By Scott Finney • April 27, 2026
The very first WeAddBots Memphis AI Meetup had zero attendees. Just me, a coffee, and an empty table.
I showed up anyway.
Here's the thing about community building: it doesn't start with a crowd. It starts with someone who keeps showing up. I'd been building AI automations for businesses for years through Creating Value LLC, and I kept having the same conversation with business owners — they knew AI could help, they just didn't know where to start. And the people already using AI? They had nobody local to compare notes with.
So I picked a coffee shop, set a date, and posted it. December 2024. Nobody came.
I came back the next week. And the week after that. A few people trickled in. Then a few more. The conversations were exactly what I'd hoped for — business owners sharing what they'd tried, what worked, what didn't, and what tools were worth paying for.
By early 2026, we'd had 30+ total attendees across meetups in six different Memphis-area locations: Downtown, Midtown, Germantown, Collierville, East Memphis, and Olive Branch. The rotating locations turned out to be one of the best decisions — there's always one close to somebody's office or home, and people discover great local coffee shops along the way.
AI moves too fast for any one person to keep up with everything. That's the core insight. The meetup exists so a group of business owners can pool what they're each learning and help each other make better decisions in real time.
Every week, someone shares something that surprises the rest of the table. An attendee who used ChatGPT to analyze their blood work. A nonprofit team that used multiple AI agents to write grant applications. A service company owner who automated their entire Monday morning routine in one afternoon.
These aren't things you read about in a blog post and then forget. These are conversations with the person who actually did it, sitting across the table from you, answering your follow-up questions in real time. That's something no online course or YouTube tutorial can replicate.
We meet weekly at rotating locations across the Memphis metro area. It's free, there's no sales pitch, and you don't need to RSVP — though it helps us plan. The format is simple: grab a coffee, sit down, and talk about what you've been doing with AI this week.
Most people who attend are somewhere in the middle. Some have built automations, some just started playing with ChatGPT last week. The mix is what makes it useful.
If you're a Memphis-area business owner and you've been curious about AI, come see what the conversation sounds like. The worst case? You get a good cup of coffee.
