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Show HN: Radius – A Meetup.com Alternative

70 points by radius89 ago | 28 comments
Hello HN!

I'm relaunching Radius [1] - far too long after the original Show HN [2] (I'll blame the day job for that).

Radius started out from my frustration with not knowing what was going on around me. The initial plan was to "show all and every type of event" from big to small, but over time I narrowed the focus to communities, groups, events, and helping people connect through them.

The initial Show HN gave me 150+ comments (surprising, looking back, given how terrible the plain Bootstrap UI was...) with a huge amount of useful feedback and feature requests. I've spent the time since then working through that, along with additional requests from groups using Radius, and it finally feels ready for a proper relaunch.

I've also recently added "Activities" [3] - which are lightweight events, independent of groups, intended to help people find others to do things with - for example:

> John is going for a cycle and a coffee in New York at 10am

People can join and vote for a time that works for them.

I've got a bunch of ideas for where to go next with this, including things like open sourcing and federation, but those are for another day!

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. it's built with Ruby on Rails, for those interested. I highly suspect it would have taken me 2 more years to get to this point without Rails!

[1] https://radius.to/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398

[3] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity

mft_ |next [-]

Small bug, Firefox/MacOS: if I search for a location, use the suggestions that appear to select it, remove it by clicking on the x button, and then try to search for a different location, the suggestions no longer appear. I had to refresh the page to get them back,

readbeard |next |previous [-]

Why did you move away from focusing on event listing? I’ve been thinking about this problem recently.

dewey |next |previous [-]

If you want to start in that niche you really need to double down on a specific subset of that niche to get people to use it. Right now you are not offering much over Facebook Events or Meetup and the tech / design in this case doesn't matter when all that matters is that you have people using it for their events.

I'd take a look at how Luma (The only seemingly competitor in that niche these days) is doing it, they are focused on a very small group of large cities and started being mostly for crypto related events. Only these days it feels like there's more variety in the events depending on the city. Doing a generic "I was annoyed with Meetup" strategy won't work.

weitendorf |next |previous [-]

Please create a better UI and make it easier to view events / try posting one before signing in. Something card-based where I can quickly type in my location and see what events are nearby.

This isn't just a complaint about the UI being "vibe-coded-coded" or incomplete, but the product itself not making the happy path very useful or confusing.

For example why is the landing page trying to sell this like a b2b saas app or hit me with a bait and switch login wall, or why is the screenshot not just the actual directory/a search bar, why do I have to know to go to groups? (Also, why are you showing me activity feeds or funneling me into that when I'm on your website primarily to look at groups and events? Why would I go to your site to look at that) Then on the group page it would be very convenient if there were just an edit/post button that I can click to draft or actually make a group (and then maybe quickly group by / filter by location or region). Same thing with adding an event, you could have a + button with a modal to draft it and only hit me with the login wall when I try to post.

The event/group UI actually looks decent but I really think you need to prioritize the core activation flow and design. Right now it makes activation, understanding what the product is, and doing the first thing I would want to do (look at groups or events) not obvious. I'm somewhat of a hypocrite on this but also speaking from experience - there's no point in spending time marketing a product with own-goals like that.

Why are your docs so much better designed/clear than the first thing I see or want to do! You don't need docs for this, it's like three database tables you can search and post to! Why the globe?? I'm not even sure why I would want or need to directly browse your users but why is there so much more effort here than in the groups UI (the thing I would be using this for)?

Since this is a pretty conventional crud app the only reason people would really have to use it is UX (or an audience you don't have yet). Trying to be helpful here because I think you should keep working on it and it's something I'd want to use if there were more attention to detail, which you could prob fix in less than a day with a coding agent.

hamedb |next |previous [-]

I really appreciate the work and polish put into the project, but I would always think why would someone switch from direct communication (WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups..etc) to a dedicated platform. I know it has a lot of other features that might be useful to coordinate events, but in the age of AI and social media addiction people are already mentally statured to remember another less popular platform. going B2B I think would be smarter move to organize professional events.

radius89 |root |parent [-]

> social media addiction people are already mentally statured

Yeah, I don't disagree! In a way, I'm trying to combat that by facilitating people actually getting together in the real world, through events, activities and shared interests. I've deliberately not allowed free-form text posts or DMs between users, so it doesn't just turn into another social media feed.

> why would someone switch from direct communication (WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups..etc)

Yup, I think it depends on the size and nature of the group. A meetup between friends probably doesn't need a web presence at all, and WhatsApp would be perfectly adequate.

For larger clubs or public groups that want to attract new people, though, there's value in having somewhere discoverable with proper event pages, recurring events, RSVPs, waitlists, calendars, etc., so that's who this is for.

datadrivenangel |next |previous [-]

Congrats on the relaunch!

why should I use this versus luma or something similar?

radius89 |root |parent |next [-]

Thanks very much!

So I think Luma is mostly focused on beautiful event pages (which they do well) and event calendars rather than the community/group itself being the core unit. In that way, we're more of a competitor to Meetup.com. I don't think a local cycling club would use Luma to organise a weekly cycle, for example.

Compared with Meetup, I'm trying to keep Radius a bit simpler and more flexible for organisers. Pricing is a flat £12/month for Pro groups, and things like our Events API [1], embeddable event widgets [2], calendar subscriptions, guest RSVPs and waitlists are all available for free groups as well.

There's also the Activities [3] feature I mentioned - not super applicable to you if you're an organiser but regular users might find it useful. You don't need to create or run a group at all and can just say "I'm going cycling Saturday, anyone want to join?" and see who nearby is interested. AFAIK, I don't think Meetup or Luma etc have anything like this.

[1] https://radius.to/documentation/api-reference/create-events

[2] https://radius.to/documentation/organizer-tools/embed-widget

[3] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity

weitendorf |root |parent [-]

Do not implement any more documentation/pricing/marketing until you've really nailed down the UX. I'm not sure what your background is but you can just write down a list of things like "person looking for events, visiting the site from social/search" and think through the steps/impression they'd take from your landing page to completing their task. It helps to follow actually users/dogfood your app/have some basic analytics to see where traffic drops off or churns to understand this if you have trouble understanding it.

For example, do you think it makes more sense to aggregate groups by subject matter, or by location? Why would I want to browse events on the other side of the world/guess which category a group got bucketed into? The group/events UIs are actually good but the groups directory in the way is not, and your landing page makes the activity feed/posting something prominent for some reason (why would I care about the activity feed or want to post an update to some random site?) instead of the thing that they would actually want to use (groups/events), that actually makes an activity feed/status update make sense.

Sincerely trying to help because I've made the same kinds of mistakes before and it pains me so so much. The main reason is that I find it very hard to trust a product that seems to prioritize aggressive conversion, or strange prioritization of actual user needs vs larping as a saas, and I think it's hard to recognize that in your own work because you're thinking "I'm building a saas" and your users are seeing something that cares more about Being SaaS or prioritize random stuff more than even the basic thing it's supposed to help them do.

The impression you get isn't "more is nice to have even if it arrives in the wrong order", it's actual frustration/distrust seeing all this random stuff and what you want it do or be perceived as, prioritized over the actual thing it's supposed to do. Make it easy to find a group or trust that this is an actual thing people can use, I promise you that you don't need an Events API with embeddable widgets until you can do that.

eecks |root |parent |previous [-]

I looked up Luma and some events near me have 100s of people attending. Is it fake numbers, pulling them from somewhere else or is Luma very popular and I've just never heard of it?

atmanactive |next |previous [-]

What's the point in showing me events half way across the country? Is there a narrow-down filter available?

radius89 |root |parent [-]

Are you on mobile? Click the filter and the "Nearby" button at the top under the location section :)

yesitcan |root |parent [-]

“Nothing happening near you yet” womp

VeryGoodMorning |next |previous [-]

I think it makes it too complicated to post a meetup request.

It should be as easy as here on HN:

Hello! I think Hamburg in Germany needs a good solopreneur meetup. If anyone is interested, let me know!

This is what I would have posted, but I got stuck somewhere along the long signup process.

radius89 |root |parent |next [-]

Thanks for the feedback! I see you did manage to post your activity in the end - nice.

The sign-up form only asks for name, email, password and a pre-filled location - there's some quick "Interests" selection after that, but I felt it was fairly easy/quick to fill out. Maybe I could move that out of the sign-up.

Which part specifically felt too complicated? I'll revisit it and see if there's anything else I can shave off or make it smoother!

utopiah |root |parent |previous [-]

Makes me wonder if an RSS feed with a namespace extension for a GPS coordinates field would be enough, with a basic Web page client with a radius limited with a reasonable default based on threshold of results and user adjustable.

sram1337 |next |previous [-]

For an app called radius, it took longer than expected to find activities near me. Showed me a lot of info I wasn't interested in at all.

rtvn83 |next |previous [-]

congrats on the relaunch! I've never used meet up platform before, I usually use facebook groups to find my badminton play friends.

AIorNot |next |previous [-]

The problem with this is not technology- its the lack of interesting meetups i want to join in my city

Eg meetup at least has critical mass of users and meetups

cwnyth |root |parent |next [-]

Sometimes you gotta be the one to start the group.

radius89 |root |parent |previous [-]

> The problem with this is not technology- its the lack of interesting meetups i want to join in my city

Maybe! Or maybe there's more going on than you know about? A meetup I regularly attend now existed in my city for 9 years before I found out about it - they just had no good way to advertise themselves easily.

> Eg meetup at least has critical mass of users and meetups

It definitely does. That's part of why I've made the Activity [1] feature - to give individual users something useful to do even before we have that critical mass of established groups.

[1] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity

pelagicAustral |next |previous [-]

Somehow Radius seems like the perfect app to have in prison.

radius89 |root |parent [-]

I'll add that to the list of use cases!

katspaugh |next |previous [-]

Meetup.com is terrible and we definitely need a replacement. But this is not it.

radius89 |root |parent [-]

Fair enough - appreciate the feedback either way :)

What would make it “it” for you? Is there a specific feature(s) you think is missing?

foven |next |previous [-]

Really very cool, I've been using meetup and the website is just absolutely trash so any alternative is very welcome

miraline |next |previous [-]

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launch48alin |next |previous [-]

[flagged]

deankong |next |previous [-]

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yosh102 |previous [-]

Seeing the activity flow made this click for me. I like that someone can just say “I’m cycling next week,” let people join, and figure out the time afterwards instead of creating a fully formed event upfront.

That feels meaningfully different from Meetup.

Curious which has been the better wedge so far: bringing existing groups and their members over, or creating new local connections through individual activity posts?

radius89 |root |parent [-]

> Seeing the activity flow made this click for me. I like that someone can just say “I’m cycling next week,” let people join, and figure out the time afterwards instead of creating a fully formed event upfront.

Thank you! Nice to hear this makes sense to someone other than myself :)

> Curious which has been the better wedge so far: bringing existing groups and their members over, or creating new local connections through individual activity posts?

I'll have to get back to you on that hah! I've only launched the activities this week, so we shall see!