RookieOven and Wider Scottish Tech Community Update

It has been really quiet on this blog. Sorry about that.

The good news is that the quiet here doesn't mean quiet everywhere. The RookieOven meetup is still going, there's now a small group of people helping keep it going, and there's a fair bit happening across the wider Scottish tech community that's worth pointing you at.

So here's where things stand.

The meetup is still on - here's how it works now

Back in April I asked for help keeping the meetup alive. Enough of you got in touch, which I'm genuinely grateful for.

Out of that there's now a WhatsApp group of people who are happy to be considered "hosts". The way it works is dead simple:

Roughly a week before a meetup, I ask the group who can make it. If at least two people say yes, we go ahead. If not, we don't.

That's it. No rota, no guilt, no one carrying the thing on their own. Nobody has to commit months ahead or promise to be there every single time. You just answer a message when it lands and say yes or no.

It means the meetup no longer lives or dies on whether I personally can get out the house on a given Monday. Two people at a table in The Raven is all it takes for the meetup to be a meetup.

The one thing it does change for you: check before you travel. The date is always the first Monday of the month at 6:30pm, but confirmation now comes about a week out. The meetup page is kept up to date, and there's a JSON endpoint if you'd rather not check a website:

https://rookieoven.com/api/meetup.json

Why I'm not chasing numbers

RookieOven has never been about scale or vanity metrics.

I could probably fill a room. Plenty of communities do. But I'd rather have a handful of ambitious, supportive founders in the pub than a room full of selfish hacks who turn up to sell something and leave the moment they've collected their business cards.

That isn't a dig at other meetups. Well, maybe it is a little. Fair play to how other people run their communities - some of them do it brilliantly, and Scotland is better for having a range of things on. It's just not what I'm building here.

My focus for RookieOven has always been founder led. By founders, for founders. People who are actually making something, who'll listen properly when you describe a problem, and who'll push back on you when you need it. If you get four of those people round a table, that's a good night. Forty people and a name badge queue isn't automatically better.

Quality over quantity is not a growth strategy. It's just what I want the thing to be.

Want to help organise?

If you'd like to be one of the hosts, the ask is small. You answer a WhatsApp message about once a month, and turn up when you can.

Email me at michael@rookieoven.com with your number and I'll add you to the group.

You don't need to organise anything, find speakers or run social media. You just need to be willing to show up sometimes and be friendly to whoever else walks in.

The Scottish Technology Club Discord

I've linked to this in a few places across the site, but it's worth saying again properly: the Scottish Technology Club Discord is one of the most useful things going in Scottish tech right now.

It's active, it's genuinely helpful, and it fills the gap between monthly meetups. If you're looking for work, hiring, stuck on something technical, or just want to know what's happening where, that's where a lot of the conversation is.

Sign up to their mailing list and join the Discord. Then actually post in it. Lurking is fine to start with, but you'll get far more out of it once you say something.

We're a Community Partner for TecTonic Night Summit

We're delighted to be supporting TecTonic Night Summit as a Community Partner.

It's on Thursday 10 September at Barras Art & Design (BAaD) in Glasgow, and brings together 500+ founders, creatives, investors, technologists, students and community builders for an evening celebrating Scotland's innovation ecosystem.

If you've read the section above about me not chasing numbers, this might look like a contradiction. It isn't. Big gatherings like TecTonic are brilliant for bumping into people you'd never otherwise meet, and small regular meetups are brilliant for going deep with people you already know. An ecosystem needs both. TecTonic does the big one really well, and I'd rather point you at it than pretend the pub is the answer to everything.

🎟️ Use our exclusive discount link to get 50% off General Admission tickets, or enter the code TECCOMMUNITY-50 at checkout.

If you're going, come and say hello.

Coming up

The next RookieOven meetup is Monday 7 September at The Raven, Glasgow, from 6:30pm. Free, no tickets, no sign-up. Check the meetup page in the days before to confirm it's on.

And if you want to keep up without relying on social media algorithms, subscribe to the RSS feed or join the mailing list.

Thanks for sticking with us through the quiet spell. See you in the pub.