I am the solo founder of a crowdsourcing business. We are into audio/video transcription. I've been at it since 2008, fully bootstrapped. I tried very hard to convert it into a high growth startup. I even got called for an YC interview in 2016, but didn't make it. I have lost a lot of money over the years on experiments which didn't work. I didn't get rich but I make enough to beat the market rate salary.
Last year, I finally decided to treat it as a lifestyle business and just focus on a niche market. We are never gonna be a unicorn, but I think we'll still be in business 10 years from now. Looking forward to the 2029 thread!
Do the workers then have to be considered as an employee of the coop as per the co-op law? We are running into that issue. Our freelancers are all over the world and we cannot figure out if they have to be reclassified as employees of the coop.
We are an crowdsourced transcription service and are seriously exploring converting into a worker coop. I have been researching worker coops for a month now. How do we get started?
Last year, I finally decided to treat it as a lifestyle business and just focus on a niche market. We are never gonna be a unicorn, but I think we'll still be in business 10 years from now. Looking forward to the 2029 thread!
Here's my post on the 2014 thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7368727