The Story of How I, Without Even a Business Card, Ended Up Hosting a Meetup with 120 Attendees Because I Wanted to Give a Talk

The Message I Want to Convey Through This Post

• I overcame anxiety and hosted a meetup with 120 attendees to grow.
• Thinking consumes energy. That's why I chose action over words, and the results were incredible.
• The meetup date happened to be a day of record-breaking heavy snowfall. It was postponed to the end of the year, but lucky me 🍀—this actually turned into a great blessing.
• As a result of creating an opportunity to give a talk, I got to connect with more people, which led to even more growth.
• I want to share my experience for those who, like me, want to host their own meetup.

Acknowledgments

Before we begin, I want to express my gratitude.

I want to thank Hoyeon, who pushed me to turn a simple idea into action, and Jiwon, who successfully planned and led the event based on her experience, as well as all the staff members and speakers who joined us.

What could have remained just a thought became reality because of the effort and passion of everyone who participated.

I also want to thank everyone who attended the meetup.

Thanks to all of you, a small dream became not just a thought, but reality. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart. 😁

Motivation

A Frog in a Well

I was a frog in a well.

Using "lack of information" as an excuse, I only engaged in activities within my school and depended solely on the recognition I received there.

When I came to my senses, I was already a senior, with my hand on the doorknob ready to step out into society.

Feeling like I had to do something, I applied to a bootcamp and started organizing my credentials to write a resume.

Interestingly, when I squeezed out everything I had, the paper in front of me was barely half-filled.

My Experience at the Bootcamp

Feeling anxious and needing to do something, I applied to a bootcamp.

Was it karma for the sad things I went through last year? Luckily, I was accepted into the bootcamp and received training.

There, I met people from various backgrounds and gained many experiences.

"Who am I as a person?", "What kind of developer will I become?", "Is this career right for me?", "What should I do to not fall behind?"

I've always been told that I think too much. And during this program, that tendency reached its peak.

My First Conference Experience

During that period of overthinking, I met Hannal through a mentor/mentee relationship at the bootcamp.

As you can see in the photo, I had many worries at the time.

Then, I attended a conference organized by Hannal, and that experience gave me great inspiration. (See My First Conference :: 2024 Pudding Camp Conference Review)

From Retrospectives to Hosting - Unable to Stand on Stage

Going through the bootcamp, I developed a good habit of "retrospectives."

I continuously reflect on the process and results, using it as a driving force to show a better version of myself next time.

As I kept doing this, I moved beyond solo retrospectives to doing them with colleagues.

The retrospectives with friends I made at Refactor; JS Study became the starting point for hosting the meetup.

I gained great insights from the Pudding Camp Conference, and afterward, I attended several conferences with my friends.

"Giving talks" is truly a great driving force for growth.

During a retrospective, Hoyeon said the above, and I wanted to try giving a talk. However, I had no business card, no credentials—whether unpaid or even if I paid, there was no way I could stand on a stage to give a talk.

While discussing this with my friend, we started saying things like "Maybe we should create a small opportunity to present...?" and "How about we just host a meetup?"

Instead of hesitating me... my friend immediately created a Notion page, and the planning began right away.

(Once again, I want to thank Hoyeon, the benefactor of my life.)

Planning and Preparation

Not a Conference, But a Meetup Unlike Any Before

I believe it's incredibly important to clearly define the "purpose" when starting any endeavor.

And I believe that the team members should clearly share that purpose.

So, when we decided to host the meetup, we brainstormed ideas to clarify what we wanted to achieve.

"Everyone experiences difficulties and grows by overcoming them—you don't need a business card to be recognized for that, right?"

Through our meetings, we established the purpose of "hosting a meetup focused on individuals without relying on business cards."

At the same time, since both my friend and I wanted to host the meetup because we wanted to give talks, we considered a space and audience where we could comfortably give presentations.

That's how the keyword "school" emerged.

"At school, seniors and famous people always communicate one-sidedly. I really found that disappointing. Sometimes the stories felt too distant to relate to, and there were many moments when it was hard to talk about my real-life concerns."

In the end, the concept became: rather than relying on business cards, we're all the same current students or graduates. Let's create a space to share our growth experiences and stories of overcoming difficulties. With this purpose, we decided on a meetup format rather than a conference.

Planning That Expanded from 20 to 100 People

Initially, we thought about borrowing one classroom and hosting a small event with about 20 people.

Luckily, Jiwon, who agreed to join us, had event hosting experience and suggested we host on a larger scale.

So we started preparing the meetup with about 100 people as our target.

As the number of people we were targeting increased, there was much more to consider.

Venue booking, timing, speaker recruitment, the meetup concept itself, networking format, etc.

The members who decided to host the meetup were 3 including myself, and 2 of us, including me, were doing this kind of event hosting for the first time.

So, we needed even more thought and effort.

Rather Than Doing Everything at Once, One Step at a Time

You can't achieve anything just by thinking. It's better to act first and think later.

When we were overwhelmed by how much we had to consider, Hoyeon said "one step at a time."

We made this our team's creed, quickly listed out the tasks we needed to handle, and tackled them one by one.

Action over meetings and words.

Rather than holding a meeting every time an issue came up, we aimed to act quickly—we considered the "problem" and "solution," and each person took on their area of expertise to solve it on the spot.

As you can see in the photo, there weren't that many regular meetings. Most communication happened asynchronously via KakaoTalk, and we focused on quickly resolving issues through action.

Venue Booking and Securing Sponsorship

Before any event, the most important thing is to confirm the venue and time.

Since we decided to target students, we decided to seek support from the school.

Fortunately, all three of us organizing had the school's trust. So we proceeded by persuading professors to get their support.

We quickly requested a meeting with the professors, received a positive response, and quickly wrote and submitted a simple proposal.

After several meetings and discussions, the school's support was confirmed shortly after.

We initially expected 1.5 million won but... thankfully, we received about 4 million won in funding along with other costs and administrative support for hosting the event, which made things much smoother.

For the venue, we used the school's internal facility rental system. With the support confirmed, we were able to borrow 4 classrooms, including Media Center Room 507, the largest classroom in the department.

Setting the Date

With the venue confirmed, we needed to set the date.

Since students were our target audience, the following considerations were made:

1. We had to avoid the final exam period.
2. It had to be during the semester when there are the most students and it's most accessible.

So, initially, we decided on Saturday, November 30th.

Speaker Recruitment

Regarding planning, since the number of attendees increased, we decided to split into two tracks: Tech and Growth.

Tech was further divided into 4 tracks—Frontend, Backend, AI, and Security—for a total of 8 talks (4 + 4).

This meant we needed a total of 8 speakers. Since my friend and I opened this meetup because we wanted to give talks, we already had 2 secured.

Fortunately, there were people among our acquaintances who wanted to give talks, and we recruited them as speakers.

At this point, in keeping with the meetup's purpose, we set the criteria as current students/graduates rather than senior developers, and tried not to exceed mid-level developers at most.

If we weren't careful, the talks could become disconnected from the students.

The recruitment went well in the end.

Design

We needed designs for the meetup logo, banners, placards, etc.

Jiwon and Hoyeon took charge of the design.

This is the logo that Hoyeon refined to perfection piece by piece.

Based on this logo, placards, banners, and posters were created.

We also created a speaker PPT template for a unified experience.

(Applause for Jiwon who worked hard..! 👏)

Promotion

We needed promotion to gather students.

Our school had security/development clubs and an alumni developer chat room, which we decided to actively utilize.

We also promoted to acquaintances, and one friend created an Instagram account that showed incredible promotional power.

(Without this friend's promotional efforts, hosting the meetup would have been much harder. I want to thank this friend again.)

By surfing through current students and sending follow requests to engage with them, we gained followers of more than half the student body.

Promotion was going smoothly, and what remained was personnel recruitment and staff recruitment.

Registration Was Faster Than Expected

I thought it would be really difficult to gather 100 people.

But... interestingly, we opened registration at 10 PM on November 11th, and when I checked at 5 PM on the 12th, over 80 people had already signed up.

And after a week... not only was the 100-person capacity full, but even more people had applied.

For smooth operation, we needed a bigger venue than the one we had originally booked, so we held meetings again to re-adjust the entire meetup, including borrowing the largest lecture hall in the school.

Deeply Grateful Staff

After finalizing details about participants and venue, we proceeded with staff recruitment.

Thankfully, more than 10 people applied to be staff.

We had several meetings with the staff about event operation and networking, and prepared together.

At first, the spirit was "Let's enjoy the talks while also working hard to run the event smoothly!"... but this sentiment was humbled by how passionately the staff led the operations.

I wonder how we could have run the event without even one of them... Even now, I can only express my immense gratitude.

Crisis

Postponement Due to Sudden Heavy Snowfall

While everything was going smoothly, on November 27, 2024... record-breaking heavy snowfall hit South Korea.

And the host venue, Dankook University, was severely covered in snow, needless to say...

The school's steep slopes made it especially bad... The entire school declared a closure due to safety concerns.

Naturally, the meetup had to be postponed.

The Postponed Event Turned Into Good Fortune

Postponing wasn't simply moving what was planned for the 30th to another day.

1. We needed to coordinate with the speakers.
2. We had to prepare for participants who couldn't attend due to the postponement by re-confirming and re-recruiting.
3. We needed to re-coordinate with the venue, snack vendors, and the school.

We also had to go through everything from the beginning again to prepare for the event.

"We have more time to prepare for the meetup, so it's actually better."

Like the saying "misfortune may turn into a blessing," we decided to view this positively instead of negatively.

We asked for understanding from the existing speakers and coordinated, but in this process, some couldn't make the new schedule.

So, we had to recruit speakers again, but this time we did an open recruitment in the alumni developer chat room rather than just asking acquaintances.

As a result, more diverse people participated as speakers, and we formed new connections.

Through that process, while coordinating schedules, it became December 21st—which was exactly the week of the semester's end according to the academic calendar, and we could run it with a year-end event feel, making it even more aligned with our planning intentions.

As a result, students could participate with a more relaxed mindset, and even more—120 students participated.

During the event, there were many shortcomings visible right before the opening... but we were able to address those issues with the extra time we gained and plan an even better event.

Since the staff was also with us, various ideas emerged, allowing us to run the event in a better direction.

Operation

Meetup Preparation

After re-recruitment was done, time passed and the meetup day approached.

The day before the meetup, we did rehearsals and advance preparation, and on the day of, we met at 9 AM—4 hours before the start—to finish the final preparations.

Running the Meetup

I had thoughts like "Will participants actually come...?" and worries like "Can we run this smoothly...?", but as participants started gathering one by one, I felt relieved.

The staff ran things so passionately, and thanks to them, the event went smoothly.

The Most Important Part—The Talk!

Since I hosted this meetup because I wanted to give a talk, the most important thing was the presentation.

I was really nervous before presenting, and more than anything, I worried "Can I properly convey what I want to say?"

What should I convey? What content should I include? After much deliberation, I decided to talk about something I heard a lot after choosing frontend development.

"Is it a disadvantage for CS majors to do frontend development?"

Until then, it was something I heard really often from my department and people around me.

What I actually felt while learning frontend development was... there's no difference from backend or other fields—it's just dealing with technology from the user's perspective.

So I wanted to convey the message: don't worry about it. The technology is the same. We just think from the user's perspective.

"CS from a Frontend Perspective"

This became my subtitle.

During Q&A and networking time, I talked with other students... and it was great that more people than I expected had similar concerns.

There was a lot of feedback about gaining a sense of how to utilize major-related knowledge, what perspective to view one's major from, and what frontend development actually means.

I felt proud, and it made me want to talk with even more people.

Growth

Growth Achieved While Preparing the Talk

While preparing the talk, I started thinking from perspectives I hadn't considered before.

I began to think about what concerns other people might have, and I reflected once again on what concerns I currently have.

And technically, I started thinking about how to convey things in a more understandable way.

In that process, I studied more and was able to develop the ability to pay attention to and observe others.

Moreover, while reflecting on myself during the preparation process, I was able to organize who I am as a person and what I'm currently doing.

Through this, I felt a sense of efficacy, overcame feelings of helplessness, and was able to clearly understand what I want to do and which direction I should go.

What I Felt Through Networking Communication

After all the talks were over, we had networking time.

Take off your name tags and communicate. We're all fellow students.

This was the purpose of the meetup. We opened the networking with this perspective, and as a result, we could have conversations in a more comfortable atmosphere.

What I felt during conversations was that there were many students who thirsted for this kind of experience. Also, the anxiety I was experiencing wasn't something only I was going through.

There were many fellow students overcoming even more difficult situations than mine, and conversely, there were students who seemed to have many achievements but still held anxiety.

I sincerely shared my experiences and received others' experiences in return. Through this, I was able to think more deeply about what I should do and which direction I should go.

I even found solutions to some of the problems I had.

This also made me realize that I had been trapped in a narrow world. Right now, I'm in the process of gradually breaking out of it thanks to this realization.

Growth Achieved Through Hosting the Meetup

Action over words! Thinking consumes similar energy as acting!

While preparing the meetup, I felt that you can't achieve anything just by thinking.

Conversely, I gained the confidence that if you take action on anything and develop it step by step, you can achieve anything.

Most importantly, I was originally someone who thought too much and would just think endlessly rather than taking action... but through this experience, I developed the habit of moving my body first.

The same goes for code and development. Action over thinking. With this learned attitude, I even tried contributing to open source... it was an experience that created many butterfly effects.

Nothing is impossible.

I thought hosting such talks was something only great people did.

However, through this experience, the thought "Maybe there's nothing only great people can do? Can't everyone just do it?" settled in my head.

If there's no opportunity, create one.

This meetup itself started with the intention of creating an opportunity to give a talk since there wasn't one.

Actually, after creating that opportunity... I realized that instead of being frustrated when there's no opportunity, shouldn't I just create that opportunity myself?

At least in the field of development, I believe nothing is impossible... and I gained confidence.

No one knows what side effects will occur when you take action.

After hosting the meetup, many side effects occurred.

First, it was successfully held, and while talking with other fellow students, the discussion evolved into expanding Refactor; into an organization like a club.

We started considering hosting hackathons, and there was talk about subdividing this meetup by field and hosting it annually.

Beyond that, there were discussions about creating our own community for networking, and another challenge for that is currently in progress.

Also, based on the connections made here, the retrospective members I mentioned in From Retrospectives to Hosting were added... making deeper retrospectives possible.

And I'm continuing to build deeper bonds with those connections.

Various unpredictable side effects continue to emerge.

Conclusion

The meetup that started simply from wanting to give a talk concluded successfully.

Mindset, action, networking... all of these brought great growth to me.

I think this experience will become a catalyst for continuing to find challenges and trying things first to achieve growth.

If anyone like me wants to give a talk but is wondering how to do it... I want to tell them to just try it.

And hoping it will help such people, I wrote about the process in relatively detail.

So, for you reading this post... just try it. And with hopes that you'll gain something from that process, I conclude this post.