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Ask HN: How would you fund a tech cooperative owned by workers and users?

8 points prrada | 2 comments | 15 May 25 20:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.65s | source

I built a marketplace for therapist friends (sana.so) and we're trying to turn it into a proper cooperative. Inspired by David Graeber's anarchist ideas, I want to create a tech tool that's genuinely owned by both users (therapists) and workers, with direct voting rather than committees (Voting in committee members doesn't feel democratic enough for me). What models or examples should we investigate for funding and governance?
1. toomuchtodo ◴[15 May 25 20:55 UTC] No.43999257[source]▶
You’d bootstrap, and then have future employees buy into a restricted share class (you could also take on debt to fund and personally guarantee until you can pay it back with future revenue, or find someone wealthy to write an investment check [1]). You're aligning incentives and sharing in the economic success, but using share restrictions to prevent, broadly speaking, shenanigans that are not aligned with your desired outcome. You wouldn't want shares transferred without board approval, for example. Craigslist was a cautionary tale about this [2], make sure your agreements are drafted to withstand potential adversaries. The culture should be clearly communicated about this when hiring and onboarding.

Check out Certified EO [3] [4], they can help you. Maybe reach out to DHH or Jason Fried on this too, 37signals is a similar model of staying small and and profitable [5] [6].

[1] https://medium.com/signal-v-noise/the-deal-jeff-bezos-got-on...

[2] https://www.delawarelitigation.com/2010/09/articles/chancery...

[3] https://www.certifiedeo.com/

[4] https://www.certifiedeo.com/why-employee-ownership

[5] https://x.com/jasonfried/status/1887964677344489574 | https://archive.today/dZwKz

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=171325

replies(1): >>44009643 #
2. prrada ◴[16 May 25 20:42 UTC] No.44009643[source]▶
Wow great stuff, thank you toomcuhtodo. I've been enjoying digging through it. The 37signals approach was something a friend recommended, but I knew nothing of the certified EO and craigslist problems. Specially appreciated jasonFried's explanation of their tenure based dividend system.