Finding "a" space, e.g. for one or two events, is relatively easy. Finding a consistently scheduled space (e.g. "the second Wednesday of each month") at cheap/free is a whole other thing. Once you have a consistently scheduled space, getting speakers is rather easy, because you can schedule way out into the future. For example, a popular speaker may not be available in the next three months, but I could easily get that speaker for April if I already have my venue lined up.

The first meetup I had was a bit of a vicious cycle - we had no home, which made scheduling hard, which made getting speakers lined up hard.

The second meetup I ran started out a Pivotal Labs which was amazing. Free food, free drink, nice atmosphere, good location - and most importantly, we had "the second Wednesday of every month", which made scheduling ridiculously easy. Actually running the whole meetup was a level of magnitude easier after that. Current venue is also similarly awesome. I wouldn't go back to not having a regularly-scheduled venue.