What's the hardest thing about hosting a meetup?

Question

I'm working on ways to make it easier for Product Hunt Makers to meet IRL.

I'd like to hear from you -- what's the hardest thing about hosting a meetup?

What support could we provide to make it easy for you to do that?

Thanks!

Miriam Dorsett · Accepted Answer

@abadesi @cete @jesstelford Thanks for these points. I agree with finding speakers, it is a challenge. Especially ones that will draw a crowd. They are not easy to get a hold of and they have packed schedules.

For the sponsors, would you happen to have a standard deck or sponsor package template that you use?

Time - I was organizing the events every other month and have switched to once a quarter. I'm also focusing on recruiting other organizers and putting together an easy to follow step by step process for them to host their own events

Miriam Dorsett · Answer

@abadesi @mellowbeing Do you use a RSVP page?

Jess Telford · Answer

@abadesi @cete @mdorsett I don't have a standard sponsor deck. I've found it needs to be more personal in the initial contact to help whoever is championing the sponsorship feel connected to the event. Once it's at the point of "finance needs to sign off on it", I have the basics as dot points:

* $x
* For 1 month
* Approximate exposure: 150 people

Jen ✏️ · Answer

@abadesi @mdorsett ha, yes of course. it doesn't guarantee anything.  Yes's are maybes and 'interested' means probably no.

Jen ✏️ · Answer

@abadesi my biggest challenge is knowing how many people will show up. It's hard predicting it based on weather or location.

Jess Telford · Answer

@abadesi in talking to organisers for Cete ("Tools for organising local tech meetups" -
https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/cete), there are 3 main pain points:

1. Finding Speakers; because of the high frequency of events, finding Speakers every month can be hard. It's a combination of the short notice, balancing repeat speakers with new speakers, convincing folks they have a good talk in them, and not having a clear and easy way to manage speakers and events.

2. Organising Sponsors; a lot of companies still don't understand the benefits of sponsoring community events. They're all about the short term ROI instead of the long term, which is self fulfilling: they don't see immediate results after paying for $400 worth of pizza, so pull the plug and declare "Sponsoring events is a waste of money!" Meanwhile the companies which sick with it see consistent positive brand awareness, have much higher recruiting success, and are well regarded in the community.

3. Time & Motivation; most organisers run events for free, in their own time, often having to work around other commitments (the kind of person who organises a meetup is the kind of person who is involved in other communities too). Getting time every month to organise everything is a huge hurdle and often why the above two points are so hard, and why so many groups fail.

Would love to talk more if you're interested in possibly using Cete, or just to get a better understanding of how organisers think: jess@cete.io 👍

Lewis · Answer

@abadesi making sure attendees who register turn up 😂

Kunal Bhatia · Answer

@jesstelford agreed. It makes for a much better experience too. We customize the way we do sponsorship, so we're not just blasting attendees with sponsor emails. The sponsor had to do something unique to make the event a better experience.

Kunal Bhatia · Answer

@abadesi we've done several for Product Hunt Boston (https://producthuntboston.com). I'll give you some context first. We want to keep the Meetup as accessible as possible, so we keep it free.

Got a pizza place to sponsor half the food cost and beer/cider companies to do promotion there. We're not set up to accept money/donation, but have expenses to keep the domain name + materials for the event. We had the venue sponsor pay for the rest of the expenses, but that can be challenging to do things fast.

Once you get all the logistics problems like the venue (with live stream equipment, able to be open to the public, large enough) solved, you still have to make sure the content and networking are top notch.

For us, it was a part-time job leading up to the event (planned over 2 months) and almost a full-time job the week of. We had a lot of fun finding and helping the startups presenting to get better with resources and advice (me for design/product, @michaelsheeley for eng/business/marketing, @nicdupuis8 for marketing).

We've tweaked the format over the first few Meetups to have an open networking time for attendees to meet each other and the presenting startups at their tables. During the pitch portion, we encourage discussion that will help teams solve their current biggest challenge. Judges and audience members also ask questions. A fun voting round wraps up the festivities ("If you had $1,000 to invest in the startups who presented, how would you invest? Why?"). More networking + move to a nearby restaurant/bar so people can keep talking.

We don't want to compromise on the experience, which is why we've had to reduce the number of events we host per year.

Our ultimate goal is to foster makers and startups to meet and grow in the Boston community. I see three ways you can help:
- Help us connect with other venue sponsors who can take care of some logistics and give us a small operating budget to be reimbursed by
- Create a space for PH Meetup Hosts to learn from each other's events
- Have someone from the PH team attend! Much like Indy Hacker Meetups or Stripe Atlas events. You could also help capture stories for social + PH articles 😉

Please let me know if you can help on any of these fronts for our Fall event! (and thanks for asking 🙏)

What's the hardest thing about hosting a meetup?

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