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Organizer guide

1. Topic and name

You should pick a topic that has a sufficiently wide appeal to attract a broad audience and get enough sponsors. It can be a language, a framework, a technology, an area of AI, etc.

You should also pick a name for your meetup. It should be short and easy to remember and include either the name of the city of the country it is in so it is easy to Google. You may also want to register a domain. You don’t necessarily need to create a site right away and instead can redirect the domain to your community page on whichever platform you’re using, such as Meetabit.

2. Co-organizers

You should aim to have 2-3 co-organizers. This will help you share the workload and ensure that you can always attend the meetup.

3. Audience

You should decide who you want your target audience to be and try to have speakers and sponsors that will appeal to them. You should also decide whether you want your meetup to open to everyone or invite only. Examples of invite only meetups are: CTO meetups for current or ex-CTOs, Hacker News meetup for active participants of the site etc.

4. Format

The easiest format is to have each meetup hosted by a different sponsor company. The sponsor should take care of providing the venue, food and drinks as well as ideally one technical speaker.

The events should take place in the evening on weekdays, Fridays are best avoided since attendees may have other plans then. 17:30-18:00 is a good time to start the event. Some people are often a bit late, so you should aim to start the talks at 18:15. If you start early (17:30), then food can be available already and you can finish it after the talk(s). Other option is to have the food arrive only after the talks.

Typically you should aim to have 1-3 talks, each lasting 20-25 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions. Let the speakers know about this in advance and remind them before the talk starts. It is worth having a longer break in between some talks if you have more than 2 and to leave time for socializing afterwards.

One option is to go the “deep dive” route and book a single speaker that really knows their topic well and is willing to talk 1-1.5h. The longer format allows more interaction with the audience and can be a good option if you want to try an alternative approach.

5. Process

The key to running a successful tech meetup is having a clear process that you can follow. This will reduce the amount of time you spend on admin and more time on what you love: learning and building relationships.

In order to organize a meetup, you need sponsor companies, speakers and attendees. Each can be tracked in a separate queue in a spreadsheet, although for the latter platforms like Meetabit can also be used.

Process potential sponsors on a first come first serve basis. Plan only one meetup ahead and have a regular cadence, e.g. every 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, etc. Aim to select sponsors that have central locations and venues big enough to host as many of your attendees as possible.

Once a sponsor is known, propose dates to them. Try to pick dates on which at least 2 of the organizers are available, so that someone can always attend the event to MC.

Once a date is set, reach out to potential speakers with the specific date. If a speaker isn’t available on that, you can reach out to them again in the future. Once at least 1-2 speakers are confirmed, you can publish the event.

Note that for free events you’re likely to get a third no shows, so to ensure you fill all the seats overbook by 50%. Another good strategy is to remind people to update their registration close to the event to reduce the amount of no-shows.

If you’re ever running out of potential sponsors or speakers, you can reach out to individuals you know who may be able to help, ask for help via your mailing list or post about it on social media. It should be possible to find both sponsors and speakers on short notice.

6. Promotion

To promote the event you should use the following channels, in order of preference:

  • Your mailing list or whatever the platform you’re using provides for making announcements
  • Techtribes
  • Relevant online communities, see below
  • Social media, primarily LinkedIn and perhaps Bluesky and X; Facebook is no longer a good channel

7. After the event

In case you recorded the event, it is a good practice to share the recording with the participants after the event. That is also a good chance to thank for participation and mention the next event if the date is clear.

8. Relevant online communities in Finland

9. Code of conduct

Although not needed at the beginning, once your community becomes big enough, you should introduce a code of conduct. You can use the one from HelsinkiJS as a reference.

10. Additional resources