I was added as a co-organizer of a meetup shortly after moving to San Francisco in 2012. I had a few conversations with the organizer, but we never really got it together. When she left the group, I became the default organizer and was inspired to get things moving.
Over the last ten months, I have dedicated about 1-2 hours a week, which besides attending the actual event, includes organizing and promoting the meetup. Organizing entails finding speakers, finding locations, and finding other speakers when things occasionally fall through.
Since I started putting on my little monthly show, the membership has grown almost four times. Attendance at events has similarly climbed, and it currently hovers at around 50 attendees. That big spike in March is when another meetup merged into mine.
Originally, I was having all the meetups at my office, but have since gotten help from various attendees who graciously offer to host. This has made life much easier for my office manager and as a result, me. Setting up chairs, paying for food, cleaning up the messes are all things that I did not think about, but become a drag after a few months.
Your Emcee for Tonight
The best part is getting to know the people that keep coming back. I feel like these folks are compatriots, if only that we are all looking for help.
I also get to see the networking I help to create. After each meetup, I see activity on LinkedIn between attendees and feel like maybe one of these connections might actually be beneficial to someone's career. Coming up on a year, I feel being of service and providing a regular industry event provides the community with consistancy: a dependable monthly option on a Wednesday night to meet others and maybe learn something.
It wasn't my motivation for this to benefit my career in any direct way, aside from networking. But, I have been on a few workshopping calls with VCs, and gotten invited into an event or two for free. I have talked to some founders and done some free consulting, which I have enjoyed. People have talked to me about issues at their current jobs, sought recommendations about changing jobs, and asked for other similar help. This is the best part of doing this.
Challenges
My main challenge is giving the people a great meetup. Finding speakers can be a challenge, and I often find myself sweating to find someone to fill the speaking spot. I find it is something I can't let languish and need to put in a few hours a week to reach out to people. Defining the overall theme of a meetup and making tweaks to the format are mostly stabs in the dark. I go to other meetups, looking for inspiration. The ones I have been to range from boring to empty to packed like sardines. My only current goal is to have mostly attendees speak, making it a community event, rather than bringing in speakers to talk at them for an hour.
The other challange is promoting the events. Recent speakers who made the effort to tweet and post to relevant groups had noticeably more folks show up. I never think about it and am oddly awkward about posting to groups. I think I am a bit too worried about putting on a good show; I need to promote it like I did when I was in a band and was promoting a show: with unflappable pride. Allocating more time to the group is a bit tough, so I am not sure I can make a big push each month, but I can do better.
I have offers to help from people I have met in the group, and need to take them up on it. I don't feel like I have to do it all myself, but haven't really sat down to plan what I want to do with the meetup over the next year, so I don't really feel prepared or know what do ask. That's something I need to spend a few hours on.
All in all it isn't hard, isn't easy. It needs about 5 more hours a month than I am giving it. I often wish there was a meetup for meetup organizers. I would start it, but I can't run another one. Plus, maybe that's a bit to recursive.