7 ms·

Depends on whether you want to exist on ads revenue. You could run Meetup with 5 people in a basement if you had simple subscription revenue, but effectively m

by fizx 7y ago

Depends on whether you want to exist on ads revenue. You could run Meetup with 5 people in a basement if you had simple subscription revenue, but effectively maximizing an advertising opportunity requires at least ~1000 people.

systemvoltage 7y ago
I can’t upvote your comment enough. Most people questioning why Twitter needs have 2k staff is because of advertising. I’ve advertised on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google - there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into the “money making” bit of these companies. Remove ad-revenue and all these companies would collapse. They have no other model.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
staticautomatic 7y ago
Meetup does have a subscription model that charges the group owner a relatively significant amount of money on a recurring basis.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  $120 to $200 a year, depending on the country. I'm surprised how expensive it's become. I was paying $60/year in 2018 (when I abandoned the group), that's now doubled. https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001620472-Organizer-subscription-pricing https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001620472-Organ...
  - collyw 7y ago
    That's quite a lot considering that nature of the platform. It explain why most of the stuff I see these days seem to be more small commercial classes rather than just the meetups that it started as.
majormajor 7y ago
If you're bringing in subscription revenue from millions of people you're gonna need some more customer support. And at some point you're gonna need some more HR then...
- jcelerier 7y ago
  > If you're bringing in subscription revenue from millions of people you're gonna need some more customer support. why can my mobile phone provider outsource its support to $random company in $random country but meetup cannot ?
  - notahacker 7y ago
    Contrary to popular belief, having an overseas callcentre run by a third party to answer phones doesn't eliminate the need to have other staff capable of actually making decisions and fixing things.
  - majormajor 7y ago
    First tradeoff: training and tooling. If you go the "minimize the official headcount" approach... now you need to make your software systems and business processs operable by $random users potentially with different first languages, with little context or history with the company. That's gonna require some significant tooling investments compared to the typical 5-person-in-a-basement operation.
  - 55555 7y ago
    partly because oligopolies dont need to provide as good support
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Those are massive companies with little competition and millions of global customers so they can have crap-tier support that works most of the time and get away with it. You're not going to put up with that for Meetup.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bcrosby95 7y ago
The question isn't about effectively maximizing something. It's about whether they can turn a healthy profit. And in my experience you can, if you build the company and product correctly. But if you have VC money you won't because you can't be happy with tens of millions of profit with VC funding.
- wolco 7y ago
  VC money can win a market and make everyone rich. You just need to be aligned with the goals. Making a little bit of money isn't the goal. It's all of nothing if you stumble there might be a pivot. You agree not to stop until it dies, you die or you hit 2 years and growth doesn't look like a hockey stick and they take it away.
collyw 7y ago
Does Meetup run on ad revenue? I have an ad blocker installed so never noticed. I thought they charged organizers a modest fee.
- TheAdamist 7y ago
  Organizers pay. It's about $15/month for a calendar and email list.
newsbinator 7y ago
Also moderation: Meetup isn't gMail, so I get unwanted, sometimes explicit messages delivered directly to the Meetup inbox (and forwarded to my email). That doesn't even take into account the number of fake groups that aren't really meetups so much as "here's a webinar in which I pitch stuff to you 1-on-1 or 1-on-2, if I can find a second sucker".
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Those are problems that can be left alone until they actually become issues, which would probably be the case once the hypothetical service has become successful; in that case, there should be enough cash flow and minimal overhead needed to implement/hire moderation. But if you're spending all your money on building rent, fancy office equipment, lots of bureaucracy, etc., then of course moderation is going to become difficult. These problems can be mitigated early on by charging meetup organizers. If a $20 a month is too much, then it probably doesn't belong on a meetup site. It's enough that anyone willing to abuse the system will take the path of least resistance and use Eventbrite to host webinars. Any other meetup communication should be made unappealing enough that moderation rarely becomes an issue. It should be possible for people on meetup to communicate, but it should be a second class citizen to however the organizers communicate with group members. Any forums that are part of meetups should suck just enough that nobody wants to use them unless they are serious about communicating something. There are creative ways to handle moderation that don't require obscene amounts of money or employees.

by fizx 7y ago

systemvoltage 7y ago

I can’t upvote your comment enough. Most people questioning why Twitter needs have 2k staff is because of advertising. I’ve advertised on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google - there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into the “money making” bit of these companies. Remove ad-revenue and all these companies would collapse. They have no other model.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

staticautomatic 7y ago

Meetup does have a subscription model that charges the group owner a relatively significant amount of money on a recurring basis.

Symbiote 7y ago
$120 to $200 a year, depending on the country. I'm surprised how expensive it's become. I was paying $60/year in 2018 (when I abandoned the group), that's now doubled. https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001620472-Organizer-subscription-pricing https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001620472-Organ...
- collyw 7y ago
  That's quite a lot considering that nature of the platform. It explain why most of the stuff I see these days seem to be more small commercial classes rather than just the meetups that it started as.

majormajor 7y ago

If you're bringing in subscription revenue from millions of people you're gonna need some more customer support. And at some point you're gonna need some more HR then...

jcelerier 7y ago
> If you're bringing in subscription revenue from millions of people you're gonna need some more customer support. why can my mobile phone provider outsource its support to $random company in $random country but meetup cannot ?
- notahacker 7y ago
  Contrary to popular belief, having an overseas callcentre run by a third party to answer phones doesn't eliminate the need to have other staff capable of actually making decisions and fixing things.
- majormajor 7y ago
  First tradeoff: training and tooling. If you go the "minimize the official headcount" approach... now you need to make your software systems and business processs operable by $random users potentially with different first languages, with little context or history with the company. That's gonna require some significant tooling investments compared to the typical 5-person-in-a-basement operation.
- 55555 7y ago
  partly because oligopolies dont need to provide as good support
- manigandham 7y ago
  Those are massive companies with little competition and millions of global customers so they can have crap-tier support that works most of the time and get away with it. You're not going to put up with that for Meetup.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bcrosby95 7y ago

The question isn't about effectively maximizing something. It's about whether they can turn a healthy profit. And in my experience you can, if you build the company and product correctly. But if you have VC money you won't because you can't be happy with tens of millions of profit with VC funding.

wolco 7y ago
VC money can win a market and make everyone rich. You just need to be aligned with the goals. Making a little bit of money isn't the goal. It's all of nothing if you stumble there might be a pivot. You agree not to stop until it dies, you die or you hit 2 years and growth doesn't look like a hockey stick and they take it away.

collyw 7y ago

Does Meetup run on ad revenue? I have an ad blocker installed so never noticed. I thought they charged organizers a modest fee.

TheAdamist 7y ago
Organizers pay. It's about $15/month for a calendar and email list.

newsbinator 7y ago

Also moderation: Meetup isn't gMail, so I get unwanted, sometimes explicit messages delivered directly to the Meetup inbox (and forwarded to my email). That doesn't even take into account the number of fake groups that aren't really meetups so much as "here's a webinar in which I pitch stuff to you 1-on-1 or 1-on-2, if I can find a second sucker".

ravenstine 7y ago
Those are problems that can be left alone until they actually become issues, which would probably be the case once the hypothetical service has become successful; in that case, there should be enough cash flow and minimal overhead needed to implement/hire moderation. But if you're spending all your money on building rent, fancy office equipment, lots of bureaucracy, etc., then of course moderation is going to become difficult. These problems can be mitigated early on by charging meetup organizers. If a $20 a month is too much, then it probably doesn't belong on a meetup site. It's enough that anyone willing to abuse the system will take the path of least resistance and use Eventbrite to host webinars. Any other meetup communication should be made unappealing enough that moderation rarely becomes an issue. It should be possible for people on meetup to communicate, but it should be a second class citizen to however the organizers communicate with group members. Any forums that are part of meetups should suck just enough that nobody wants to use them unless they are serious about communicating something. There are creative ways to handle moderation that don't require obscene amounts of money or employees.