Self-Management Pioneers Series: Meetup

Excerpted from the book BEYOND EMPOWERMENT: THE AGE OF THE SELF-MANAGED ORGANIZATION, by Doug Kirkpatrick, JetLaunch, 2017

Meetup

Hovering near the lower edge of Manhattan’s NoHo Historic District, in a steel-and-cast-iron framed building, are the austere tenth-floor headquarters of Meetup, brainchild of co-founders Scott Heiferman and Greg Whalin (current CEO and former CTO, respectively). Since its construction in 1900, the twelvestory building’s upper floors were dedicated to various forms of light manufacturing.[1] The developers could not have known that the building’s second century would shelter a company that would change the world.

In 2008, I read an article about this remarkable company.[2] Resolving to learn more, I reached out to Scott Heiferman. What I learned from him and his team was deeply inspirational and offered a glimpse of exciting possibilities for the future of work and for society.

Arriving at headquarters on a late summer day in August 2008, friendly ambassador Camille Alexander ushered me into the plain, functional conference room where I assumed most high-powered meetings took place. Soon joining me were the two co-founders and business advisor Douglas Atkin (author of The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers[3]). With formalities out of the way, we discussed self-organization and self-management.

The three leaders shared their recent, all-too-familiar story of reverting to bureaucratic authority when the business became too large to manage (large, as in more than fifty employees). Rules required engineers to submit proposed website changes for approval. The system crushed creativity in an industry where lack of speed was often fatal. Morale suffered. The culture was broken. People talked about being “metrified”—working in an environment where metrics crowded out innovation.[4] Employee blowback from a contentious review board led Douglas Atkin to tell Heiferman, “We need to blow this up and start all over again.”[5] The need for radical change became clear. But what form would it take?

While the leadership group envisioned the next iteration of Meetup’s culture, they launched a profound experiment in self-organization. Meetup leaders threw out the original organization chart and unleashed employees to work on projects of their own choosing—a hackathon. During this ambiguity, the leaders considered several culture tweaks while Greg Whalin fought for greater employee freedom.[6] After six weeks of dizzying kaleidoscopic anarchy, a new paradigm finally came into focus. Buoyed by surprising gains in project cycle times, Heiferman agreed to a policy of greenlighting new, employee-generated project ideas that attracted support from peers. For accountability, new projects would also be evaluated using a system to track related customers and revenues.[7] Consequently, several project managers left the company, upset by their loss of position power. Remaining Meetup employees breathed a sigh of relief and went to work. The company began to thrive.

Meetup had finally resolved the inherent contradiction of trying to generate self-organizing communities through command-and-control hierarchy. The bitter taste of bureaucratic frustration forced the company to re-think its recipe for success. If self-organization worked externally for customers, it should also work internally for employees. The company generating the code that brought millions of independent self-managers together in more than 100 countries around the world would now be guided by…independent self-managers.

With the philosophical launch pad of internal self-organization properly aligned and congruent with its external business model, the company took off like a rocket. In early 2009, the number of users signing up every month had doubled from the previous year.[8] Meetup recorded 4 million users and 60 employees.[9] In early 2012, yearly revenue was estimated to have topped $30MM. [10] Meetup’s new member signups increased by 40 percent in the first quarter of 2013 and its number of active members increased by 46 percent, according to Heiferman.[11] “We’re growing faster than ever,” Heiferman told Forbes’ Alex Kantrowitz, “which is weird for being a ten-year-old company and weird for having some scale.”[12] After generating 100 million RSVPs over the past ten years, Heiferman said the company expects to hit $1 billion by 2020.[13]

When I took a brief tour of the spaces that cocoon Meetup’s engineers and other employees, it seemed clear that the calm and orderly space itself was a key success factor. It seemed to invite collaboration and self-organization. Well-lit, spacious, functional areas housed intently focused people who seemed completely engaged in their work—a sort of “Mission Control” for meetups. A relaxation room at the far end of the main floor served as space where people could decompress, renew energy, and refocus their thoughts after intense sprints of effort.

Heiferman shared a short think piece on the unique Meetup culture. It reads as follows:

OUR CULTURE

The people at Meetup HQ are led by a big idea.

We want to see the world’s people self-organize. We believe that people can change their world, or the world by organizing themselves into groups powerful enough to make a difference.

So what does this say about the kind of company we are?

Our vision is big and bold, even a little bit crazy. So how could we ever follow convention? We won’t.

What we do is needed now. So how could we ever be slow and slipshod? We won’t.

We’re about real, face-to-face contact. The human scale. So why would we ever slip into corporate-speak or corporate-do? We won’t.

We have a big vision. But let’s take our task seriously, not ourselves. Let’s not be wide-eyed, humorless table-thumpers. Cheekiness and silliness go a long way to save us from ourselves.

We want the world’s people to self-organize. Decentralization is fundamental to our worldview. So ‘command-and-control’ is not how we’ll manage ourselves or engage with our customers.

And we’re about the power of groups. So why wouldn’t we collaborate, share credit and act as a team. We will.

We get a little choked up when people tell us how their lives have changed. It’s hokey. But it’s good to be hokey.

Weirdly, we’re also cynical…but about ourselves and how good a job we’re doing. We’re not cynical about our aspirations for the world, or the members who will change it for the better.

We love that our members want to have fun…or fundamentally change the world. Or both. We admire these people who tell their stories, expose their vulnerabilities, fear that people think they’re freaks (let’s remember that we’re all freaky one way or another).

We cheer this multitude of ordinary people who are crazy enough to meet complete strangers and fearless enough to start a meetup. Never underestimate or under value what it takes to do what they do.

We’re in this to change the world. We don’t just ‘do’ community because it’s a good business. That means that we will scrutinize every decision to ensure that we will make money only if we make more successful meetups.

We’re a company that believes the company of others can change lives, or the world, for the better. That means we want a meetup where and when it’s needed.

Cheekiness, silliness, being hokey, choking up—how many companies even allow, much less encourage, such behaviors? For Meetup employees, it’s all part of a day’s work.

The intrinsic value of the Meetup model for customers had been conclusively proven much earlier, in the Howard Dean presidential campaign of 2002–2004. Micah Sifrey, author of WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency[14], wrote for CNN.com that the number of Dean meetup participants eventually peaked at around 143,000—a huge number for the time—and that the face-to-face contact greatly influenced the degree of involvement by volunteers.[15] The number of people attending one Dean meetup in New York City struck Dean and his campaign manager, Joe Trippi.[16] Dean later told Wired magazine: “I wish I could tell you we were smart enough to figure this out. But the community taught us. They seized the initiative through Meetup. They built our organization for us before we had an organization.”[17]

Part of the reason for Dean’s early success was the relative ease of receiving feedback from Dean meetup members. Gary Wolf, writing in Wired, shared this analysis: “Growth followed an exponential curve; Dean’s new supporters contributed money, his piles of money won respect from the media, and media attention pushed Meetup numbers higher. Most of the Democratic candidates who polled in the low single digits a year ago still poll in the low single digits. They never gained momentum. Dean’s early use of Meetup lowered the feedback threshold, just as a good supply of kindling makes it easier to light a fire.”[18]

On the other side of the political spectrum, Heiferman observes that the Tea Party constitutes some of the most active Meetups on the system.[19] The fundamental human need to meet with others around common interests is, apparently, bipartisan.

For Heiferman, these outcomes were somewhat surprising. In a 2009 article for the New York Times, The Pursuit of Community, he wrote: “When we were designing the site, we were wrong about almost everything we thought people would want to use it for. I thought it would be a niche lifestyle venture, perhaps for fan clubs. I had no idea that people would form new types of P.T.A.’s, chambers of commerce, or health support groups. And we weren’t thinking that anyone would want to meet about politics, but there are thousands of these Meetups.”[20]

Meetup has now achieved the ultimate in alignment: Its autonomous management model is powerfully aligned with its own self-organizing customers, the most successful of whom share the mutual respect of savvy social media users who appreciate what it takes to build and sustain a community. Anyone thinking that Meetup’s vision is too touchy-feely to constitute a profitable, sustainable business model should reflect on Heiferman’s own description of his ideal Meetup colleague: someone who “works hard and makes shit happen.”

Such are the power of ideas. Meetup has a very simple and incredibly powerful idea at its core. As Heiferman wrote, “A Meetup is about the simple idea of using the Internet to get people off the Internet. People feel a need to commiserate or get together and talk about what’s important to them. Our biggest categories are moms, small businesses, and health support and fitness.”[21]

One catalyst for Heiferman tragically arrived just after 9:00 a.m. on the morning of September 11, 2001. Heiferman published his story in an email blast that I received on the morning of September 11, 2011—the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. His message was deeply personal and ultimately hopeful. He described profound truths about the resiliency of the human spirit and the need for community. The words speak for themselves:

“Let me tell you the Meetup story. I was living a couple miles from the Twin Towers, and I was the kind of person who thought local community doesn’t matter much if we’ve got the internet and tv. The only time I thought about my neighbors was when I hoped they wouldn’t bother me.

When the towers fell, I found myself talking to more neighbors in the days after 9/11 than ever before. People said hello to neighbors (next-door and across the city) who they’d normally ignore. People were looking after each other, helping each other, and meeting up with each other. You know, being neighborly.

A lot of people were thinking that maybe 9/11 could bring people together in a lasting way. So the idea for Meetup was born: Could we use the internet to get off the internet—and grow local communities?

We didn’t know if it would work. Most people thought it was a crazy idea—especially because terrorism is designed to make people distrust one another.

A small team came together, and we launched Meetup nine9 months after 9/11.

Today, almost 10 years and 10 million Meetuppers later, it’s working. Every day, thousands of Meetups happen. Moms Meetups, Small Business Meetups, Fitness Meetups…a wild variety of 100,000 Meetup Groups with not much in common—except one thing.

Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors. And what often happens next is still amazing to me. They grow businesses and bands together, they teach and motivate each other, they babysit each other’s kids and find other ways to work together. They have fun and find solace together. They make friends and form powerful community. It’s powerful stuff.

It’s a wonderful revolution in local community, and it’s thanks to everyone who shows up.

Meetups aren’t about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren’t for 9/11.

9/11 didn’t make us too scared to go outside or talk to strangers. 9/11 didn’t rip us apart. No, we’re building new community together!!!!

The towers fell, but we rise up. And we’re just getting started with these Meetups.”

Reinforcement for Heiferman’s vision came from the book, Bowling Alone.[22] In an interview with Teri Evans for the Wall Street Journal, Heiferman states: “…after 9/11, I read “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam, a book that asked how we can be connected more locally. It got me thinking about local communities in a new era. So I [brought in] two people I had worked with before, and two I had not worked with, and we locked ourselves in a 200-square-foot SoHo workspace for a few months. Our goal was to create a web platform that helps people form local communities around whatever is important to them, using the Internet to get off the Internet and meet up. We weren’t making a plan; I’ve never written a business plan.”[23]

Of course, starting up a business involves risk, and invites skeptics. As Heiferman wrote in the New York Times article: “Critics have predicted our death three times. If no one is predicting your company’s death, then you’re probably not taking enough risks in what you’re doing.”[24]

To bet against the visionary self-organizers of Meetup, one would have to believe that human beings do not have a deepseated need to get together and share ideas, both in the workplace and the world at large.

So far, that hasn’t been a winning bet.

Excerpted from the book BEYOND EMPOWERMENT: THE AGE OF THE SELF-MANAGED ORGANIZATION, by Doug Kirkpatrick, JetLaunch, 2017

[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/NoHo_HD.pdf. Pages 52-53.

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2008H06H04/how-meetup-tore-up-the-rule-book

[3] The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customer Into True Believers, Portfolio Trade (May 31, 2005), Douglas Atkin.

[4] How Meetup Tore Up the Rule Book, Business Week, Heather Green, July 2008.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/06/smallbusiness/democracy_at_meetup.fsb/

[9] Ibid.

[10] http://startupgrind.com/2012/02/ meetup-com-yearly-revenues-top-30mm/

[11] http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkantrowitz/2013/04/23/meetup-ceo-points-to-booming-growth-as-his-company-hits100-million-rsvps/

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, Counterpoint (March 15, 2011), Michael Sifry.

[15] http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/07/tech/web/meetup-2012-campaign-sifry/

[16] Ibid.

[17] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/dean.html. Gary Wolf, January 2004.

[18] Ibid.

[19] http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/07/tech/web/meetup-2012-campaign-sifry/

[20] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/jobs/06boss.html?_r=0. Scott Heiferman, The Pursuit of Community.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. By Robert D. Putnam. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[23] Reaping Success Through Stranger ‘Meetups,’ The Wall Street Journal, 11/21/2010, Teri Evans.

[24] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/jobs/06boss.html?_r=0. Scott Heiferman, The Pursuit of Community.