Stronico

I can just give the logins to someone else. My current setup is a workable, optimal, but not clean solution to the problem.

I've got it down to 45 minutes a month, including a phone call to the venue.

All of those can be done on meetup - but then we would lose a lot of people who are not, and will not be on Meetup.

The email list is probably the single most important part of the tech stack actually.

I run a discussion group that meets once a month - our tech stack is 1. A blog running WordPress that I use to announce meetings 2. A meetup.com account (free tier) that has the same information as the blog 3. A MailChimp account (free tier) where I send notices about the meetups 4. A very active Slack group (free tier) where I announce meetups and we have entended discussions. Discord would probably work just as well.

I've never used Facebook for anything, but the above four tools work very well for us.

It's important not to overthink this - You're a specialist at being you, more specifically you have a bundle of skills, some of which will be useful to people with both problems and money. All you can really do is to isolate those skills, give them a name, and offer that as a service.

Based on your original description - you are an expert in "back office" skills.

1. Care about technical matters and show that you care about technical matters - if you're selling something technical it's good to have complicated opinions on technical matters

2. Someone who is difficult in good times will be a monster in bad times

3. Repeating the words of other's back to them is eerily effective

4. Every client is in the middle of some sort of political drama, you will be some minor part of that drama - this is normal and not that meaningful

Risk is independent of prior events, habits are not - I think that was what the anthropologist story is about

Maybe I've just gotten better at what I follow/comment on, but the mood feels like it's gotten a bit better over the past few years, more tolerant, more heterdox, less shrill, more interesting, less combative, less "performative", etc. Not perfect, but improving over a few years ago. It does feel like the average age of the commenter has increased though.

I've done a fair amount of that - some mistakes I've made -

1. Not getting money up front

2. Extending credit

3. Open ended meetings

4. Being insufficiently explicit about what is being delivered

5. Working on a handshake (seldom a problem with big clients actually) - get them to sign something

6. Not actually meeting in person at least once

7. Not being clear on who owns the code/technology (if you're going to do more or less the same thing for the person across the street then make sure to let the client know that they are getting a license (or something similar))

8. Scheduling meetings in their downtime, but your worktime

9. Not having a template, or even an idea of what a good referral would look like

10. Having a specified finish line - much more important for the smaller client than the larger ones IME