I spent last year creating a meetup competitor but also got stumped on monetisation. It's a difficult problem since you can't really charge new users since they don't know what value they'll get (plus you want events to get lots of sign ups to look popular), and also charging admins makes it expensive to start groups. You can't do this either while gaining traction since you want groups & events.
So there's no early way to revenue, and since Meetup is probably only worth about $50m (ignoring the $200m it was sold for to that office company that was desperate it IPO), it'd be a struggle to get funding for marketing while you're gaining traction, since ultimately the market leader isn't worth much.
My app added some important missing features over meetup, but they'd be expensive to run. I'd strip them out but then I'd just have plain old (but empty) meetup again... so I think it's difficult to innovate in this area.
So there's no early way to revenue, and since Meetup is probably only worth about $50m (ignoring the $200m it was sold for to that office company that was desperate it IPO), it'd be a struggle to get funding for marketing while you're gaining traction, since ultimately the market leader isn't worth much.
My app added some important missing features over meetup, but they'd be expensive to run. I'd strip them out but then I'd just have plain old (but empty) meetup again... so I think it's difficult to innovate in this area.