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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

Hi folks - OP here.

FreePizza.io connects those who want pizza for tech meetups, usergroups, hackathons and tech talks with those who wish to sponsor the pizza - typically recruiters, consulting firms and software companies. In return, the sponsor gets a promotional message opportunity at the event.

Background is I noticed that tech meetups, usergroups, hackathons and tech talks often have pizza and drinks for attendees for dinner.

And I thought "Who pays for the pizza?"

I'm both a programmer and a recruiter, and I know that recruiters want to connect with those tech communities. So I figured, hey maybe I should connect those who need pizza with those who want to sponsor the pizza.

FreePizza.io is the fully built implementation of an MVP idea I had previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063747 - which was nothing more than a Google spreadsheet.

Andrew andrew.stuart@freepizza.io

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This is a great idea.

I know most of the organizers for tech meetups in my area. They all tend to handle the case of food differently

- One takes donations through patreon, which has worked fairly well. They have an actual board of directors, so it's very legit. I'm not sure if other cities have anything remotely close to this though.

- For popular technology meetups (react, .NET, etc), usually a recruiting firm will sponsor the pizza. They contact the organizer generally. Usually they will do a 2 minute blurb at the start of the meeting

- For meetups that are part of a larger organization, they tend to get funds straight from corporate. E.g. CodeForAmerica, GoogleDeveloperGroups, etc.

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As a side note, I kind of wish it wasn't only just pizza. Some healthier options would nice. Some meetups use jimmyjohns or chickfil-a instead, which are nice alternatives.

Chick-fil-a is an awful alternative - they fund LGBTQ oppression.

https://thinkprogress.org/chick-fil-a-still-anti-gay-970f079...

But they are delicious and a great alternative to pizza. So worth considering depending on how much you consider their political affiliation a detriment. When living in Atlanta I personally loved it when local meetups skipped pizza and got Chick-fil-A or something else instead. As to the GP’s goal of healthier, I’m not sure if Chick-fil-A really hits that goal, haha.

In the context of this site, I assume pizza is a placeholder, an MVP. If this turns out to actually be a useful service, non-pizza food is an obvious avenue to grow into.

That's an awfully dishonest way to describe and frame their donations.

If you've ever donated to the Salvation Army, you too "fund LGBTQ oppression".

I mean, that's true as well. How is it (in your eyes) dishonest?

To me, it’s dishonest because it presents a small aspect as a primary driver without giving proper context. So it was frustrating to me because I had to spend time researching the potential issue to learn it is a very insignificant aspect that I don’t think was worthy of my time.

It’s like posting “Don’t eat ground beef as it is full of rat feces.” any time someone posts about hamburgers.

It’s true that the FDA allows a small amount of fat feces in ground beef, and all food [0].

But it’s really insignificant and almost always irrelevant to the conversation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

Too bad there's no Chick-fil-a close to where I live.

Would be great to have this HN message in the About page (I.e. who's behind this site and why?)

This is a great idea!! Might be worth directly targeting the student population at local universities. I know I used to host a lot for UC San Diego's MBA programs and we were always short on cash. So, getting in front of the professional students that will be in the work force is never bad!

I really like the design, nicely done!!

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