Matt Meeker

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• What do you think of all the IPOs - are we in a bubble? Will all of this impact new, early stage startups over the next year?

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    Sorry everyone, I’m out of time with this question but will try to finish up the rest very soon! Thanks for all the great questions!

    On this one, Steve Blank has convinced me we’re in a bubble and the best thing to do is realize it and go with it. Go read his posts on it — they’re excellent and well thought out.

    It already is having an impact on early stage startups. I expect we’ll see a shakeout over the next 12-18 months with many early stage companies who raised seed funding, built a product, and didn’t see enough consumer adoption. Many of those companies will likely fold, be folded into larger companies, or merge together. And that’s ok — it’s good for the ecosystem to try more ideas and let the market validate the winners.

    It’s a bit painful today as it has fragmented the talent across several ideas when many won’t make it, but I expect a correction around that soon, and a consolidation of the best talent around the most important and impactful ideas.

    Thanks again!

• I am looking into becoming a co-founder for a site that is like Elance.com but it is for early adopters. The site ranks the top early adopters and people can hire them to create visitors, provide valuable feedback, etc. Should I pass or is there potential for the need?

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    I don’t judge ideas. The market does a much better job at it, and I’m a notoriously bad predictor of idea success.

    That said, it’s a personal decision. If the idea really speaks to you, do it. If you find yourself thinking about it constantly, building on it, telling people about it, etc, etc, that means you’re into it. You shouldn’t be looking for the idea that you might want to work on — you should be looking for the idea that you HAVE TO do, and nothing is going to stop you.

    And then, look at the people who are your co-founders and ask if you want to work with them on the next idea, when you have to change because this one didn’t work out.

• Did you ever have a, "This isn't going to work" moment with Meetup.com, and what did you do to turn that around?

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    On the overall idea and vision, I never had that moment with Meetup. I knew it was going to work before we launched (so much so that I insisted my parents invest in our angel round after they declined multiple times).

    On specific ideas and projects, I had that thought all the time. Over the years, I proved to be really bad at predicting what our successes would be. Again, I’m lucky I worked with smarter people who pushed forward on brilliant ideas I tried to squash.

• How important is it to be technical when running a web startup?

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    You don’t need to be technical, but you should understand the technology at some level, and if you don’t have it, you must get some technical DNA in the company as soon as possible.

• You've sat on both sides of the table so to speak - being an entrepreneur and a VC - which one do you prefer?

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    I don’t know yet. :) I’ve been on the VC side for about 6 months now, and there’s a lot I enjoy about it. But there’s also something inspiring in working with entrepreneurs all day, where I think I should be building something new again.

    I’m really fortunate that Polaris has given me some time to learn the other side while giving me the flexibility to take my career in any direction. They’ve been really supportive about that.

• I'm a college student and I'm really passionate about technology and my dream is to build my own business. And businesses as I understand, offer products or services that solve problems. So what are some ways in which I can find out solutions to problems and come with ideas which can ultimately lead to a business?

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    Look to solve problems that you have yourself. If you notice things that don’t seem right to you and you think, “there must be a better way”, start dreaming up and tinkering with ideas to build that better way.

    I feel like entrepreneurs are inherently critical of the world as it exists today, knowing that there are endless numbers of ways they could improve things.

    The opportunities for that are all around us, but you’ll likely do a better job in solving a problem that you experience first-hand, rather than solving another person’s problem.

• How much equity do you typically give to a technical partner?

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    Sorry to say this, but, it depends.

    It depends on the type of business you’re building and how technically complex it is (Google = more, Groupon = less). It depends on their experience. It depends on the market conditions. It depends on your experience and success rate. And so much more.

    The one thing I will say is I 110% agree with Mark Suster’s point of not having equal co-founders. If you haven’t read his post on that, it’s worth checking out.

• Whats the secret to choosing good co-founders?

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    Relationships again. Find people who are really great at things you aren’t good at and/or don’t want to do.

    At Meetup, Scott was always the “outside guy”. He was the guy we all wanted on stage at conferences, speaking to the press, talking to investors, leading the vision, etc.

    I always wanted to take his vision and figure out how to execute on it, measure the results, test, and repeat. I wanted to build teams and work on my management skills.

    And Peter was the technical and product driving force. He executed in building better than any of us could have. And beyond being an amazing technical mind, Peter also added a lot to the vision and strategy for the company.

    So look for people who are exceptional in the functional areas you need them to be, but can contribute in other big picture ways. And finally, find people you want to work with for 10 years. There are a bunch of ups and downs, and it’s so important to like and respect your co-founders.

• It seems that in the early days its important to have users that are "cheerleaders" - people who will get other people to use your service/site. Did you try to cultivate evangelism and if so, what was your approach?

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    Yes, in a way we did this. As I talked about in a previous answer, we centrally controlled all Meetups at the start. We invented holidays, so for example, we would say “International Pug Meetup Day is coming! It is the 3rd Saturday of the month at 2pm, in 600+ cities worldwide.”

    Then we would take that message to pug bloggers, email list owners, Yahoo Groups leaders, pug sites, and every pug resource we could find online. We’d let them know Int'l Pug Meetup Day was coming and they should tell their audience. And they did. It worked really well for jump-starting the service.

• What has been your single greatest source of customer acquisition?

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    Meetup is almost entirely built on word of mouth, largely from self-interested Organizers who want more people to show up, and really good SEO efforts. We’ve dabbled with paid advertising over the years, but it’s never been anything serious.