Scott Heiferman founded Meetup just after the dotcom bubble crashed. It scaled over time and gained a global following. Before Facebook and LinkedIn, Meetups were the platform of choice for anyone interested in community-building. Evite was another similar tool at that time.

Scott decided to sell the company to WeWork a couple of years ago. As someone who relied on Meetup for all kinds of networking including running a community myself, I’m not sure if I’ll renew my subscription. The biggest benefit offered to Meetup community leaders was the usage of swank office space at WeWork locations for free. The cost of admission was often free in the Meetup world. Things seemed too good to be true. It’s impossible to run such a business for too long.

It’s a shame if Meetup gets shut down because there are so many folks like Scott who scaled amazing communities and connected with each other. I hope Meetup survives the WeWork reorganization.