Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

Hey Sorry just seeing this. Well this depends on your co-ops operating agreement. For us patronage (and membership) is defined by any person (like a beating heart human not "person" like entity) doing work for the cooperative on a per hour basis. So ownership in the form of dividends are allocated pro rata by time worked. We think that this is the most straightforward way of doing it, instead of tying equity to $ made, etc.

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. I don't mean to say that there should not be a focus on member (employee or otherwise) happiness. Actually quite to the contrary. Co-ops do a much better job of aligning incentives for all stakeholders (especially worker-coops in the case of employees) and most track engagement as a business metric. I totally think that simply being a cooperative makes the business model more defensible, I just think it is not the only differentiator needed. So if you are a b2b saas business that just so happens to be structured as a worker-coop or a media outlet that is owned by media producers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press). It just boils down to designing around a business case first, then adding the layer of mutual aid.

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

Very little lol. I actually submitted a talk to conference.coop titled "Platform Cooperativism AKA A Worker Co-op with a Website."

But like any cooperative you can expand your membership to include any stakeholder. Users, workers, customers, investors, etc. It is mainly about aligning ownership incentives and control/voice according to whatever the design goals are of the company.

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

This sounds rad! Feel free to reach out if you want to chat about it joseph at tribeworks.io

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

Well _I_ don't need a new term lol. The term was popularized by folks at the New School who brought people together under the name platform.coop. I actually think it is a bit problematic, because it creates a false narrative around the utility of a service. My biggest fear is people saying we should just make a "co-op version of X company". I think that doesn't really work in real life. Cooperatives are businesses first and foremost. They exist in the market and are not immune to market factors including competition. I would much rather people think about the value they are bringing to people first then build a structure around it that matches the value. IE basic stakeholder theory but baked into every facet of a business (including it's equity structure).

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

While mondragon is a great example of a "scaled" cooperative. There are other (somewhat smaller, but still meaningful) examples. Take Cooperative Home Care Associates (http://www.chcany.org) around 1500 homecare workers in NYC, or the Arizmendi bakeries https://www.arizmendi.coop/ that have 5 bakeries and other businesses all growing and providing living wage jobs in the Bay Area.

We chose to use a holding company model for our cooperative https://www.staffing.coop so that we could have many startups and conversions underneath one holding company worker cooperative.

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

Platform cooperatives in my opinion are just another name for a cooperative who conducts the bulk of their business online. this can be a worker cooperative (https://www.upandgo.coop/), a multi-stakeholder cooperative (https://www.savvy.coop/) or even a producers cooperative (stocksy.com). I think the term is actually a bit arbitrary. The more important thing to think about is a) who owns the equity, b) how does the business make money c) how do the members participate.

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

I think that there is real value in thinking more broadly about the cooperative model when building any new business! As a way to align incentives it makes a lot of sense.

I am part of a growing tech worker cooperative called Tribe Works (https://www.tribeworks.io). We are a platform cooperative that helps tech workers connect with businesses looking for contractors or direct hires. We were set up as an alternative to "gig platforms" (upwork, etc) and staffing firms, and quickly realized that the real value in our model was in longer engagements. We usually target roles that last at least 3 months so that our members can access healthcare through the cooperative if they are working full time and allow workers to buy in. The platform ties together the functionality of an applicant tracking software (ie jobvite.com) and professional employer organization (ie justwork.com) and we add recruitment process outsourcing as a service on top. We have only just launched our beta platform right now but hoping to fully launch when we reach 301 members (we are about 1/4 of the way there). We have community calls every other week as well for people interested in learning about the co-op.

We are also part of a larger cooperative called the Staffing Cooperative (https://www.staffing.coop) which is a holding company owned by every worker. Here is a webinar we were recently on describing the holding company structure: (http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources)

Co_Reentry

7 lat temudiscuss

I am part of a cooperative called Tribe Works (https://tribeworks.io). We are currently in beta but definitely looking for new members!

comments