Lumberjacked

Well I’m at least 20 years from retirement. so I’ve got time. I’m looking into several options including coop and ESOP. First 5 years of business was living off savings and raiding retirement funds instead of getting investors. At present I’m aiming for selfish goals of repaying myself and saving for my kids.

There are tech companies who don’t want to sell. I started my tech company 9 years ago and we did almost $5M last year. My plan is to do this for next 20 years and then sell to my employees. Sure there’s a number big enough that I’d sell my company but so far any acquisition offers have been met with snark and disrespect (from me) and died pretty quick. I talk to other tech owners in similar boats. We just don’t need to tell everyone because we aren’t trying to get acquired. One vocal exception is 37 Signals.

For me it sunk in that we really need both. Insurance against the inability to work due to just getting old and retirement to allow for enjoyment and experience a life beyond the grind.

Seems reasonable.

That’s cool.

I agree. AI could be good for first line of defense specifically for sorting our traumatizing gore and the like.

For normal moderation I think it’s only useful in the same way as spell check. Second set or eyes but human makes the final call.

Yes I think so. If they had an ad free versions I’d pay for it.

What are they looking at doing for revenue?

Yeah but Valve is centralized ownership still. One guy has majority and that makes a difference. A coop could be customer led from get go. 51% customers 49% employees or something like that.

The point being if you structure it as for profit you can charge for things and build a good product. You can make rules that says 100% of the profits have to be redistributed and no one can change that. It’s how many farm co-ops work.

You could do a for profit without investors. Any profit goes back to employees and paying users. Make it the operating agreement from the get go and no one could come in.

Non profit in many places means you can’t sell a service. So you rely on donations. Which means you’re constantly asking for donations.

That’s hard. I like an algorithm I can control. Maybe could do ads in search only. I don’t know. Kind of hate ads.

Think beyond VC backed companies. Those get tons of attention because they need it.

Investors = bad. I whole heartedly agree.

For profit doesn’t have to be bad. What if it were a worker/user co-op. Have a free product and have a paid product. If you pay for the product you get a (just one) vote. If you work for the company you get a vote. Users won’t vote for maximizing profit. But the profit means you don’t have to beg for donations.

Craigslist would be another example. For profit but no major investors so doesn’t have to prioritize profits.

Profit. Revenue minus expenses. There are some things you wouldn’t expect, like inventory doesn't count as an expense until you sell them. So frequently profit is actually higher than money in the bank and a lot higher than what owners get paid.