Doing nothing else is the simplest thing that might work.
You have implemented the big idea and had success attracting users and are still attracting them.
The hard problem is local community building. It is not adding generic features that are available from iOS, Android, and HTTP.
Actual meetups is the meaningful metric. Achieving market liquidity (people who want to meetup can find a meetup, people who hold a meetup have people show up).
Ultimately, communication should happen around the site person to person, not through it. It should be between people not bottlenecked.
If there is a lesson from HN, it is the 90% of iceberg below the surface is what matters most. Good luck.
I think this is almost impossible to really do without some kind of metaphysical ingroup belief.
As someone without a religious bone in my body, it seems obvious this is what non-religious people have never really figured out how to do well.It is the achilles heel of the non-religious, rationalist.
The network almost needs to be based around some borderline ridiculous beliefs or it just ends up as a boring business networking cocktail party.
Burning Man is probably the best example of how to do all this well.
Skin in the game and costly in-group signaling mechanisms are others. Unfortunately your definition of freedom is “anything that hinders me from pursuing a whim in the moment I have it” then these are all very unappealing.
You have implemented the big idea and had success attracting users and are still attracting them.
The hard problem is local community building. It is not adding generic features that are available from iOS, Android, and HTTP.
Actual meetups is the meaningful metric. Achieving market liquidity (people who want to meetup can find a meetup, people who hold a meetup have people show up).
Ultimately, communication should happen around the site person to person, not through it. It should be between people not bottlenecked.
If there is a lesson from HN, it is the 90% of iceberg below the surface is what matters most. Good luck.