Scott Heiferman Explained

Scott Heiferman
Birth Date:1972
Birth Place:Homewood, Illinois
Alma Mater:University of Iowa
Nationality:American
Known For:Founding Meetup

Scott Heiferman is an American community organizer and entrepreneur. Heiferman co-founded Meetup and was CEO from 2002 to 2018.

Early life

Scott Heiferman was born in 1972 in Homewood, Illinois. Heiferman has four siblings. While attending Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Heiferman sold coupon books for a nearby town, earning enough to pay for his first year of college.[1] [2]

He attended the University of Iowa, where he began his studies as an engineering student. He later changed his degree to business and graduated in 1994.[3]

Career

Scott Heiferman's first job out of college was in Montvale, New Jersey working for Sony as an 'Interactive Marketing Frontiersman.' He worked at Sony from 1994 to 1995.

While there, Heiferman helped develop their first corporate website.

In 1995, he moved to New York City, and started an online ad-agency called i-traffic, which was dedicated to online media. I-traffic grew to about 100 employees, before it was purchased by Agency.com in 1999 for $15 million. Heiferman sold the company just before the end of the dot-com bubble. He continued working for Agency.com until 2000.

After Heiferman left Agency.com, he worked at McDonald's for a few weeks, starting in 2000.

Meetup

At the time of the September 11 attacks, Heiferman lived just a few miles from the Twin Towers.[4] The attack caused him and his neighbors to meet each other for the first time, on the roof of his building.[5] [6] The experience made Heiferman interested in the idea of face-to-face interactions and community.[7] Heiferman was influenced by the book Bowling Alone, which is about creating connections between strangers and the deterioration of community in American culture.[8] He was also a fan of the band Luna and often went to their concerts alone, because he could not find other fans to go with.

These events caused Heiferman to start Meetup in 2002 with five co-founders[9] and 10 employees.[10] Around the same time, Heiferman also started a photo-sharing service called Fotolog, which he sold five years later for $90 million. During Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign, Dean persuaded supporters to create or join local Meetup groups. In 2004, Meetup reached one million users and Heiferman was named "Innovator of the Year" by MIT Technology Review. Subsequently, then Presidential hopeful Barack Obama promised to attend any Meetup event of supporters that can get at least 100 attendees.

In 2005, Heiferman made the unexpected decision of charging users a fee to start and run Meetup groups, rather than using an advertising-based business model. Afterwards, the activity on Meetup dropped 95%, but rebounded over time. The company made a profit for the first time in 2009. By 2017, Meetup had 32 million members in 182 countries. That same year, Facebook invested in new features in a competing service called Facebook Groups. In response, Heiferman developed a plan to redesign Meetup to focus more on activities than groups.[11] The re-design was also based on feedback from Meetup employees. In late 2017, Meetup was acquired by WeWork.[12]

In 2018, Scott Heiferman stepped down as CEO and former Investopedia CEO David Siegel took his place. Heiferman became Chairman of Meetup.[13] [14]

Personal

Scott Heiferman has a daughter and a son, born in 2010 and 2014 respectively.[15]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: INFOGRAPHIC: The Unusual Career Path Of Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman. Nisen. Max. June 7, 2013. Business Insider. March 14, 2018.
  2. Book: Mookherji, K.. 50 Digital Revolutionaries of the World. Prabhat Prakashan. 101. 114. March 14, 2018.
  3. Web site: How Did I Get Here? Scott Heiferman. August 19, 2015. Bloomberg.com. March 14, 2018.
  4. Web site: Benz . Kate . Pittsburgh Meetup members use the Internet to get off the Internet . TribLIVE.com . January 23, 2014 . March 14, 2018.
  5. Web site: Sánchez . Cristina . Caballero . Lucía . Caballero . Lucía . Quince años de Meetup, la red social que llegó antes pero no supo ser Facebook . eldiario.es . July 26, 2017 . March 14, 2018.
  6. Web site: Dawn of the techlash - Rachel Botsman . the Guardian . February 11, 2018 . March 14, 2018.
  7. Web site: Evans . Teri . Meetup's Scott Heiferman on Connecting Communities . Entrepreneur . June 7, 2011 . March 14, 2018.
  8. Book: Gordinier, J. . X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking . Viking . 2008 . 978-0-670-01858-1 . registration . March 14, 2018 . 161.
  9. Web site: Review . MIT Technology . Innovator Under 35: Scott Heiferman, 32 . MIT Technology Review . March 14, 2018.
  10. Web site: Bonazzo . John . How 9/11 Inspired One of the First Social Networks . Observer . September 7, 2016 . March 14, 2018.
  11. Web site: Ransom . Diana . What This 15-Year-Old Tech Company Did When Facebook Declared War . Inc.com . July 20, 2017 . March 14, 2018.
  12. News: WeWork is Buying Meetup Amid an Increasingly Disconnected World. August 28, 2017. Jessi. Hempel. June 28, 2018.
  13. Web site: Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman moves into chairman role . TechCrunch . July 17, 2018 . November 8, 2018.
  14. Web site: WeWork-owned Meetup brings on David Siegel as CEO . TechCrunch . October 30, 2018 . November 8, 2018.
  15. Web site: Green . Penelope . 'Alexa, Where Have You Been All My Life?' . The New York Times . June 26, 2017 . March 14, 2018.