Scott Heiferman, founder and CEO of Meetup, talks to us about how he learned to value communities, why he wants to make people powerful, and what we have to look forward to expect in the 21st century.

Jed Sundwall: Can you talk about the genesis of Meetup? What motivated you to create it?

Scott Heiferman: So I think you know that Robert Putnam had something to do with it. The story is that I never really gave much thought about local community, it never was anything that I had a particular passion for. But, after 9/11 happened and being in New York, I followed a link from a blog somewhere to something about Bowling Alone. It was October 1st that I ordered Bowling Alone on Amazon and was really intrigued. Putnam basically sold me on the idea that local community is important. It was something that I actually got a sense of being in New York at that time. And he throws out a bit of a challenge in there asking how in the 21st century, with the technology and all of the things that'll be driving people away from local community, how can we reinvigorate what's good about our communities?

And so, Meetup was a pretty simple, straightforward idea. We weren't the first ones to try it; we weren't the last ones to try it. We just wanted to do it right and so, pull together the best team we could. And I think we've done OK so far at stimulating a lot of local community and you know, just getting started.

Tell us a little bit about what it was like to be at Meetup during the 2004 Election.

Well, you know, some people have thought that we came out of the Dean Campaign or that we even had some particular eye towards politics or something. That was a complete accident. It was the supporters of Howard Dean who were self-organizing and did not have any structure—they needed a way to form it. And they saw promise with Meetup and used it. It was definitely an eye-opening thing for us about what we had built was not just about a bunch of fans of a band being able to have their like fan club meeting, but a lot about how it is that when you give people the power to self-organize, they're going to do some amazing things with it, and they certainly did in '04.

Do you feel like you discovered any attributes of Meetup that lend themselves to politics, or is there anything in particular that made them so successful?

Well, not particularly. I mean, I guess we made it easy for people to self-organize. And I don't mean to be simplistic, but that's pretty much it. One of the greatest regrets I've got in the whole history of this company is that we didn't realize initially how important it is that we give people the tools to sustain organization in addition to creating it. We didn't do that in 2004.

It's one thing to get an event to happen. It's another thing to have that turn into a group that has multiple events. But then, it's a whole other thing to have that group, that sort of flimsy group turn into a durable organization. And then, it's a whole other thing to take a durable organization and have them create, essentially, a network of local organizations.

We were proud to have made an innovative system for the first one or two steps of that, the pulling together of an event. And then, we were able to sort of jerry-rig it so they could have multiple events. But, what we're spending 10 years building (and we think in terms of 10 years), are really the systems that go far beyond what's currently out there anywhere. We're asking ourselves, "How do you take something from an event to a group, really to a durable, powerful organization on a local level that's networked with other durable local organizations?" We think that will allow people to create really powerful things.

Do you really think that's something that technology can do? I mean, obviously, I guess it can facilitate it in ways, but it sounds like you really need charismatic people to do things like that.

I love that question because some of the best inventions in the world come out of skeptics posing these challenges, "Well, you know, people will never…"

We fundamentally believe that regular people can become extraordinary organizers and powerful ones at that with the right tools. The story of the human race is always about how we become more powerful and able to do great things when we have the right tools.

Actually, do you know who Pete Ashdown is?

That name sounds familiar, but I can't place it.

He runs an ISP in Utah and ran for Senate against Senator Hatch two years ago. You just reminded me of that, of my interview with him because he told me, "I was a complete introvert; I wasn't even that politically active." But, a few things started piquing his interest and he decided to run for Senate. Through using wikis and online collaboration tools, he transformed himself from a pretty introverted guy, who was used to hanging out on the computer all day, to being a public figure and rallying people.

Precisely. We're not going to quit until you can take a person who's got a busy life, who's got a lot of things going on, living anywhere in the world, and help him create a powerful local community group. I would say we're about five percent toward that goal.

Let me pose a challenge for you, a personal one. I like to swim. I live in San Diego. We have the La Jolla Cove here, which is a beautiful place to swim in the ocean. I'm trying to organize people who like to swim in the cove to just get together and talk and plan ad hoc swims. I started a Google group just because it seemed like the simplest solution. What does Meetup provide that would help me find everybody out there who wants to swim in the cove?

Well, if you organize that group on Meetup, it would be 100 times better. And in the future, 500 times better. Basically, as I think a lot of the NetSquared people will know, the art and science of community organizing is a lot more than just putting up some flag somewhere, saying, "Hey, I'm community organizing." What you get on Meetup is some very tangible tools and some other network benefits. Specifically, you're going to be walked, step by step, through the whole checklist of how to set up this group as an organization that will make it so that you have regular in-person meet-ups. It'll put you on a routine that will, say, have a monthly meet-up.

We optimize the whole experience that your potential members will have, in order to push them to RSVP for the meet-up, to remind them of it. It will let you take a look at what other Meetup groups are doing in other towns, so that you can borrow from the best of the best practices of getting it going. If you just want to have a little mailing list of your friends, that's fine for a Yahoo group or a Facebook group or a Google group. But, if you really want to put your stake in the ground and make sure that you're easily found on search engines, I'd recommend trying Meetup.

The other part of it is that we get hundreds of thousands of people a month who are saying, "Notify me if someone starts a swimming group in San Diego." And so, they get notified when that gets started. We promote your Meetup group on all the other Meetup group pages in San Diego. It's all about figuring out how to get more members and have better tools, so that you can—with the least effort as possible—actually have these meet-ups.

And we can make it so you can collect money if you want to do that. There's a system that recommends where you should have your Meetup. It will notify you so that if you want to meet at a Starbucks, that this Starbucks is better than that one or all the other venues in San Diego. I'm sorry for talking so much about this, but there are a lot of different nuances, a lot of different things and I could go on. But, particularly, more members, better tools, easier, more powerful. It can mean the difference between success and failure.

No need to apologize, that's exactly the kind of answer that I wanted. However, I have to pay for Meetup. Why is that?

The system is so good that at every single Meetup, of the tens of thousands that we've ever assisted, each one of them was paid for. People wouldn't be paying for it if it didn't do its job.

What are you looking forward to in the future?

I guess through this whole process of seeing Meetup grow, I've come to realize what I'm most interested in in general, and that is the concept of how people have power together and how people self-organize to be powerful. And powerful doesn't necessarily mean like politically powerful. It means that they can help each other, they can help themselves. They can just make some differences, you know, in some small or big way. And so, obviously, Meetup is a part of that.

But, I'm really excited about some of the things I've seen recently, things like The Point which is out of Chicago. Basically, The Point takes petitions to a new level by having people make a pledge to take some action if a number of other people do the same. So, for example, they'll try to generate $20,000 by having someone say "I'll donate 20 bucks to help a playground be built if 999 other people pledge the same thing."

Similarly, there's something called Carrotmob, which is an experiment by a guy in San Francisco. He went around and told a bunch of local grocers, "You guys compete to see who can be the most eco-friendly grocer in the neighborhood, and I promise you that the one that pledges to be the most eco-friendly, we will have a mob come and buy at your store." So, it's just like this real positive movement, sort of the opposite of a boycott, you know? Some people call them "buycotts."

I really believe that the 21st Century is going to be more impacted by Internet-enabled group power and Internet-enabled group collective action, even just moms forming a mom's group to have a babysitting collective, really simple stuff, that that's going to have more impact on the 21st Century than anything.