Ask HN: Any Tech Startup Cooperatives?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31455755

by BerislavLopac • 4 years ago

32 15 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've been wondering, are there any known examples of (successful) tech startups organised as cooperatives?

marban• 4 years ago

Can you further define? Sounds like you're looking for an incubator.

embik• 4 years ago

I am pretty sure that OP is looking for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative - so a tech startup that is owned by its employees, a worker cooperative.

BerislavLopac3• 4 years ago

That's correct, except (as noted in the Wikipedia article) there are many forms of cooperatives, some of which include customers as owners, and some even allow for external investment.

Biologist1232• 4 years ago

Common Wealth have done a bit of work on “platform cooperatives”, you can start looking there. My start-up is structured as an employee owned cooperative. We started with a grant which got us to product market fit on a part time basis - and are now “default alive” in our current structure. I should add that we applied to and were rejected by Y Combinator after interview (narrowly a/c the rejection email). At that point I started looking around for other options. After the YC rejection I realised we were not a potential unicorn, although will in all likelihood be profitable. That realisation was incredibly helpful as it spurred me to look into ways that would not depend on fashioning ourselves as a VC casino chip. We can also build the enterprise we want to run, rather than something that appeals to a narrow (but important) class of investors.

Edit: What do you define as “successful”? We are not successful on VC metrics. But we’re happy with what we’ve built and it will make us a bit of money.

BerislavLopac3• 4 years ago

In this case, "successful" means making enough money to provide the members with comfortable living, or better than that.

meamin2• 4 years ago

I would love to chat about your company structure if you have time. I have an interest in forming a cooperative myself. My email is in the profile.

Biologist1232• 4 years ago

Hi - I don’t see an email address in your profile.

_448• 4 years ago

I think you should do a 101 on this subject. Lot of HNers will be interested. A zoom call maybe?

sokoloff• 4 years ago

It seems like the prime difficulty in getting off the ground with a fully employee-owned entity is the startup losses (especially in cash flow terms) inherent in almost every business have to be borne by the employees.

That’s easier when the losses are small and the absence of salary is easier to take if you do it part-time (the “5 to 9er” lifestyle).

BerislavLopac3• 4 years ago

There are cooperative models that allow for external investments.

COil• 4 years ago

In France, there is Les Tilleuls, https://les-tilleuls.coop/en (creator of API platform, PHP/Symfony/JavaScript/GO contributors)

cheshire_cat2• 4 years ago

What is your definition of a startup? You can find a well maintained list of tech cooperatives from all over the world at https://github.com/hng/tech-coops.

usr1106• 4 years ago

Related submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456918 (not sure whether any of them can be counted as startup)

cheshire_cat2• 4 years ago

One of the responses[0] is from someone working at kantree[1]. They are talking about raising funds and building a product, which I assume would somewhat qualify.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31459041 [1] https://kantree.io

Ask HN: Any Tech Startup Cooperatives?

Related Stories