Startup Grind
Derek Anderson left his job at Electronic Arts about ten years before this interview to work for himself. Over the next four or five years he stumbled through many businesses and products, most of which launched but never found passionate users. While doing that, he started hosting a small event series in his office with founder friends. They called it Startup Grind because it reflected the experience he was going through.
The early events drew five or ten people, and that stayed flat for a while. Derek's time was split heavily toward products nobody liked. He spent 29 days a month on his product and one or two on Startup Grind, and the ratio slowly shifted as the events took off. After about a year and a half of monthly events, he was spending ten days a month on Startup Grind and then eventually more time on it than on his product.
An attendee asked whether they could run a chapter in their own city. Derek thought it was a terrible idea at first, but the LA chapter worked. Within months he sold the product he had been building and went full time on Startup Grind. Within about six months the community went from five or ten cities to 30 or 40. Growth then came through relentless outreach, with Derek on calls and Skype for hours a day to recruit chapter leaders around the world.
Derek's earlier failures were expensive, including an iPad game and a social networking product that nobody bought. He also struggled to find a technical co-founder for years. He credits persistence and a single clear goal, first reaching 20 cities and then 50, for the breakthrough. Once the company was in 50 cities, he said it would be hard for a bigger brand to displace it. He also learned to give up control and let local organizers and community members drive growth.
Startup Grind now operates in over 650 cities, with millions of entrepreneurs in its network and about a thousand volunteers. Derek describes the mission as educating every entrepreneur in the world and their teams. Derek sold the acquisition of Startup Grind's software side and now runs Bevy, which lets companies host and run community events like Startup Grind's.
- •Startup Grind's growth came from community members who wanted to host events themselves, so each new chapter added distribution without Derek having to build a sales force.
- •Derek's persistence through repeated failures meant he had already learned what people actually wanted before Startup Grind took off.
- •A single clear goal (20 cities, then 50) gave the team focus, and the expansion made it hard for competitors with bigger brands to catch up.
- •Because people organized events in their own cities, the network created value and loyalty that a product with little community involvement would struggle to match.
- 1.Start a small in-person or recurring event for a group you belong to and keep it going even when attendance is low.
- 2.When someone asks to bring the format to their city, say yes and support them, since local organizers can become your main growth engine.
- 3.Pick one clear, measurable growth goal, such as a number of cities or chapters, and track progress against it.
- 4.Spend real time on calls with prospective organizers to find people who match your values and can run events well.
- 5.Hand over control of local execution to organizers early so the community can grow beyond what you can personally manage.
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