Officegram: Meetup’s Red, Red Digs

James Nani — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:43:03 -0400

Welcome to the offices of Meetup.com, the granddaddy of the New York Tech Scene. Meetup has been around since just after the dot-com bubble burst and the city was attacked on September 11; took off when Howard Dean ran for president in 2004 and has produced the largest tech organization in New York, the 17,000-registered member strong New York Tech Meetup. So here's what a mature start-up looks like, we guess.

Oh, and if you like what you see, they're hiring.

All photos and captions by James Nani.

Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman literally meets up with friend and co-founder of VYou.com Steve Spurgat.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup110.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup110.jpg?w=375" width="112" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup110.jpg?w=112" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Meetup Vice President of Strategy and Community Andres Glusman (left) and Meetup CTO and co-founder Greg Whalin pose at the Meetup front desk after returning from a meeting at their office in Soho.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup24.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup24.jpg?w=375" width="112" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup24.jpg?w=112" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Employees at Meetup collect and hang t-shirts made by groups organized through the website. Sometimes groups send the shirts in; other times the employees go scouring for them. These shirts, Austin Paranormal Investigators and the Great Lakes Area Miltary (G.L.A.M.) Wives Club, were two of about 40 hanging from the ceiling of the office.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup31.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup31.jpg?w=640" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup31.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Meetup has some ambitions of bringing people together in the real world as well as online. This was a small collection of books related to Meetup’s goals of community organization. Meetup was actually inspired by a book: Bowling Alone.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup41.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup41.jpg?w=375" width="112" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup41.jpg?w=112" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Everyone needs to brush up on coding here and there.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup51.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup51.jpg?w=375" width="112" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup51.jpg?w=112" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> The Meetup headquarters has multiple lounges for employees to work in private, speak with customers, test ideas or simply…lounge.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup61.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup61.jpg?w=640" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup61.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> The Meetup logo behind the front desk of their Soho headquarters in Manhattan.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup71.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup71.jpg?w=640" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup71.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> The Meetup logo is used as a projector wall in the board room.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup81.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup81.jpg?w=640" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup81.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Windows in the Meetup board room have group categories etched into them. According to Meetup, there are over 250,000 meet ups monthly.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup91.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup91.jpg?w=640" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meetup91.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Meetup.com" /> Each of the side rooms had a different theme marked by photos taken by group members. This one had about 400 photos of dogs. A search on Meetup.com shows there are 2,230 groups that match “dogs.”