The Best Community Events are Topic Deep Dives Open to Everyone
Coworking has always been about more than providing desks. But as the events landscape becomes increasingly crowded with highly specialized communities, meetups and industry gatherings, creating valuable content has become more challenging.
How deep should a coworking operator go into a topic? And how do you remain relevant without rebuilding your brand around whatever happens to be the latest trend?
Jean-Yves Huwart, founder of Coworking Europe, discussed these questions with Maximilian von der Ahé, co-founder of betahaus, one of Europe’s coworking pioneers.
Founded in Berlin in 2009, betahaus today operates 13 locations across four countries and five cities, with approximately 4,000 members. Events have remained central to its model: across its locations, the company hosts more than 1,000 events every year.
For Maximilian, the principle behind this has remained unchanged since the beginning. “Space is nothing without great content.”
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Going Beyond the Workspace
Great design, furniture and central locations matter. But according to Maximilian, these have increasingly become baseline expectations.
“We need to be as good as all the workspace competitors,” he explains. “We need to have great spaces, great furniture, air conditioning—these kinds of things. But we need to have offerings on top that pull people in.”
At betahaus, that extends well beyond events.
The operator runs community programs, a Longevity Studio in Berlin and betahaus X, an agency working on international market-entry programs that bring entrepreneurs and companies from around the world into its ecosystem.
The idea is to constantly introduce something new into the workspace—and give members reasons to connect with people they otherwise would not meet.
The Challenge of the Niche Community
Creating events around emerging topics has become more complicated.
Cities such as Berlin now have highly specialized communities around almost every major technology or industry vertical.
AI, hardware, gaming and defense tech all have their own networks, experts and dedicated events.
For a broad coworking community, trying to compete directly with those specialist ecosystems makes little sense.
Instead, betahaus looks for a middle ground.
“We try to have a few signature community events that we repeat for years, and combine them with new formats around topics that are actual and hot in the market.”
Today, that includes AI, gaming and defense tech meetups.
But there is an important distinction.
The events need to be deep enough to attract people who already understand the topic—without becoming inaccessible to everyone else.
“Accessibility is one of our key points,” Maximilian says.
Deep Doesn’t Have to Mean Exclusive
The assumption that sophisticated content requires a highly specialized audience can itself become a barrier.
According to Maximilian, many event organizers underestimate how many entrepreneurs are interested in subjects such as AI but don’t necessarily want to enter an environment dominated by experts.
“There are still a lot of people who really love to be included and to have an environment where you feel invited and where you can learn without feeling bad that you’re not the specialist.”
This is where coworking can have an advantage.
The same principle that helped coworking grow—creating open environments where different types of people can meet—can also be applied to content.
An event can explore a topic seriously without requiring everyone in the room to arrive with the same level of knowledge.
Events Need to Create Business Value
For betahaus, community events are not simply entertainment.
Their purpose is ultimately connected to the businesses of the people using the workspace.
“The main purpose of everything we do needs to pay into their business,” Maximilian explains.
That value can take many forms.
A founder attending an AI meetup might meet someone who helps improve their business. Another member might meet a new client, investor or potential partner. Sometimes the result is simply finding peers facing similar challenges.
“If we deliver extra value to your business—independent of whether you’re a freelancer, small company, scale-up, whatever—then the content we provide is valuable.”
One Event Isn’t Enough
There is another lesson from nearly two decades of organizing community events: consistency matters.
“There is nearly no value in doing one AI meetup or one defense tech meetup or gaming meetup,” Maximilian says.
Building a credible community around a subject requires repetition.
His recommendation is to commit to at least three, four or five events before judging whether a format works.
“You need to show and be brave enough to claim ownership for a topic.”
That also means resisting the temptation to organize events around too many subjects simultaneously.
Instead, betahaus concentrates on a handful of verticals and develops recurring formats around them.
Today It’s AI. Yesterday It Was Web3.
There is, however, a danger in following trends too closely.
betahaus has deliberately remained industry-agnostic throughout its history rather than defining itself as a workspace exclusively for creatives, freelancers or a particular technology sector.
Looking back, Maximilian believes that was the right decision.
Topics change too quickly.
“Remember machine learning. Remember Web3. Web3 was the biggest buzzword in 2022. It’s not long ago. And there will be new buzzwords coming.”
His advice to coworking operators is therefore straightforward:
“Take up these topics, but don’t make them your identity necessarily.”
AI may dominate today’s conversation. In a few years, another technology or industry could take its place.
The workspace—and the community around it—needs to be able to evolve accordingly.
The Right Speakers Bring the Right Audience
Accessibility does not mean keeping discussions superficial.
Maximilian points to Beta Breakfast, a weekly event betahaus has been running for more than 15 years.
Every Thursday, the community invites a speaker.
“The right speakers pull the right audience,” he says. “It’s a bit like music and DJing. The right speakers bring the right audience.”
Speaker selection therefore becomes one of the most important tools for creating both quality and diversity.
The goal is to bring genuine expertise into the room while creating an entry point for people who may be encountering the subject for the first time.
Creating an Inclusive Tech Conversation
For Maximilian, inclusivity also depends heavily on how topics are communicated.
Specialized events can easily become environments where people feel they need to demonstrate expertise before participating.
That is precisely what betahaus tries to avoid.
“Something that is underestimated in the content market is tackling these topics which are tech, which are specific, and creating an inclusive environment.”
Language matters. Speakers matter. The diversity of the audience matters. And the overall culture of the workspace matters.
“We need to make sure that we don’t use tech bro language.”
This philosophy extends beyond events.
betahaus has historically positioned itself as an open workspace and continues to offer lower-priced memberships for young entrepreneurs, helping different types of people participate in its community.
Final Thought
As coworking markets mature, events remain one of the most powerful ways operators can differentiate their spaces.
But simply putting another meetup on the calendar is no longer enough.
Successful community programming requires operators to identify relevant topics, commit to them consistently and bring genuine expertise into the room—without turning those topics into barriers for people who are simply curious to learn.
The goal is not to become the most specialized AI, gaming or defense tech community in the city.
It is to create a place where specialists and newcomers can meet each other.
And perhaps Maximilian’s advice offers the best way to navigate an industry constantly surrounded by new trends:
“Take up these topics, but don’t make them your identity necessarily.”
