For three years I helped run a 6,000+ member Meetup group as a volunteer community leader — 70+ events a month, 200+ events organized personally, membership tripled during my tenure. A group that size doesn't run on effort. It runs on systems, because volunteers have day jobs.

Built a Discord bot (TypeScript, Node.js, Discord + Meetup APIs) that automated member verification — gating the server to real Meetup members with zero manual checking. 1,000+ members onboarded through it

Built an event creation request pipeline so non-organizer members could host their own events — turning a bottleneck (organizers create everything) into self-serve

Recruited and managed a team of 4 moderators; handled reports and mediated disputes

Organized 200+ events in 3 years, some with 100+ attendees

This was unpaid work, which is exactly why the automation instinct shows: with no budget and no staff, the only way to scale was to make the repetitive work disappear. Member verification became a bot. Event creation became a pipeline. That's the same move I now make for DTC founders — find the task that eats an hour a day, and turn it into a system that runs without you.