Meetup.com = Shut Up

[Warning: It's raining, cables out, very long post coming]

When you were little, nobody ever complained that your lemonade had too much sugar in it nor did anyone complain in your face that $.10 was a rip off.  So, it is completely understandable that many many people didn't learn the art of dealing with customers at an early age.

On top of that, pitching the paper in the morning, mowing the lawns, and selling cookies door to door were basically one person gigs so you didn't get the chance to hire anyone and learn how to deal with employee foot -n- mouth disease.

Fear not, kind readers, I've got a story for you that will give you all the real world example you will need; free and worth every penny.

Enter a company called Meetup.com  co-founded by Scott Heiferman and Peter Kamali.

Insight one: The about page is in alphabetical order. Well done, shows some class on the part of the founders.

The company has a serious board of directors and advisers.

The mission is to organize people offline using on-line tools. They have some really good things to offer and a pretty good value proposition.  From the looks of it, it was all free when it started.

Price change aisle six.  Surprise, company decides making money has an upside and decides to charge a group fee of 19 bucks per month to each meeting organizer. Not per person per group.  If you look at what they offer, it's not a bad deal.

Surprise #2, some customers complained. Loudly.

Insight two: Never, ever, ever give anything away for free. Ever. Always have your product in beta and free while in beta.  You can keep it in beta forever but taking things away from people is just painful.  Beta and free while we "tweak and get it right for our customers" is a easier then having to pull a Scott with "We have some news to share that we don't think you're going to like." Ouch.

So, we have customers unhappy which is expected. Unleash the Vice President of Communications to smooth things over, figure out who is really mad, what can the company do, etc. Right?

Well, you'd think so but here's that Human Resources lesson I promised you. 

Myles Weissleder, VP of Communications posted this on the company's website in, wait for it, the PRESS Section.

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Belly-Achin' Bloggers in Seattle

According to a fun image on Make You Go Hmmm, seems that some of the good folks at the Seattle Blogger Meetup chipped in a few bucks and helped Anita Rowland with the nominal fee for the Seattle Blogger Meetup Group.

Guess this Meetup was worth their time-- at least $2 bucks worth!

Y'all had a good Meetup and you supported your local group! Sounds like everyone should be happy.

We work hard to make it easy for you pull this together.

So really, folks, what's the belly-achin' all about?

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And as I type this, it's still up on the web site with no oops, no mea culpa, nothing folks. Chutzpah, baby...

Insight three: Add the name Myles Weissleder to your no hire list. Actually, don't do that. Ol Myles is a guy you are going to want to know and track as this little saga unfolds. The entire 'tone' of this company will likely get defined by this incident and how they deal with it, will be an important lesson for every start up to watch. Myles is probably gonna be one smart VP of communications after this.

So, big surprise, the Seattle people hear about it, blog about it and jump right onto the company message forums. Right, following along? All this is unfolding on the company's web properties.

Enter one Hilary Moon, a company employee, and community manager. Diving onto the mine, she takes one for the team with Myles nowhere to be found.  Bouncing around as fast as she can, she tries to say sorry for "the VP" using exactly what you'd expect. Ooops, we bad, supposed to be funny, sorry.  She does pretty good, actually.

Insight four: Don't send somebody less in 'rank' then you to take a hit. If your company signs up for titles like VP, you own it. You can't send managers out to cover for VPs, it looks so bad, so corporate and so, what's the word? Right: Dumb.  Myles not available? Sick? Dental work? Bummer, go cough up another VP, exec VP, founder or board member but don't send or allow well meaning people out to add to the problem regardless of the fire.

Insight five: Make it easy for people to yell at you. Myles and crew don't have email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, etc, on the web site. Form to fill out. Web 2.0 company? Hmmm..  Most people will not spam you. Most people like human contact. The walls you put up around the company just hurt when they come crashing down.  You Software remains a great example of a home page done right.

So, there you have it. Don't piss on customers and try not to let people who like to piss on your customers, do so in public. (all together now: MYLES, what the hell were you thinkin!)

That's lesson one.

Lesson two is free can be very very painful, use care.

P.S. All this notwithstanding, Meetup is a very interesting company that is well done and a very good idea. I hope it works.

Comments

[Myles]

Hey Rick -

Thanks for the diligent post. My lapse in response (Insight #4) is because I took a few hours away from the computer to spend time with family for Passover. Please forgive my slowness here. Hilary jumped in on her own before I had a chance to respond. Nobody threw her under the bus...

I also apologize for the misinterpretation. Folks took the comment "Belly Achin'" the wrong way. It wasn't a put down. If you re-read the post on Meetup Watch, you'll see it's the *photo* I commented on... "According to a fun image on Make You Go Hmmm..."

It was merely an observation based on annotated photo #3 (http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20050421/1742/)... Where the ‘artist’ implied the following was being said:

"Meetup? Yeah, they suck"
"I could use the power of print to produce fliers that say Meetup Sucks"
"Meetup? Yeah, sounds kinda greedy"

If you ask me, these comments really comes across that there was a whole lot of belly achin' going down. So I called it.

Perhaps the harsh comments in that photo were off the mark? I hope so.

Thanks for calling me out on this Rick. As one who's been in the trenches with Meetup since before we launched, and as one who's helped tune Meetup's voice ever since, I appreciate the feedback and take it to heart.

So, again, I'm sorry if this offended anyone.

Thanks.

-Myles

[Cliff Allen]

The idea that a start-up shouldn't give customers the idea that its products will always be free is good for most businesses. Companies that sell tangible goods, software, or services with a clear financial benefit need to say that "free" is a "limited time offer."

However, Web-based services that don't meet these criteria (e.g., Google) need to use a different business model. Linkedin is one of the best examples of offering a free service where the financial benefit is hazy (i.e., networking), then adding a fee for new services that have a clear financial benefit.

I was nurturing two Meetup groups when they announced their new fees, so, like other Meetup organizers, I'm moving these groups to a free service whose business model takes this into consideration.

[Hilary Moon Murphy from Meetup]

Rick --

Very interesting analysis, and thank you saying, "She does pretty good, actually." That made my day. :)

Some minor corrections:

My name is Hilary Moon Murphy, not just Hilary Moon.

Matt Meeker, another VP and co-founder did send an apology note to Anita, and he apologized on Dylan's Blog too. The e-mail to Anita was literally written minutes after my first post on the board. She quotes from this e-mail in her "Belly-Achin' Blowout" post. (http://www.anitarowland.com/gmarchives/00002119.html)

Why was my post the first response? Because I was the first to see Anita's comment, and Anita is someone I have become friends with during our time together on the Meetup Message Board. I wanted her to hear first from someone she knew.

Final correction... On the message board of our site you can click any of the staff's usernames and see a little envelope in the profile. Click on the envelope and you can send us mail. Most of us have our e-mail set to accept mail from all Meetup members. I know I do.

I hope that this helps clarify things a little.

Yours,
Hilary Moon Murphy

[Rick Segal]

Hi Hilary,

Whoops, sorry about that, I got the name messed up, sorry.

With respect to the order of who posted when, the larger issue/point was really one of rank. I'm not a fan of titles and most people today will conclude that you got tossed under the bus even if you didn't. My policy point was simply don't allow it. If everybody is a team member, no big deal, but if people sign up for titles, you (lower title, not person) have to alert offending title and let them take first action.

Hearing from you was nice and I do understand but doing some private survey work confirmed what I said. People think you took one for the team regardless of the truth. That was the larger issue. I think you did a great job on the two places where you jumped on it.

The message board, yup, but not on the main website. There is no email contact and, not to be picky your note says "most" and members. Not sure I agree but again, my larger point is that you should play the odds and be as open as possible.

Thanks for stopping by,

Best