trying to see if your outcome is a reasonable expectation, and how applicable/likely it is for the OP, especially given the wide disparity in outcomes mentioned by others. Either way I'm happy to hear your meetup is doing well!
We also have our own site, but that is more for videos and whatnot, rather than sign ups: https://boulder-ruby.org/
We mostly use the sign up/announce functionality. I suppose we could replace that with a google form and standard website, but we have over 1k members. How many of them would move? We don't have that many twitter followers and no email list. I suppose an email list would be a replacement, if folks would sign up.
I had a friend who was building an alternative (sinking money and time into it for years) and he recently ceased operations. His thoughts: https://twitter.com/coreysnipes/status/1498714532931416070
The tldr: too many good competitors; maybe it is time to look around.