I’m writing this from MMS Midway in San Diego, and it’s got me thinking about how we found each other in the first place.
Before the 2020 pandemic, the Endpoint Management space had a thriving user-group scene. Many cities had more than one. You could find a room full of ConfigMgr and Intune admins almost any week of the month, swapping war stories and learning from each other.
That scene has died down. But I’m seeing something new: a wave of IT pros looking for a group to connect with, for networking and for knowledge. A lot of them don’t have one nearby.
So let’s fix that. This is my user-group startup kit: what it takes, what it costs, and how to get going.
How TCSMUG works
My group in Minnesota, TCSMUG, still meets every month. That’s because of our local Microsoft Technology Center and MANY vendors in the endpoint management community.
Here’s how it works for us:
- Microsoft sponsors us by giving us a room to meet in.
- Vendors sponsor us with donations that cover food and drinks for attendees, plus travel and lodging for our speakers.
- Speakers volunteer their time and knowledge. They’re the reason people show up.
I won’t pretend it’s easy. Building a user-group takes time and effort. A monthly meetup is expensive to fund, and it takes a team and community support. But you don’t need any of that on day one.
Step 1: Start with a happy hour for IT pros
How do you get started? That depends. Here’s what I’d do.
Find a handful of people in your area who are willing to meet for a happy hour. Have a couple of them bring a laptop and show what they’re working on. A script that saved them a week. A deployment that went sideways. A tool they just found.
This could happen in someone’s garage or basement, at a restaurant, or in a conference room your employer provides. The venue doesn’t matter.
Step 2: Stay consistent
This is the part that matters. Pick a cadence and stick to it.
Same week, same rough time, every month. People will forgive a basement. They won’t come back to a group that doesn’t happen.
Step 3: Find your people
Conferences are one of the best places to find folks in your area. Right now I’m at MMS, and events like MMS and the Workplace Ninjas are full of people who live an hour from you and don’t know it yet.
Ask around. Post that you’re starting something. Swap contact info with anyone from your area.
Step 4: Bring in sponsors
Once you can show a steady crowd of 10, 20, 30 people per meeting, you’ve got a case for sponsors.
There’s an appetite from vendors in this space to support groups like ours. In return, they usually want:
- Time to present their product to the people who actually use it
- Logo placement on your website and social pages
- Shoutouts at meetings and mentions in your email newsletter
That’s a fair deal for both sides. Their support pays for the pizza. Your members get to hear from the vendors directly and ask them hard questions.
What sponsorship looks like at TCSMUG
Here’s where we’ve landed. Steal whatever helps.
- Know your numbers. Sponsors want real reach, not round numbers. Ours: 25-80 attendees per meeting, a newsletter list of about 300 members, and two all-day events a year (Intune Day and OS Deployment Day) that draw our biggest crowds. For example, 2Pint Software sponsored our 2026 OS Deployment Day.
- Leave room for the community. We hold two sessions per meeting, and some slots should always stay open for community speakers. If every session is a vendor pitch, people stop coming.
- Make it easy to pay. We send sponsors a Stripe payment link. No invoices to chase.
Step 5: Split up the work
Operationally, you’ll want to delegate. Titles matter less than staying on the same page. Somebody needs to own each of these:
| Job | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Venue | Booking the room and confirming the date |
| Speakers | Finding speakers and scheduling them |
| Registration | Creating each event and tracking sign-ups |
| Newsletter | Sending announcements and reminders |
| Sponsors | Asking for support and making sure they get their promotion |
We use Eventbrite for registration and Mailchimp for our newsletter. On the free tiers, the only cost is your time.
Step 6: Make it official later
Registering as a nonprofit or opening a bank account comes later, once you have regular attendance. Don’t let paperwork stop you from holding the first meeting.
For reference, TCSMUG today is a 501(c)(6) educational nonprofit with its own bank account, and we take sponsor money through Stripe payment links. You don’t need any of that to get started.
Why it’s worth it
The benefits outweigh the cost to you. You get:
- Leadership experience
- Knowledge
- A network
- Lifelong friendships
This isn’t about quickly landing your next job. It’s about building your resume and investing in an insurance policy for your career. The people you meet in that room are the ones who’ll know your name and your work when you need it most.
In our current world, connecting with people face to face is capital you can’t afford NOT to have.
The startup kit checklist
- Find 3-5 people in your area who want to meet
- Pick a place: a garage, a basement, a restaurant, or a conference room at your employer
- Pick a cadence (monthly works) and put the next three dates on the calendar
- Line up one or two people to show what they’re working on
- Create a free event page for registration
- Start an email list from day one, even if it’s 10 people
- Promote it at conferences and on LinkedIn
- Track attendance so you can show sponsors real numbers
- Once you’re steady at 10-30 people, approach sponsors
- Keep some speaker slots open for the community
- Split up the jobs: venue, speakers, registration, newsletter, sponsors
- Look at nonprofit status and a bank account once attendance is regular
Find a group near you
Here’s a list of user-groups I know of that are currently running. If you’re in the area, reach out to find out how to attend a meeting or how to get involved. The people who run these groups do it as volunteers, for the love of the community, and they welcome your contribution.
- Twin Cities Systems Management User Group (TCSMUG), Edina, MN. In-person only user-group that meets monthly, covering a wide variety of endpoint management technologies. Hosted at the Microsoft Technology Center in Edina. You can find our Discord on tcsmug.org.
- MN365, Minnesota. Microsoft 365 technologies, with some virtual and some in-person meetups.
- Northwest System Center User Group (NWSCUG), Bellevue, WA. Virtual and in-person user-group hosted at the Microsoft Technology Center in Bellevue.
- Research Triangle PowerShell Users Group (RTPSUG), Raleigh-Durham, NC. A community of IT administrators, engineers, managers, DevOps engineers, developers and anyone with an interest in learning more about PowerShell and automation.
- World of EUC, various cities. Meetups around the US and Europe.
Don’t see one near you? That’s your sign to start one.
Get started
If you’re thinking about starting a group in your area, hit me up. I’m happy to share what’s worked for TCSMUG and what hasn’t. And if you’re in the Twin Cities, come see us at tcsmug.org.
Go find your people. Start small, and keep showing up.