Virtual Meetups: Platforms, Hybrid Meetups, Virtual Conferences

Problem

Time and geography can prevent interesting people from meeting.

Solution

Virtual meetups remove geographical boundaries and reduce time costs in meeting regularly. Now you can find your tribe in a world of billions.

Players

Virtual Meetups

Platforms

Tools

Predictions

Zoom (or SendBird) will become a popular backend for niche virtual meetup apps. (Predicted by Villi Iltchev)
Hybrid meetups will become common. My mastermind (pictured above) works this way. Some of us meet in Atlanta. Then we jump on a video call with others around the world.
Physical meetups will not disappear. They serve a specific purpose. Like dine-in restaurants and physical gyms versus cloud kitchens and remote fitness platforms.

Opportunities

Teach a course on how to organize and grow a virtual meetup.
Start a virtual happy hour around your brand. The liquor brand Haus recently made a smart play.
Build a productized service to edit recorded video from virtual meetups. These assets can be used for promotion and/or education.
Build a tool to collect votes during virtual meetups and drive the agenda based on feedback.
Find virtual meetups based on your interests. Trends subscriber, James Eldersveld, joins no-code meetups around the world from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
~~Build meetup.com for virtual meetups.~~ I built it. Check out VirtualMeetups.co.

Haters

“It’s not the same as meeting in person.”
You’re right. In some ways it’s better. In some ways it’s worse.

Markets and Ideas