Scott Heiferman of Meetup on #160

TWiST #160 with Scott Heiferman of Meetup
Jason sits down in the TWiST NYC studios to talk to Scott Heiferman of the wildly popular site Meetup.com. Scott discusses his youthful ambitions, his brief stint behind the counter at McDonalds and why this could be his last startup.

0:00-1:30 Thank you to MailChimp for sponsoring TWiST.
1:30-3:00 Demonstration of how you can segment your lists to target your emails using MailChimp.
3:00-3:15 Welcome to Scott Heiferman of Meetup.
3:15-4:15 Tell the audience what Meetup is.
4:15-5:00 So the idea was to get people off the Internet and back into being involved with their communities?
5:00-6:00 So you’re at nine years and nine million members?
6:00-7:00 Is that the magic, that you’re able to reach this many people?
7:00-8:15 How much of the activity is in the US and how much is abroad?
8:15-9:45 The breakout moment for Meetup was the election in 2008, yes?
9:45-11:15 There is a business model to this, but what is it?
11:15-11:30 Almost 100k people paying $15 a month. That’s a lot of revenue.
11:30-13:45 In between companies, you famously went to work for McDonalds. Why? When did you do that and what was the impetus?
13:45-14:45 So you cracked? Was it a breakdown?
14:45-16:30 What did you learn in selling the Dollar Menu?
16:30-18:00 What lessons did you learn from Web 1.0 that you put into meetup?
18:00-20:00 Did you go subscription-based because you were so sick of ads?
20:00-22:15 So a level of focus is obtained when people are paying?
22:15-23:15 You like going long? Taking a long look?
23:15-24:15 Who are your investors and why did you pick them?
24:15-26:30 What was going through your mind at the age of 24 that led you to start an ad agency?
26:30-27:30 Thank you to iStockphoto for sponsoring the show.
27:30-32:00 Demonstration of how easy it is to purchase photos within iStockphoto.
32:00-34:00 You’ve collected an incredible group of investors. What do you look for?
34:00-36:00 So now you look at board meetings like a time to catch up?
36:00-37:15 So if you let them go on sabbatical you let them go for three months instead of losing them?
37:15-39:00 What Scott would like to see more entrepreneurs do--build something to last.
39:00-40:00 The hours you put in, you’ll reap later in your career, don’t you think?
40:15-42:30 What has the biggest challenge in running the company been over the past nine years?
42:30-43:45 Are you saying you don’t make 500 million friends without making a few enemies?
43:45-44:00 How can TEDx be tight about the rules if they let their members make them up?
44:00-44:45 What’s the worst thing that’s happened on the platform? Have you ever had to kick people out?
44:45-46:00 Jason tells a tragic chihuahua meetup tale.
46:00-47:00 Scott tells a story about a baby meetup scheduled in the same park as a pit bull meetup--with a happy outcome.
47:30-48:00 Do you have a live map of where people are going?
48:00-49:00 Scott, thank you so much for being on today. Everyone, go to meetup.com and start something.
48:30-49:00 Thank you to our sponsors and Belgrave Trust for hosting us.

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FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Scott: @heif
Meetup: @meetup

Special Thanks to the members of the TWiST List Producer Program!
Executive Producers

• Louis-Eric Simard
• Benjamin Gifford
• Jacek Artymiak
• Octavian Mihai
• Will Paoletto
• Geoffrey Clapp
• Eien Hyett
• Jeff Hoffer
• Kyle Lonzo
• Austin Miller
• Rashaun Sourles
• Robb Kunz
• Greg Berry
• Sean Lynch
• Mary Ann Halford
• Jim Joyce
• Morgan Howard
• Margaret Johns
• Kyle M. Brown
• Paul Cole
• Nick Duncan
• Magnus Ingvarsson
• Amir Ayalon
• Carlos Zaidenweber

Producers

• Eli Coler
• Ted Inoue
• Radek Rybicki
• Hunter Owens
• Christian Owens
• Ben Altieri
• Casey Wach
• Cam Collins
• Ildar Khakimov
• Matti Hallanoro
• Rodrigo Dauster
• Rodrigo Fuentes
• Anthony Ortenzi
• Daniel de la Cruz
• Michael Hofmann
• John Meneses

Associate Producers

• Brad Pineau
• Kat Ganesan
• Nicholas Christian
• Mau Frontier
• Kyle Braatz
• Serena Ehrlich
• Nathan Hangen
• Lauri Hahne
• JD
• Trudy Baidoo
• Ian Gerstel
• Julian Hearn
• Alex Lotoczko
• James Kennedy
• Benoit Curdy
• Asher Nevins
• Mike Kaltschnee
• Paul Higgins
• Patrick Altman
• William Doom
• David Lee
• Jake Kerber
• Sarp Coskun
• Giuseppe Taibi
• Tyrone Rubin
• Keno Vigil
• Paul Peters

Supporters

• Ryan Hoover
• Michael Cranston
• Josiah Thomas
• João Fernandes
• Petrus Theron
• Michael Wild
• Adrian Grant
• Dale Emmons
• Kieran McGrady
• Tim de Jardine
• Alejandro Vasquez
• C. Dain Miller
• Joshua Opatz
• Milan Babuskov
• Chris Rowe
• Nelson Melo
• James Dawson
• Toddy Mladenov
• Daniel Torres
• Chris Macke
• Piotr Zuralski
• Armand Konan
• Brian Vogel
• Paul D
• Jennifer Sun
• Zach Fogelson