The 10 Key Elements of a Successful Meetup

We all think that organizing an event is a difficult task. While it may seem a difficult task depending on the size of the event, a lot of smaller meetups are rather easy to manage and can be a great way to generate new leads for your business or startup company.

This article was inspired by my good friends from PSL - Philadelphia Startup Leaders and Founders Institute Keystone who host monthly meetups for startups in Philly every first Wednesday of every month and I have to say that their events are amazing and you should try them!

Below I wrote 10 key elements from hosting over 100 events in my lifetime that ranged from smaller scale events to events with hundreds of people.

Define your objectives

We all know that before you start anything you must identify what it is that you want to accomplish and any successful meetup requires having a clear path of what it is that you want out of it.

For me, a lot of events in the past had different objectives depending on who the client was or the goal for my business, which is usually about network building and lead generation.

A side note for someone who is great to learn about objectives if you are a startup founder is Gregory Shepard, check him out, he is a 12 times exited founder, I will leave it there and let you see for yourself.

Who is the event for?

You need to know who the event is for because otherwise you will find yourself hosting an event for no specific person or industry.

You can be really really specific or a little bit more broad in your target audience selection but eventually you need to know, who is this event for? So make a decision so that you can host a more successful event.

Planning planning planning

If you do not have a plan for your event or meetup, you will fail. Some events take more planning resources than others, it all comes down to how big your event is and how many different players will be part of the equation.

My recommendation is that if you are not planning a big event, do not try to over complicate your life, keep it simple and if you have a team make sure you delegate!

Talk to me about money

So we all know that events cost money to put together, in my case I do not want to spend too much money to host an event - I want to keep it simple and host a meet up where I know people are there for the connections and not the food or drinks itself.

I also want to make sure I am hosting an event that is for networking purposes so because I know my goal, I know my audience, then I have a clear idea of what they would want. Most of my events are done for a budget of less than $100 when it comes to the day of the event expenses.

The way I do that is because I find locations that would like to partner with me and not charge me money for the space because it is convenient for them as I am bringing them exposure, and that way I control the expense of it all with the food and drinks if needed.

Send reminders

I do not want people to forget about my events so I keep it simple and send event reminders, with Kommunity we already have the event reminders automated but in any case - with any event you host, you want to make sure you have event reminders set up so that people do not forget.

Continuity matters

Many people host one event and think that they are done, you can't build a reputation if you do not have consistency and this is why with smaller meetups I recommend hosting multiple events per month and for bigger events I want to make sure they are done at least once a year.

I do not want people to forget my company because I am lazy and think one event will have the effect I want it to have.

You need a good platform

Okay, I will be honest and say that this is a shameless plug for Kommunity, our platform is gaining traction and building unique features that do not currently exist in other platforms like Eventbrite, Lu.ma or Meetup (who the heck uses meetup anymore, anyways?) Jokes aside, we are a startup looking for feedback and to innovate in the event tech space and we need you for that, so if you have feedback, bring it on!

You need to automate event sharing as well, which is why we have integrated with Slack to ensure that when you publish a new event on our platform, your community in Slack knows about it right away!

Day of the event - what now?

The event or meetup day is here, what do you do now? In my case I like to make sure I have taken care of all the communications and logistics and only focus on making sure people have a great experience.

We do not want bad experiences in our events or our platform, so the day of the event is all about the attendees and their experience!

The event is done and now we need feedback

You thought now that the event is over you are all done? You must be nuts.

This is probably one, if not the most, important part of the process because this is where you make sure to ask your attendees how they felt, what you could do better and then make adjustments to your strategy for the many events coming your way in the future.

Key lesson

All you need to know is that Kommunity - Your Events Marketplace platform is here to help you with your event organising needs so you should not worry about hosting an event because we have you covered with content and software that will help ecosystem builders like you thrive in the future of online and in person gatherings.