←back to thread

The Offline Club

(www.theoffline-club.com)
179 points esher | 5 comments | 25 Jun 25 19:42 UTC | HN request time: 1.367s | source
Show context
apgwoz ◴[25 Jun 25 23:18 UTC] No.44382702[source]▶
This is [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com). Meetup has obviously not aged well, but this is mostly due to changes in ownership and leadership. It’s original mission of “a Meetup Everywhere about Most Everything” is pretty much exactly what The Offline Club seems to be seeking.

I think they’ll find a lot of the same challenges:

    1. Finding space to have events
    2. Ensuring that people who said “I’m going” actually end up going. 
    3. Bootstrapping groups such that when I stumble upon The Offline Club, I can signup for something relevant to me, happening a short time from now. 
    4. Keeping organizers willing to continue hosting events
    5. Keeping away organizers who see it as lead gen for their sales job
Basically, good luck!

Edit: On second look, this is different than Meetup in that it’s not centered around a specific topic … except for being “offline” together, which obviously could create other opportunities for hobbies, etc.

replies(6): >>44382728 #>>44382820 #>>44383350 #>>44383390 #>>44383873 #>>44386994 #
1. abnercoimbre ◴[25 Jun 25 23:38 UTC] No.44382820[source]▶
We run meetups for systems programmers [0] and have mostly addressed these challenges.

> 1. Finding space to have events

Talk to a coffee shop owner. Promise them your group will (reliably) order drinks or snacks. In exchange, every month we get an area "cordoned off" just for us.

> 2. Ensuring that people who said “I’m going” actually end up going.

Aside from sending a general newsletter, I personally ping and catch up with individuals. This is a lot of work. It pays off when they evangelize your event on your behalf.

> 3. Bootstrapping groups such that when I stumble upon The Offline Club, I can signup for something relevant to me, happening a short time from now.

See #2

> 4. Keeping organizers willing to continue hosting events

That's tougher. However, if the event is specialized/niche/unique enough, the organizers will be conferred high social status by the community.

> 5. Keeping away organizers who see it as lead gen for their sales job

Mmm, could we define sales job? On the business front, the meetups are used to promote our (indie) conferences. The meetup groups don't mind when I ask them to buy a ticket. They can just say no and we're not pushy about it.

[0] https://handmadecities.com/meetups

replies(3): >>44382873 #>>44383185 #>>44386678 #
2. apgwoz ◴[25 Jun 25 23:49 UTC] No.44382873[source]▶
Yes. The group I used to run also addressed a lot of these challenges. However, this isn’t so easy for everyone who runs meetups.

Part of the promise of WeWork buying Meetup, for instance, was “oh look! We have access to tons of real estate to house Meetups in.” A large amount of organizer support was providing ideas for places to have events.

I worked at Meetup for a couple of years. There were often Meetup groups that started up in the guise of $GENERIC get together, that ended up actually being literal lead gen for a pyramid scheme. This wasn’t likely a tech meetup thing, but perhaps a knitting circle, or whatever.

replies(1): >>44382908 #
3. abnercoimbre ◴[25 Jun 25 23:52 UTC] No.44382908[source]▶
> started up in the guise of $GENERIC get together, that ended up actually being literal lead gen for a pyramid scheme

Ah yes yes. That's horrifying.

4. patcon ◴[26 Jun 25 00:45 UTC] No.44383185[source]▶
Yeah, agree that none of the issues are problems without solutions.

The issue is vulture capitalism and misalignment of incentives for platform vs host vs participants. I've been a part of groups that solved these and grew to 8000-member communities. It's simply that meetup wasn't actually interested to solve the challenges because they needed to extract wealth and pass extraction down the chain (no incentivise to protect underlying communities as a commons)

5. BoxFour ◴[26 Jun 25 12:17 UTC] No.44386678[source]▶
> Mmm, could we define sales job? On the business front, the meetups are used to promote our (indie) conferences. The meetup groups don't mind when I ask them to buy a ticket. They can just say no and we're not pushy about it.

Not the OP but: I encountered this often. Recruiters or startup founders would start attending mainly to pitch their company or try to recruit.

It was the same cycle every time with every group I went to: Starts out small and useful, as it gets more popular it becomes a target for the "hustle culture" crowd.