Where did all the meetups go!?

Question

I remember 6 or 7 years ago, the hosts of the BiggerPockets podcast would encourage investors to go to local meetups to meet with other local investors to network and learn about real estate investing in their areas. I don’t know if it is just me, but I have not heard a lot of encouragement these days about going to local meetups while listening to the podcasts.

On previous versions of the BiggerPockets website, it was a lot easier to find out where local meetups were being hosted because there was a link on the front page that read “meetups” and it would take you right to the meetup page where you could see a map where people were having meetups in your area or in other areas across the country. It was fantastic for networking

I don’t know for sure, but it seems like at around the same time that BiggerPockets started hosting its own conferences and advertising boot camps and such that it became harder and harder to find where on the website that you could find local meetups.

This morning I searched the website to try to find where local meetups were posted on the website and it took me between 5 and 10 minutes to find it. And I was specifically looking for it. The location definitely was obvious, at least to me.

I’ve hosted monthly meetups in my area of Mesa, Arizona for around 7 years now and the majority of people that attended came from BiggerPockets. It’s been a long time since anyone came to my meetup that saw it advertised on the BiggerPockets website. At these meetups wholesalers found investors, investors found lenders, newbies found experienced investors and everyone got to learn something. We would regularly have around 25 people show up every month.

So I’m wondering the reason why the link to the meetup section on BiggerPockets was taken off the front page and placed in a less obvious place on the website and why the map feature was removed.

Did anyone else notice this change? Or was it just me? If you search for the meetup section on the website how long does it take for you to find it? And would you say that finding it was obvious or not obvious

What are your thoughts?

Scott Trench · Answer

I completely agree. We need to make networking on BiggerPockets awesome again like it used to be.

We just (re)developed similar technology for our Market Finder. We will add this to the backlog. Thanks for the reminder, Shiloh.

Jake Kain · Answer

I agree and definitely think navigating the website and finding the "local meetups" has been over-complicated and frustrating. We've been running nearly 4.5 years now and the replies on our meetup posts has diminished to nothing. As we were building and growing in the first year or 2, Biggerpockets was by far the largest referral source. Now, we hardly get any new attendees that found us on BP. Most come from word of mouth from us, friends or other meetups.

@Jason Gilmore

Shiloh Lundahl · Answer

Hi @Tiamo Wright I can appreciate you running interference on a critique of the BiggerPockets website, however, you missed the point that was being made.

Meetups used to be really encouraged several years ago and the link to find posted meetups was predominantly displayed and very easy to find right on the front page. Now there are advertisements predominately displayed. BiggerPockets has become a bigger business and therefore needs more revenue to sustain the higher expenses and profit, and it gets revenue from ad space, not from meetups. I get all of that.

Nevertheless, it is no longer easy to find local meetups on the BiggerPockets website and that is unfortunate for investors, especially new investors who would like to connect with other investors in their area.

@Scott Trench what are your thoughts on this?

Tiamo Wright · Answer

Thank you for the feedback and super helpful to know you liked the maps. We are constantly testing and looking to improve our site navigation to make it easier for folks to find what they are looking for, but there is limited space on each page so we don't always get it right. We have tons of people in the community that host great local events and still encourage users to check those out here https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521

Thanks again for the feedback and hope that some upcoming tests help you to find what you are looking for easily.

Where did all the meetups go!?

Where did all the meetups go!?

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