Launching the WTD meetup group in Munich

Earlier this month, I organized the very first Write the Docs meetup in Munich. It was also the first meetup I've ever organized :)

From the initial idea to the event itself, the whole journey took just two months. Looking back, I'm surprised by how many different skills go into creating a community event. Here's how it all came together.

Join the group for the future meetups!

Why I decided to organize it

Munich is a major tech hub, yet there wasn't a local Write the Docs community or any other tech writing community. I could wait for someone else to start it, or I could become that someone. I chose the second option, despite having absolutely no experience organizing community events.

Get the Write the Docs support

One of the first decisions was whether to start an independent meetup or become part of an existing community. An independent meetup gives you complete freedom. An established community gives you visibility, credibility, and people who have already solved many of the problems you're about to encounter. Since Write the Docs has always felt closest to my interests and values, I reached out to them.

Write the Docs has their own guide on how to start your local meetup group. My only addition is that it can take some time. People have lives and jobs, so voluntary activities cannot be the first priority all the time. Plan ahead, you are going to get your answers and support.

We had a very useful chat with Rose, and the group was created.

Finding a venue

Fortunately, one problem was easy to solve. I work at JetBrains, and the Munich office turned out to be a perfect venue. The company supported the initiative by providing the space, as well as drinks and pizza for attendees.

Having the venue problem solved early also made inviting speakers much easier. It's much easier to ask someone to speak when you already know where and when the event will happen.

Finding speakers

This was probably the part I worried about the most.

I wanted the first meetup to revolve around a specific topic rather than being a collection of unrelated talks. The theme I chose was:

How is technical writing changing in the age of AI?

Instead of posting a generic call for speakers, I reached out to people whose work I had been following and whose perspectives I genuinely wanted to hear.

Some conversations started from interesting job postings. Others from conference talks or LinkedIn posts. Some people accepted immediately, some declined because of timing, and some never replied—which is perfectly normal.

Eventually, I was incredibly fortunate to have:

• Jose Luis Zapata De Santiago (Google), speaking about reimagining the role of the technical writer.
• Anton Kolesnyk (Tensordyne), discussing how AI challenges documentation best practices.

One thing I learned is that people are often much more willing to contribute than we expect. As long as you explain why you're inviting them specifically.

Promoting a meetup that nobody knows about

A meetup with no attendees isn't much of a meetup. Since the community was brand new, I had to build awareness from zero.

I posted on LinkedIn, shared the event in the Write the Docs Slack, asked colleagues to help spread the word, and reached out to other Write the Docs communities in Germany.

One interesting lesson was that promotional posts performed much better when they weren't actually about the meetup.

Instead, I wrote about things many technical writers currently experience: AI anxiety, the feeling of constantly falling behind, and the challenge of deciding which AI tools and workflows are actually worth learning. Only at the end did I mention the meetup as a place to continue those conversations.

People engage with ideas first and events second.

The meetup itself

The result exceeded my expectations. We welcomed 29 attendees, which felt like a great turnout for a first event.

The talks sparked discussions, and perhaps even more importantly, people stayed afterwards to continue talking over pizza and drinks. For me, that's one of the strongest indicators of a successful meetup. When conversations continue long after the official program ends, you've created something people want to be part of.

What organizing actually felt like

Before this experience, I thought organizing a meetup mostly meant booking a room and inviting speakers. It turns out it's much closer to running a small business. I was responsible for everything. Finding speakers, promoting the event, designing visuals, creating signs so people find the right entrance, ordering food (for the right number of people!), welcoming attendees, introducing speakers, preparing backup plans in case something goes wrong.

Whether you know how to do it, enjoy doing it, or not, it still needs to happen. And that's exactly what makes the result so rewarding. When dozens of tiny invisible tasks come together and create an evening where people learn something, meet someone new, and leave smiling, it's a wonderful feeling.

What's next?

This definitely won't be the last meetup. I'm already collecting topic ideas and talk proposals for future events. If you'd like to speak—or even if you only have the beginning of an idea, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm also looking for people who'd like to help organize future meetups. Building a community is much more fun when it's a shared effort.

The next Write the Docs Munich meetup is planned for the autumn.