My Meetup Misadventures (Part 3)

I wrote last time about the Meetup that never was. Today I want to talk about a couple other [failed] attempts.

Ann Arbor Algos was a Meetup I [successfully] posted in 2012 that garnered too little interest for a first meeting. The inclusion criteria I specified were very stringent. I wanted potential members to purchase AmiBroker and data. I wanted potential members to have experience programming in AmiBroker or be willing to spend the time learning how. I wanted potential members to have trading strategies available for testing. If all this weren’t enough, I wanted potential members to have time every day for project-related phone calls and e-mails.

If this were a posting for a full-time paid position, then I might [or might not] find applicants in the local area who met stated criteria. Looking back, I now think this was too extreme as a Meetup for people to do in their spare time.

That’s not to say I learned my lesson, though, as evidenced by a December 2014 contact. Through networking, I heard a particular IBD group included a number of options traders. I sent the following introductory message to the organizer:

     > Options trading is what I do exclusively and I’m interested
     > in networking with other traders. I want to trade stock options
     > in my IRA and whether they be cash secured puts, covered calls,
     > credit spreads, or long diagonals, IBD could be of use to
     > select good stocks. However, the focus of my trading will never
     > be just trading stocks. I’ve been to some IBD meetups before
     > and really haven’t gotten much out of them because the focus
     > is on stocks. Do you think there’s opportunity with this group
     > or do you know if the group has serious options traders who
     > would be interested in meeting separately to discuss the
     > options piece? Thanks!

Reading this in retrospect, I don’t like the fact that I knocked stocks (i.e. “the focus… will never be just trading stocks”) or IBD meetups (i.e. “haven’t gotten much out of them”) to a guy who didn’t even know me. Nevertheless, he did respond:

     > We have held several introductory options sessions after our
     > IBD meetup. We do have 3-4 serious options traders that use
     > IBD and the meeting to get on the right stocks. One member was
     > an options floor trader for years on the CBOE.
     >
     > Our room costs $60 a night. If we could get interest from 8 or
     > so to attend we could spin off of our IBD lease and keep the
     > rate around $10 a person.
     >
     > I will float the idea at our January meet up and see if there
     > is enough interest. We might start with an every-other month
     > meeting. I would not associate this with IBD in any way. Let
     > me know your thoughts.

I will continue next time.