Scott Heiferman
Scott Heiferman | |
|---|---|
 Scott Heiferman at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2010 | |
| Born | 1972 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa |
| 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
[edit]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.[1][3]
Career
[edit]Scott Heiferman's first job out of college was in Montvale, New Jersey working for Sony as an 'Interactive Marketing Frontiersman.'[1] He worked at Sony from 1994 to 1995.[3]
While there, Heiferman helped develop their first corporate website.[1]
In 1995, he moved to New York City, and started an online ad-agency called i-traffic, which was dedicated to online media.[1] I-traffic grew to about 100 employees,[3] before it was purchased by Agency.com in 1999[2] for $15 million.[4] Heiferman sold the company just before the end of the dot-com bubble.[2] He continued working for Agency.com until 2000.[2]
After Heiferman left Agency.com, he worked at McDonald's for a few weeks, starting in 2000.[1]
Meetup
[edit]At the time of the September 11 attacks, Heiferman lived just a few miles from the Twin Towers.[5] The attack caused him and his neighbors to meet each other for the first time, on the roof of his building.[4][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[1] 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.[1][2]
These events caused Heiferman to start Meetup in 2002[1] with five co-founders[9][7] 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.[4] During Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign, Dean persuaded supporters to create or join local Meetup groups.[4] In 2004, Meetup reached one million users and Heiferman was named "Innovator of the Year" by MIT Technology Review.[4] Subsequently, then Presidential hopeful Barack Obama promised to attend any Meetup event of supporters that can get at least 100 attendees.[4][6]
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.[4] Afterwards, the activity on Meetup dropped 95%, but rebounded over time.[4] The company made a profit for the first time in 2009.[4] By 2017, Meetup had 32 million members in 182 countries.[4] That same year, Facebook invested in new features in a competing service called Facebook Groups.[11] 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.[4] 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
[edit]Scott Heiferman has a daughter and a son, born in 2010 and 2014 respectively.[15]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i Nisen, Max (June 7, 2013). "INFOGRAPHIC: The Unusual Career Path Of Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman". Business Insider. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e Mookherji, K. (101). 50 Digital Revolutionaries of the World. Prabhat Prakashan. p. 114. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b c "How Did I Get Here? Scott Heiferman". Bloomberg.com. August 19, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Sánchez, Cristina; Caballero, Lucía; Caballero, Lucía (July 26, 2017). "Quince años de Meetup, la red social que llegó antes pero no supo ser Facebook". eldiario.es. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ Benz, Kate (January 23, 2014). "Pittsburgh Meetup members use the Internet to get off the Internet". TribLIVE.com. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b "Dawn of the techlash - Rachel Botsman". the Guardian. February 11, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b Evans, Teri (June 7, 2011). "Meetup's Scott Heiferman on Connecting Communities". Entrepreneur. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ Gordinier, J. (2008). X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking. Viking. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-670-01858-1. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ Review, MIT Technology. "Innovator Under 35: Scott Heiferman, 32". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ Bonazzo, John (September 7, 2016). "How 9/11 Inspired One of the First Social Networks". Observer. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ a b Ransom, Diana (July 20, 2017). "What This 15-Year-Old Tech Company Did When Facebook Declared War". Inc.com. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
- ^ Hempel, Jessi (August 28, 2017). "WeWork is Buying Meetup Amid an Increasingly Disconnected World". Retrieved June 28, 2018.
- ^ "Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman moves into chairman role". TechCrunch. July 17, 2018. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
- ^ "WeWork-owned Meetup brings on David Siegel as CEO". TechCrunch. October 30, 2018. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
- ^ Green, Penelope (June 26, 2017). "'Alexa, Where Have You Been All My Life?'". The New York Times. Retrieved March 14, 2018.