Did you know that the 8BIT Network has a Meetup group? You can check it out here: 8BIT Network Meetup.
We’ve had one or two ad-hoc meetups so far but we’re looking to put some more energy behind it this year as more and more people have wanted to hang, talk strategy, web, and more with other community members.
It’s interesting because we announced it back in September and took a “risk” (kind of) to actually pay for the service without knowing exactly what we were going to do with it long-term.
But apparently that’s how you do it: Meetup.com reminisces how they were all about risks when they first started back many years ago, especially when they first started charging people.
Some of the responses were like this:
Congratulations, you’ve officially joined the “Asshole Club” along with the likes of BELL CANADA, EXON, KFC, McDONALDS, and all the other mega-corp. conglomerates who don’t give a shit about anyone or anything but lining their own pockets with money.
As well as this:
I think it’s fair to say most organisers were shocked, and most of the ones I’ve spoken to will simply cease organising for their groups…There isn’t anything Meetup is doing these days that users can’t simply do on their own and more effectively, and there’s plenty of open source software to make use of and create your own website.
It’s all about taking risks online with your startups and web businesses, not unlike what we do with our startup ministries and church plants, right?
I think you could learn a thing or two from this great interview with Meetup.com’s founders as well as possible see some similarities on starting new ministries.
Matt says
That’s all fine & good, but we totally dumped meetup when they started jacking the rates up. We paid for a while, but eventually transitioned the group of over 200 over to facebook… For free 😉
Obviously, they’re still doing fine, so it looks like the risk was worth it overall.
Ben says
I really badly want to do an 8Bit Meet-up but there seems to be no one near me, yet. A lot of people have heard about 8Bit but no one is organizing anything. Why not me i guess, right? I’m working on it…