Why start a CO-OP and what a cooperative company really is.

So why start a co-op? You've probably heard about cooperatives. Maybe you're comparing a cooperative versus a traditional company. Well, in this video I break down the 4 main reasons why you should start a cooperative. I was there not too long ago, so I totally get it, and I did a ton of research. So in this video I'm gonna make it really simple and explain why it makes sense to start a co-op. And the reasons are big, so stick around till the end. Hey guys, it's Vivek from Mindhome once again. I'm super excited to dive into the subject of why start a cooperative. I spent the last 3, 4, 5 months researching this topic quite a bit as I'm in the process of starting my own cooperative. And so I'm really excited to break down why you should start your own cooperative. So the very first reason why you should start a cooperative is they're more sustainable. And I'm not talking about being a green corporation or using renewable energies. I'm talking about as a business model cooperatives are a more sustainable business. And while traditional companies have always been thought of as sustainable, long term you always see a traditional company going through cycles of up and down, up and down. Why is that the case? It's because that to maintain constant growth quarter after quarter, year after year, just by definition cannot be sustainable. You can't grow endlessly. But cooperatives are more sustainable because the only reason a cooperative needs to grow is because the owners of the business decide to do that. And usually a cooperative grows when they add more people to the team. If they don't grow the profits from the previous quarter or the previous year, or if they don't grow their revenues from the previous year, it really doesn't bother a cooperative business because the owners, the people that work within the company of the organization, are the ones that are demanding the growth or not demanding the growth. They decide. Versus in a traditional company, whether it's investors like venture capitalists or stock investors, their expectation when they put their money into a traditional company is that they're going to get a return on their investment, that their stock price is going to go up. And, and because they're not part of the organization, because they're not working there and making a salary, they have expectations that the money they put into it is going to give them a certain return versus a traditional cooperative where the worker owners, they own the business and they decide if they really want to grow. Maybe they don't want to grow that much the next year or the next quarter. They're just happy how they did last year, and that's fine with them. So as a business, a cooperative is a much more sustainable business. Every time you add another member to the team, you grow. And as long as you keep adding members and there's humans out there wanting to work for your company, it's a sustainable business. Along with that, business ownership and wealth is much more sustainable in a cooperative. You don't have any situations where you have a Jeff Bezos worth over $200 billion or $300 billion or $1 trillion, whatever the number is going to be. In a worker-owned cooperative, the owners, the wealth of the business is distributed between each worker-owner. And as you grow, you usually add more members to the team. and then that wealth continues to get distributed to more and more people that join the cooperative. By the way, are you thinking about starting a cooperative? Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear. Maybe you'll even inspire some other people who are exploring different ideas for cooperative. So just share your ideas. I'd love to hear about them. Number 2, this is a big one for me: more democratic. While we may live in a democratic society, When it comes to the workplace, it's traditionally not the case. Usually there's a couple executives or investors that drive a lot of the direction or most of the direction that a company goes and the work that us as individuals do. And while in traditional companies you certainly have a voice, it's usually more around the exact execution of a particular project or an idea versus the general direction of a business. In a worker-owned cooperative instead, each individual has one vote, and that vote has a major impact on how the business is run and the leadership who runs that organization. And that's how humans want to exist. If you think about humans, you know, long before societies, when we're just, you know, animals roaming around this earth, we're independent, independent to make the decisions we thought was best for ourselves. But unfortunately in the workplace, all that gets thrown out the window. And while we're not slaves, we have choices to decide what corporation we want to work for and what businesses we want to support. When we work in a traditional company, we have to pretty much adhere to what senior management or investors direct us as a business to go. But in a democratic run worker-owned cooperative. The individuals, the workers' owners, they have a lot more rights. And they have a lot more rights to decide where the business goes, who leads that corporation, and there's not usually an executive that stays there for 10, 20, 30 years. Every year, the individual workers have a vote. They have a right to decide who's the leadership of this organization, where the business grows or doesn't grow, what the business tackles and focuses on or not. They have much more of a voice. They're not just another cog in the wheel of the business. Number 3: better product and service. Generally speaking, a worker-owned cooperative has an opportunity to provide a better quality product and service than a traditional company. And the reason is, is that a traditional company has these investors. They put money into the company and they expect a return on that investment. And so sometimes a traditional company over a period of time has to sacrifice the quality of their product or the service that they provide so that they can bring more money back to investors. But in a traditional worker-owned cooperative, the worker owners are the ones that are owning the business. They, they control their employment. They can control how fast they grow or don't grow. For them, they don't have to grow unless they need to or want to. Instead of making a decision, "Hey, we're going to buy cheaper quality ingredients," or, "We're going to spend a little less time on this service than we did last quarter because we want to save a few bucks," instead they can say, "Hey, you know what? We're going to just do the best product or provide the best service we can, and if we don't grow at all, That's fine because we own the business, we make a good salary every week or every month, and we're fine with not growing by 2% or 3%. Versus a traditional company, investors are always looking for growth. Quarter after quarter, year after year. And when companies don't match that, usually the stock price or further investment into the business usually suffers. Number 4: Stronger together than alone. Well, you know, when you look at Amazon or Walmart or these big agri-milk companies and so forth, it can feel intimidating to be able to compete against them. But as a worker-owned cooperative, together pulling in resources and money and time and effort, you can start a small traditional business or a small traditional cooperative business, and you can easily start growing your business slowly but surely, providing a living wage to yourself, your team, and creating a business that you are proud of. And maybe in the long term be able to compete against some of these big names. A great example of this is the milk company Organic Valley. Uh, it was started in the '80s by a bunch of small farmers and now it's one of the largest farmer-owned cooperatives in the world, and it's competing against any of the big, large, big agri-milk companies out there. And usually worker-owned cooperatives are not just supported by the people that work at the cooperative, but also by the local community. Individuals like to see that their neighbors are doing well and want to support their local neighbors or their friends or family. And so usually worker-owned cooperatives also have the support of the community. So if you're wondering what's some of the cons of starting a worker-owned cooperative, well, there's a couple. Number one, as you can imagine, a co-op requires cooperation. It requires coordination versus a traditional company where an individual might have an idea on the back of a napkin and run away to try to start to get started. A worker-owned cooperative requires coordination, it requires working together, so sometimes they can be a little slower to get started. Another issue with a worker-owned cooperative is getting funding for a worker-owned cooperative can be a little bit more tricky because you can't go to a traditional investor. You have to find other avenues to get money to start your business. So what about you? Why are you starting a co-op? I'm really curious. Please leave a comment below. So that covers it. As I mentioned, there's 4 main reasons for starting a cooperative. It's more democratic, it's more sustainable, a better product and service, and you're stronger together than alone. Hope this video was helpful. If it was, please consider giving it a thumbs up. We're gonna continue to talk about cooperatives on this channel, so If you're interested in learning more about starting your own cooperative, subscribe to the channel and share it with a friend if you think it'll be useful for them. Thanks so much and have a great day.