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Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

Interview: Jeremy Neal, Tribe

“A lot of coops, for a lot a very good reasons, veer away from outside investment, but it’s all about being upfront with your expectations. In the same way we tell members, ‘Here’s the model and here is what you can expect to get out of it,’ we have the same conversations with investors. So instead of going with the traditional venture capitalists who want their 8% in some marginal buy-in and all this control, we explain, ‘You have one seat at the table; our members have another seat.’”

“Outside investors have their place. Getting that capital in allows us to grow, allows us to roll out services faster than we could if we were just reliant on our own, but our terms are very clearly structured around our members being our first concern. Also, there is a lot of value in having people involved who have prior experience running businesses and watching them grow.”

“We are at this intersection: we are a coop and we are a start-up, and we have a lot of the same sort of pressures that exist on both sides. We want to grow, we want everyone to make a good living, to be sustainable, but we are clear that massive, unicorn-style growth is not one of our goals. It is about building a sustainable business, so as long as everyone agrees with that, we’re fine, and if they don’t, then that’s one of the lines in the sand we have with people we work with.”

Tribe has been receiving support from Start.coop, a cooperative accelerator based out of Boston that works with worker-owned start-ups that want to growth and diversify. In addition to providing business and cooperative training, Start.coop also introduced Tribe to potential investors.

Read the rest at The Socialist Entrepreneur

 

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