In a different cultural setting, surrounded by strangers speaking a foreign language, how do you find like-minded people and make new friends? These days, you may head straight to InterNations, a community of over 2 million expatriates across 390 cities of the world.
It was one man faced with the same question some nine years ago who created this global online community and has seen it come to life all along.  
Meet Malte Zeeck, the founder and co-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of InterNations, from Kiel, Germany. Himself an expatriate, Zeeck would often find himself “lonely and lost” during his postings abroad as a TV reporter.
Out of this frustration and the desire to find people like him stuck in a similar situation was born the idea of finding a common platform. Where and how could I find other expatriates like me, he would often ask himself.
“Arriving in a new country, you do not know anyone, speak a different language and the culture is different, so I felt a little lost and lonely. I had a strong desire to meet up with people who were in the same situation or were facing similar problems,” Zeeck tells Community.
So he came up with an idea. Internet was at hand and provided the basis for its execution.
“I thought forming a platform through the Internet to bring these people together and connect them globally would make life a lot easier for expatriates,” says the founder of perhaps, the world’s largest social network for expatriates. Community caught up with Zeeck at a recent expatriate gathering at Hilton hotel to discern about the InterNations.
Zeeck found his friend from University, Philipp Von Plato, the co-founder and co-CEO of InterNations, going through the same situation. Both quit their respective jobs and worked full-time on InterNations to make it a reality.
Quitting an established TV reporter’s job was not easy for Zeeck. “I was always passionate about journalism and I really enjoyed doing that. It allowed me to meet new people and ask questions. But then this idea was also something that fascinated me to build my own organisation out of nothing,” says Zeeck.
“I knew it was the right timing and right idea, and I had the right (business) partner. Today, I can say that the decision I took was absolutely worth it. It gives me great pleasure to do what we are doing,” he explains.
Zeeck wanted to see InterNations grow big, but he did not imagine it could to reach the magnitude it has today.
Going about the dynamics of the platform, Zeeck and his friend first built the website. Once the platform was up, they started to invite their friends that were living in places around the world. Those friends started to invite their respective friends. The network grew virally.
Then came InterNations’ ambassadors, the people who are very well-connected in their respective expat cities. They helped the network eventually grow by proportions. Today, it has multiple individual activity groups through which the expatriates meet and take part in activities of their interests.
“Interestingly, this whole idea of offline activities and events was not the part of the original plan, but we saw very early on that people started writing in our forums things like, ‘hey, let’s meet for a coffee.’ So we figured that this is something the people want,” says Zeeck.
An events calendar was put in place and the InterNations team activated their ambassadors to organise one get-together every month to give the members a chance to meet.
Eventually, these events got so bigger that sometime more than 400-500 people were joining it. To make it easier, they then went for smaller activity groups.
The offline component of the platform is something that makes it special, says Zeeck. And he says it is only possible because of people like Mark Thomson, the InterNations Ambassador in Doha.
“They put their free time into creating opportunities for members to meet and get involved. And without them, InterNations would not be what it is today,” acknowledges Zeeck.
“And that is also one reason why I am here today, to thank people like Mark to be so active and involved and create these great events on a regular basis,” he adds.
Zeeck says without internet such a platform would not have been possible.
“The beauty of Internet is that we could build a global portal and roll it out to all these different cities around the world and everyone could easily sign up. It just helped to make the network grow faster,” says the founder of the online platform that also facilitates its members to meet offline.
At InterNations, they have a team of about 100 employees based in Germany and they split up in terms of responsibilities. Philipp is in charge of developing the platform further and building it with their product engineering team.
Zeeck focuses more on the community management aspect and marketing to move people to join InterNations. The revenue to run the operations comes from membership fee and corporate partners promoting their products and services on the platform.
Zeeck believes InterNations is the only social network dedicated for expats that is present all around the world in 390 cities.
“A great member-base of people that you meet at InterNations’ events is internationally minded with interesting backgrounds and interesting stories to share and this is something that I don’t think any of the other platforms have to offer,” says Zeeck.
A mobile app for InterNations has been long awaited and the InterNations’ founder says they are already in the process of developing it for both iOS and Android. It would be up and running in a month’s time, he hopes.
On his first trip to Doha, Zeeck also visited a labour camp in the city outskirts and made donations. He believes most expats live a privileged life and InterNations has a vision to enable them to reach out to people who are not so affluent. 
Through different volunteer groups, the InterNations’ members take part in different kind of charity and community service activities. Zeeck says the Doha community was “fantastic” and is one of the most active and diverse among the 390 worldwide.