84- How MEETUP helps Entrepreneurs- “Community-in-a-box”
March 18th, 2009
In this episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, we interview Andres Glusman, who is the Vice-President of Insights and Strategy for the organization of Meetup.com.
Andres took a few minutes to speak with us to discuss how the Meetup.com facility can be a helpful tool for the small business owner and entrepreneur. Andres was committed to be at another session during the Austin SXSW (South by Southwest) conference for INTERACTIVE portion (i.e., web-based and internet-based electronic themes–which is in addition to the Film and Music portions) of the conference.
In this audio episode, you will see how an entrepreneur can grow a community (or audience) within the local area for sessions of in-person meetings via the Meetup.com facility. The infrastructure comes with prepared tools for scheduling meetings, sending out email to potential members, managing the membership, getting feedback–and even conducting message boards, etc.
Although Andres does not want to call it a “blogging platform,” one of the representative organizers as the meeting for meetup organizers in Austin did describe the online service as just that.
One key feature that is important to note: the email ids of the membership are NEVER compromised, as the organizer or assistant organizers do not have access to the individuals’ email IDs. Thus, an individual may join a group, receive email from the group for notices of meetings, etc. But the individual may leave the group at any time, and no one will ever have access to the individual’s email ID. This type of restricted access protects the privacy of the membership.
In addition to new features, the meetup.com facility now can assist the entrepreneur with charging for dues, so that the small fee for using the service can be incidentally passed on to the membership, if that is desired by the organizers.
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