Let's bring CocoaHeads to your city?

After many years involved with CocoaHeads, one of the questions I get asked most is: "How do I start a CocoaHeads in my city?". The answer is simpler than it seems, but it requires a lot of dedication and consistency.

If you're reading this, you're probably already part of the Apple development community in some way. Maybe you've participated in some event from another community, or you've been to a meetup when you visited São Paulo or Campinas. And now you want to bring that energy to your region. How can we make that happen?

The three pillars of a meetup

Every meetup has three fundamental pillars: venue, content, and people, all 3 with different levels of difficulty depending on where you live.

The venue

Perhaps the most important of all, the physical space where the event will be held is of great importance, as it will define many of the rules that the event will follow. How many people can attend, what dates and times, and sometimes even the content that can be presented (imagine a talk at a company given by someone from a direct competitor company) depend directly on the venue where the event will take place. The most common options are:

Company offices - many companies are willing to provide the space, especially if you explain the value this brings to them (networking, employer branding, etc.)
Universities - professors and coordinators of computer science courses are usually receptive and can help you not only with the venue, but can promote internally to students, who can become community members
Cafés - As a last resort, public spaces like cafés can also be an interesting place to gather the community, but talk to the venue staff to make sure this is a possibility to avoid inconvenience. A few years ago, CocoaHeads SP used to meet at an old Starbucks for smaller, more social events every week, in addition to the larger meetups with talks. Also in São Paulo, in 2024, we closed an entire floor of a bar (with sponsorship from our friends at Runway) and held an edition celebrating the 10th anniversary of CocoaHeads in Brazil.

The CocoaHeads Campinas organizer has built a document explaining what CocoaHeads is and how bringing CocoaHeads can be beneficial for the venue being prospected, and we're working on a more comprehensive version that can help you with these conversations.

Content

For content, the strategy is to start with who you know:

Your network - do you know someone who is willing to give a talk?
Your network's network - ask these people if they know someone who would want to speak
Beginners - many people want to speak but have never had the opportunity. Go after them, find out where these people are and help them create content for your event. As an organizer, your duty is not just to gather people in one place, but to encourage and help so that this whole process can have an impact
Social Networks - Go after people that you see online and just ask them. This works better than you'd expect

In São Paulo and Campinas, the structure we have for the events is like this: two talks of about 40 minutes over a three-hour period. This leaves time for transportation (you do know how chaotic São Paulo is, right?), plenty of networking, and people will leave the event feeling refreshed, not tired. It's not uncommon for us to finish an event a bit early and go somewhere else to eat or do whatever.

People

To gather people, you have some options with regards to the platform choice:

Meetup.com - in São Paulo and Campinas we use it a lot, but it's paid and may not be useful in your region, but it helps us a lot to promote the event, as everyone who looks for this kind of event here in our regions uses these apps
Free alternatives - Sympla, Eventbrite, Google Forms, or Lu.ma (which we recommend as a free alternative to Meetup)

Promote the event on your personal social networks, and also, if you think it's necessary, you can create a specific network for your chapter, for more local announcements, but don't forget to tag @cocoaheadsbr so we can promote the event all throughout Brazil.

One of the reasons why we developed our app (which is open source – we accept contributions) was precisely to be able to group all events regardless of the platform each city uses.

How CocoaHeads Brasil helps you

You won't be alone on this journey. CocoaHeads Brasil has:

YouTube channel - where all event content is centralized
Social networks - Instagram and LinkedIn for event promotion
App - with special features for organizers like giveaways, and will soon have Q&A sessions
Website - Still in development (also open source, come and contribute!), serves as a mirror for some of the app's content, but with fewer features
Support structure - me and the organizers of other chapters to help you with whatever you need

The importance of consistency

All active chapters started small and grew through consistency. São Paulo and Campinas try to do it monthly, but it's a difficult task. Other places like Fortaleza do it once or twice a year, while Curitiba does it every three months or so, and they do it successfully, full house and all.

What's important is not the frequency you choose to gather the community, it's consistency. The first event is very difficult to pull off. The second one too. Maybe around the fifth or sixth, then things will start to go better. The hardest part is getting the ball rolling - once it picks up the pace, it'll get easier.

What is expected of an organizer

First of all, it's important to understand that organizing a CocoaHeads is not just about booking a venue and gathering people. As an organizer, you'll have some responsibilities:

Record and upload events to the CocoaHeads Brasil YouTube channel - this is fundamental to keep content accessible to the entire country's community, making your event go from something local to something national
Promote the event on CocoaHeads Brasil social networks - we'll help you with this, but we need to collaborate together so that it can happen
Create Content - create your own content too, because then you can be your own contingency in case something unexpected happens at the event

Event philosophy

One thing that is fundamental to us: CocoaHeads Brasil is a community that holds free events. Some chapters like Belo Horizonte have held events with an optional fee to cover food catering costs, and that's okay. But the idea is that developing for Apple platforms is already expensive enough - we don't need to make it worse for those who want to participate in the community. Brazil is not a rich country, and we want everyone to have access to knowledge and community.

Next steps

If you've made it this far and are thinking "I want to do this in my city", the next step is simple: get in touch with me.

I can help you think about the strategy for your region, connect you with our structure and whatever else you'll need. Each city has its particularities, and as a united community, we can go after the best approach for your reality.