Making an eu/acc meetup most useful

Published:

This is my thinking about how to make the eu/acc meetup in Cologne most useful. It’s intended to be concise & actionable; and not marketing speak. For an intro to eu/acc see https://eu-acc.com/.

I’m organizing a meetup for eu/acc. How can I make it most useful?

What is eu/acc

eu/acc is a decentralized movement to accelerate innovation in Europe. This is needed, because Europe has world-class talent & research, but is failing to produce world-class companies.

eu/acc believes the root cause for this is not culture or regulation, but fragmentation. Fragmentation creates friction, friction reduces speed, less speed takes away energy.

eu/acc aims to work on ambitious, but specific & implementable projects to address fragmentation. The current projects are:

  • European startup legal entity
  • blueprint for European holding company (as long as there’s no European startup legal entity)

How can the meetup be valuable to the eu/acc movement?

  • verify understanding of problem
    • what’s the experience of European founders?
    • what were their pain points?
    • how do they differ from pain points of eg American founders?
  • get new project ideas
  • get talented & energetic people into existing projects
  • become more widely known

How can the meetup be valuable to the participants?

Participants can

  • meet amazing people
  • learn from other European founders
  • get involved into projects they believe are impactful
  • have fun

Participants are likely very smart & high energy. Don’t try to ‘tame’ them. If the group discussion goes into an unexpected direction, that’s totally okay.

So how should the agenda look like?

Agenda:

  • Arrival
    • 15min
  • Intro of host, establish ‘meetup culture’
    • event is respectful, english-friendly, without partisan politics
    • okay to ask questions any time
    • 5min
  • Fast Intro round
    • Who are you?
    • What do you do professionally?
    • Why did you join today? What are your expectations?
    • 10-20min
  • Presentation of eu/acc & (optionally) overview of projects
    • Allow for discussion during presentation
    • 10-30min, depending on discussion
  • Free mingling so participants can talk about presentation
    • 30min
  • Collect output in group discussion
    • Did you agree, disagree with eu/acc’s thesis & projects
    • What else do you want to share with group
    • Do you want to get involved somehow?
      • In an existing project
      • In a new initiative
    • How can we support you best?
    • 30-60min
  • Social mingling
    • open-ended

Total time: 2-3h plus open-ended social mingling

After the meetup:

  • Post summary to eu/acc discord
  • Mail summary to attendees & keep their energy high (to make it more likely plans are followed through)

Okay, let’s do this!

- Umer