When building a startup, the idea of organizing community events may seem like overwhelming tasks, but this key recruitment strategy should become part of the fabric of your company culture. Get some inspiration and practical tips.

1. EVENT GUIDE

2. BASIC FACTS
We organized 45 events attended by 3,700
people in the last 12 months.
Most are held at our office in Prague, but
we’ve also organized events in San
Francisco, Los Angeles and other
countries.
Events are our most powerful tool for
company branding and recruitment.

3. DEV.BEERS
During the summer, we host casual
networking events on our rooftop terrace.
Because it’s summer break, there is no
specific topic or program. We just invite
the community to come chill out with us.
Difficulty: Low
Impact: Low

4. CODE REVIEWS
Talented developers can come, share their
work with our senior engineers and get
feedback on their code. There’s no
preparation needed. However, the number
of code reviews is limited to 10 people per
evening.
Difficulty: Low
Impact: Medium

5. DEVELOPER MEETUPS
Our senior developers prepare in-depth
technical presentations and share them
with the community. This format is very
popular thanks to the amount of
knowledge shared.
Difficulty: Medium
Impact: High

6. GUEST TALKS
We invite interesting guests from the tech
sphere to participate in fireside chats. This
format doesn’t require too much advanced
preparation from the guest. We’ve invited
guests from companies like Facebook,
Google, Amazon, Slack, Unity, Dropbox
and many more.
Difficulty: Low
Impact: Medium

7. HOSTING EVENTS
We have allowed numerous community
events and conferences to be held in our
expansive event space, including
inDiversity, Ladies in Tech, Women Startup
Competition, Reactive Meetups and
Backenders.
In exchange, we ask for the guest list and
to be advertised as a partner
Difficulty: Low
Impact: Low

8. TRAININGS
When we organize internal trainings for
our team, we usually reserve a few seats
for external folks as well.
For example, we recently organized
Node.js Nights -- a series of 8 evening
classes geared toward Node.js.
Difficulty: High
Impact: High

9. HACKATHONS
We’ve organized a couple of weekend
hackathons, including an Apple Watch
Hackathon and a Smart TV Hackathon.
This requires inventing a challenge,
securing a venue and refreshments for 48
hours and providing prizes for the winners.
Hackathons are a good way to develop a
deep relationship with the community.
Difficulty: High
Impact: High

10. SUMMER ACADEMY
This is a program for junior developers
and engineers. Throughout the summer,
they attend lectures delivered by STRV
experts. They are assigned mentors and
work on projects. At the end, they present
their work to a jury.
Students are part of the STRV family, have
dedicated workspaces and enjoy all kinds
of perks.
Difficulty: High
Impact: High

11. PRACTICALITIES

12. BEFORE THE EVENT
● Create banner
● Create content
● Set Eventbrite event
● Set Facebook event
● Launch Facebook promotion
● Post on Twitter
● Post on LinkedIn
● Send newsletter
● Send personalized emails to best
candidates

13. EVENT
● Welcome and registration
● Badges
● Refreshments
● Audio and video in operation
● Stage and screen recording
● Photographer ready
● Copywriter ready
● Q&A app (Slido) ready

14. AFTER THE EVENT
● After-party
● Networking
● Send thank you email & feedback
form
● Add attendees to database
● Write a wrap-up for blog
● Upload photos to Facebook
● Upload video to YouTube
● Prepare for next event :-)

15. NETWORKING APP
We’ve developed our own app that
connects the guest list with our candidate
database and LinkedIn.
We can quickly check an attendee’s profile
and see whether he was in the recruitment
process with us.
This brings networking and systematic
work with attendees to a new level

16. ABOUT US

17. STRV
An award-winning web and mobile
development studio.
Diverse portfolio in terms of industry and
size (Tinder, ClassDojo, Microsoft...)
We also have internal startups (Surge,
Zoe, Dot2dot).
180 employees in Prague, San Francisco
and Los Angeles

18. CONTACTS
STRV.com
STRV’s YouTube channel
Our Vimeo page
Our Facebook page
Our Behance page
Our Dribbble page
Our LinkedIn page
Our Glassdoor page
Twitter profile
Matej Matolin, Talent Partner @ STRV
matej.matolin@strv.com