Living in the Bay Area, one of the great benefits are all the tech meetups that you can attend every week.<p>One thing I have found, though, is that as much as I like the energy at these meetings and talking to other startup entrepreneurs, after a while, it begins to feel a bit pointless. That is, even though I like getting feedback when I describe my startup to other meeting participants, when the majority of the attendees at a tech meetup are other entrepreneurs (i.e. not investors), at the end of the day, all the feedback in the world from fellow entrepreneurs is not as impactful as feedback from a seasoned investor. It seems everyone is there pitching their own startup and not really interested in your startup. So the chit-chat and exchange of ideas is great, but most often leads to nowhere.<p>I can see some potential benefits from such meetups, even if everyone else is there promoting their own startup:<p>* If you talk to enough companies, you may find some synergies between your startup and someone else's, and so you can pursue some collaborations<p>* If you talk to enough people, you'll find someone who knows someone who would be interested in working with you or investing in you.<p>* You get to meet people, and after seeing them at enough events, get to know them, so in the future, if you are looking for someone to hire, or some company to work for, this could be a good route to find one.<p>Do you guys see other benefits that I'm missing?<p>What's your experience with meetups that are very startup-founder-heavy? What value do you derive from them?