Chapter 58
Start a Group or Club
Can you be an effective group organizer?
You might surprise yourself. I did! Back in mid-2007, I stepped in as the organizer for an entrepreneur group on Meetup.com. The group had about 100 members at that time but they hadn't had an in-person meeting in months and the group was falling apart. At the time of this writing, my Meetup group has about 2,000 members and is one of the 50 largest entrepreneur clubs in the country. It's called the Entrepreneur and Small Business Academy and we've been sponsored by American Express OPEN, Microsoft, General Electric, and Hewlett-Packard at one time or another.
The interesting thing is that I never invited a single member. They all found me! The Meetup platform hosts thousands of different groups and has millions of visitors each month. Many of those visitors are members of an existing group but they also browse through other groups that cater to their individual interests. Meetup isn't the only platform that supports groups. Yahoo! and Google both have platforms to organize groups. You can also start groups on Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, among others. In each case, you can start a group and have people find you and join. I like Meetup the best because I think the viral effect is the strongest on that platform.
The reality is that most Meetup groups don't do very well. Their meetings are poorly attended and their membership growth is anemic. Meanwhile, my group has one primary ...
