How we get the most demos from meetups

I walk into every meetup already knowing who I'll talk to -- and most of them are expecting me. At one meetup in October, that got me three demos booked on the spot.

Small in-person events have once again proven to be one of the best channels to get early customers. Here is how we use AI at Alphie to get the most demos from meetups.

The six steps

1. A weekly Claude loop checks for new events. Events are prioritized by how much of our target audience is likely to attend. After the registration is confirmed, Claude checks on Luma whether the list of participants is public. No list = no go. Unless the event is super-relevant for another reason, Claude cancels the registration.
2. Claude scans the list and ranks the participants by their ICP score into three groups: high, medium, and low.
3. A day before the event, I send LinkedIn connection requests to the high- and medium-ICP people (depending on the size of the audience) with a short note, e.g. "Noticed you're also coming to X tomorrow. Let's meet up there?" You would be surprised how many will respond ;)
4. Claude creates a one-off iPhone app with photos of those who responded and short summaries of what they do and what makes them relevant. At the event, I scan the room for those faces and try to talk only to those who are there, starting from the top of the list.
5. I open with something like "Hey, Jessica! We connected on LinkedIn." They immediately recognize me and engage -- after all, unlike most other people in the room, I'm not a complete stranger ;)
6. I always try to set up the demo on the spot. No "I'll follow up with some times." We both pull out our phones and calendars and set the time -- I get their email and whisper to Claude to send the invite immediately.

The key is to know exactly who you want to talk to -- and have them expecting you. Realistically, you can have between 5 and 10 conversations per evening -- so every meeting counts. Random "bouncing" seldom works -- unless the organizers did a truly exceptional job of filtering the participants.

Same rule at conferences

TechCrunch Disrupt has the worst coffee and food. And it's still the highest-ROI event for founders, by a long margin. Why? Networking!

Most other conferences only show you the list of attendees if you buy a sponsorship -- and the cheapest packages I've seen start at, like, $20K. Disrupt has everyone in its app, plus an area with numbered tables and snacks.

In 3 days I had 20+ meetings, and every single one was with a potential customer or partner. Five turned into demos.

I'd booked many of them in the app before the doors even opened. Same rule as with meetups: know who you want to talk to before you walk in.

Who needs those speeches? In the age of YouTube and AI, no wisdom is esoteric. If I were running a conference -- it would be just one huge networking area + an app to actually vet and connect relevant people.

Oh yeah -- this is also the only conference that has a nap area with hammocks. Respect!

Going to a meetup in the Bay Area soon? Email me which one at yura@meetalphie.com -- maybe we'll meet there.

First posted on LinkedIn