Vot iss your opinion of ze co-operatives?

dahamsta

Ok, let's get something going in here...

About five years ago, I started my own business. A year later, I met an excellent web designer on one of the sites I was working on, and we discussed setting up business together. In the end, we found ourselves in a partnership, but I've never been particularly happy with the arrangement, and I've always been tempted to go back to the concept we originally touted -- a web developers co-operative.

Now I'm not familiar with the mechanicals of co-operative society, but we didn't discuss it as that at the start anyway -- it was more of a "freelancers collective" at the time. What I want to ask the audience is: How does (or would) a co-operative society work in this context?

When responding, bear in mind that at this stage in the (web development) game, a plain-jane web development co-op wouldn't work, it would need to be a "techies co-op". Also note that I'm not just touting this for fun, I reckon that this is a valid concept. However, I'm not going to throw my ideas into the ring straight away, as I don't want to skew the discussion.

So, discuss...

adam

Victor

Nice idea, but I don't think it's very practical. An agency type arrangment would probably work out better, i.e. where one person takes over all the billing, accounts, VAT returns and so on and the programmers get on with what they know best and get a cheque at the end. Self-employment with less hassle.

dahamsta

Well, that's one definition of what I'm talking about Victor.

adam

b20uvkft6m5xwg

2 words for ya.....

"Strategic Alliance"

Tis the way to go- especially for those of us who dont like commitment-

Victor

One thing to be aware of is that you aren't trading in a 'pure' commodity, like milk, butter (Dairy Co-Op) or money (Credit Union). Each programmer has different skills, different inputs and different levels of commitment.

An egalitarian co-op of programmers is only open to abuse, not that I want to take the MS line, it's just that if you want bread on your table you have to be mean to a certain extent.

Waylander

Adam

Conceptually I think that the partnership and coop ideas are very similar, the main difference being the amount of members. There is no point in thinking about the coop idea unless you have alot of other people who are interested. Also I think people may be more reluctant to join a coop as they may feel others will be rewarded for less work or a lower quality of product. In a partnership this is ok because you can sit down and have a talk with the partner concerned, in a coop however someone can get away with this for a longer period which will also impinge on the reputation of the coop as a whole. Every walk of life has its cowboys, you would need to establish some way of weeding these out before they can do any damage. This should probably be a fairly high priority.