Show HN: We're building a virtual meetup platform | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We're building a virtual meetup platform

app.venu.tv

46 pointstryvenu25 comments

a "Virtual meetup platform" confused me. I signed up thinking this was a platform where my coworkers could meet up to discuss things, an alternative to meet or zoom.

But this is actually a premium access streaming platform. You sell tickets for events or seminars or whatever. take a cut of the tickets and host the event. Good for things like training seminars or whatever.

I think that kind of makes the introduction page a bit of a fail, It seems every person who makes the introduction page for their product always suffers HARD from the curse of knowledge. You MUST spend a huge amount effort clearly explaining what your product is and is not. There is simply no latitude for flowery bullshit language like "Explore a world of limitless experiences. Use our platform to discover what drives you. Bring your passions; we'll bring the community." Users don't have the patience to read this, and you don't have the time to be speaking it.

That said. Maybe this is something that only matters for posts like this one. Where the people coming to your site are likely in your target audience. Maybe the bulk of your customers will be coming from referrals which will never even see the introduction page. Maybe it's not worth worrying about?

Well. Best of luck anyway.

Hey, I work on Venu. We're actually in the process of coming up with some new content/verbiage for the site because we actually agree with you. We came up with content for this very early on in development. This landing page served initially as a way for people to sign up for closed beta and eventually we don't plan to use it. But yea we will come up something better in the future for sure! Thanks!

I think this has great potential, and immediately understood the value offering of it before visiting the page. That said, I'm glad you're re-crafting the landing page.

A couple suggestions/phrasings that come to mind and - at least in my opinion - would quickly convey the intent of the platform: "Make the world your next convention venue"

Okay, maybe I'm worse at this than I thought...

Feature request: Can the events that are free have something other than a "purchase ticket" button? That's making me vaguely uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe just a H1 saying that it's free and more emphasis on adding it to a calendar? Should free events need accounts? You might get more traffic if they don't. And with more traffic you get more eyes on the content that does cost money.

For sure! In our cart view we don't ask for payment info, but definitely hear you on this. We'll begin discussing what changes are needed to facilitate this. We are trying to keep the barrier to entry low -- for both creating & viewing so this would certainly do that!

> But this is actually a premium access streaming platform. You sell tickets for events or seminars or whatever. take a cut of the tickets and host the event. Good for things like training seminars or whatever.

This is not an easy problem. It's always intriguing to me how hard it is to write a clear description of your own product that explains WTF it really is.

Yet someone external (as above) can often cut to the chase with a pithy and useful description.

I genuinely don't know what the reason is. In this example, I guess "premium access streaming platform" are not words the marketing team would like (maybe it sounds a bit porn-like ?).

Yet it is certainly way better than "virtual meetup platform", because it clearly conveys who pays what and for whom.

And this is as clear as a bell "You sell tickets for events or seminars or whatever. take a cut of the tickets and host the event. Good for things like training seminars or whatever.".

But again, that's kind of language that the marketing guys/gals might eschew as overly informal/familiar - even though it encapsulates beautifully why I might want to investigate this product.

I hit this myself all the time with my product. I think the core problem is that we're too close. We know all the little things it can do, so it's hard to pull back and see what the BIG things really look like.

Its definitely not solely a marketing speak problem. There are only two of us at my startup and we've had at least 10 revisions just to get the above the fold text in place. The below the fold we are still working on and will have a new revision soon.

Yet even now if you told me what we do is not clear I would not be very surprised. I mean sure it seems clear to me but how could it not since I already use the product myself?

Interesting. I got it right away due to having used Meetup the company before, so a virtual version makes sense.

We're building a virtual meetup platform in hopes of bridging the gap between in-person and virtual experiences.

We're running open beta now, so any opinions / feedback is welcomed :)

https://app.venu.tv

I looked at it for a few minutes and it seems like it is mostly focused on there being a single presenter at a time, and then an audience for them.

In order to better replicate the benefits from meetups and conferences in real life, I think being able to allow users to more organically interact with each other sounds like a nice feature to work on.

Is there anything like this, or anything planned like this?

Hey, I'm part of the team at Venu! Initially we only supported the single streamer. Recently, however, we introduced support to have multiple people share their screen and present at one time (as long as they're invited as organizers for the meetup). We're in the process of updating the verbiage on the site to better reflect some of the updates we've made in the past few months!

Eventually we have plans to introduce breakout sessions or another way for viewers to be able to communicate more privately.

That sounds pretty cool. It definitely seems like a lot of work was already put into it, but would look forward to that too. Nice work!

I’d love a special or grouping aspect so that you can limit or focus conversations.

I’ve been in a VR hangout and one person was monopolizing the conversation. Walking away is a very natural signal and allows for a new side conversation to form.

It doesn’t have to be VR of course, but some kind of break out session while the main content continues.

I'm actually building that: https://www.calla.chat

I'll eventually add VR support, but for now I'm working on this 2D version to focus on just the conversation aspect.

This is awesome, doppler effect had me giddy

Congrats! Looks like a pretty crowded space already (can be a good sign - problem is not solved yet). Curious how do you differentiate yourself from other players in this space - tulula, Airmeet, run the world?

We've been trying different tools recently for our needs (we are building opens-source tools for ML - DVC.org, CML.dev and naturally need a solution for online meetups). I liked tulula and I liked a regular Zoom for smaller events where anyone can stream a video, talk if needed, etc.

In your mind what would be a killer feature to compete with Zoom long term?

Reminds me of https://hopin.to/ ! I’m a huge fan of what they’ve been able to build. Their user experience is bar none for this kind of stuff!

> Venu isn't just another live online events platform. We felt like existing platforms missed an important aspect of events: discoverability

I'm a bit concern about this statement. It sounds like a standard marketplace model, with people's attention on one side and events on the other. As a user what will motivates me to explore events on your platforms but not on meetup.com or even instagram or facebook?

What are you using for streaming technology?

Can you allow multiple simultaneous presenters from different locations?

What are your price points?

What are your attendee limits?

What sort of presentation content do you support?

Why are you calling these meetups instead of online events?

Hey, Dillon at Venu here!

I'll try to answer in order:

- WebRTC for video/voice and Websockets for chat (built on Phoenix LiveView)

- Yes, people can setup sessions to allow for up to 17 simultaneous presenters from all over

- Still haven't settled on price points. We are going to be using the beta to help decide. For now we're footing the bills ourselves so all tiers are currently free.

- 17 simultaneous presenters, no hard limits on number of attendees it is up for the organizer to decide how many tickets they want available!

- Organizers who are streaming are able to share their screens / application windows / webcam.

- We go back and forth, open to feedback. We use online meetups/experiences/events internally. Since we're all developers our content probably isn't the best at the moment!

I'm interested in giving this a test. I'll drop you an email and coordinate.

This is awesome. While I agree with @oehpr on some of the details, I love the idea of marketing it specifically for the purpose of running events. Using Zoom for that seems klugey.

Is the name inspired by the imperative Esperanto verb by any chance? Se jes, saluton, bona elekto :)

I think it is simply "venue".

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