The past, present and future of meeting people with meetup founder Scott Heiferman

There’s a high chance that if you have attended an event in a city in recent years, it was arranged through meetup.com. The site now has over 32 million members, over a quarter of a million groups and over half a million meetups happening in 182 countries every month.

Aside from being a keen and regular user, meetup has always fascinated me, as it’s a tech company with a core mission that is about getting people away from their technology and to in-person meetings with like-minded people. It’s a service that creates so many positive outcomes, yet so many users focus on the negatives of the platform. And as one attendee of a meetup organizers meetup in Berlin put it, “you’re a service where those who do all the work have to pay”.

After his talk about “the future in 2027” at Berlin’s Tech Open Air event, I sat down with the founder, Scott Heiferman to dig into the past, present and future of meeting people. Including the origins of meetup, new features on the road map, growth cities, anecdotes from global events and much more.