Want to Join In On The
Third Industrial Revolution?
Here’s how
(but generate wealth in all 8 forms of capital while doing it)
We are in the midst of a new industrial revolution, if it’s anything like the previous ones it will re-shape the world once again. Either we can sit by and allow the gains from this revolution to go to the 1% and .1% as they disproportionately have for previous industrial revolutions (not to mention witness the continued hacking apart of the tree of life, and acts of heinous direct and indirect violence committed against our fellow human beings, especially the non-white and economically poor members of our human family), or we can band together to make sure the PEOPLE own a significant enough chunk of this to launch us strongly into a new post-scarcity economy of localized+automated production and ecological regeneration.
We’re choosing the latter. Our goal once we establish the proper legal disclosures to be compliant with Securities laws is to do it like this: To join, the membership fee would be $1,000 (paid on a schedule you set of up to 2 years via a combination of cash and labor), and for that, you plus a friend receive one share each and are in for life. You and your friend will then receive membership payouts proportional to the surplus (profit) generated by the Co-Op. If you’d like, that can be the entire extent of your relationship with the co-op. But members also get access to certain perks, so if you’re stoked on this idea there are a few other ways to participate/interact with the co-op.
There will also be opportunities to take advantage of things like company tools and expertise, or product discounts. Guess who is on the fast track for getting a luxury 3D printed house collaboratively designed by you alongside a trained architect (in VR) that only costs $50/sq ft to build (so 1,200 sf would be $60k)?! Or an advanced water production/cleaning system that combines fish, plants, atmospheric collection, a babbling brook, membrane filtration, and mineralization to produce drinking water based on your personal body chemistry. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Co-Op’s purchasing power and collective bargaining to get better access to office/workspace, insurance, administrative support, overcome supply chain hurdles (like minimum unit manufacturing runs), accounting/legal help, etc.
Through optional membership surveys, you’ll also be able to vote on all sorts of things that will influence the future of the cooperative, like organizational branding (i.e. the name, logo, promo materials, etc.), company policies, who to hire, etc. You’ll also be able to vote on what tasks should be added to the list and their relative priority, how quickly they need to be done, and how much doing that task should be worth in compensation for whoever does it. All of this influence on task creation gets fed into the 2nd way to participate in the co-op: The Bounty Board.
2. Check The Bounty Board
There are always a wide variety of tasks to be done to move a big idea like this forward, and for day to day management of the company. One idea we’re playing around with (let us know what you think) for getting this work done via co-op members, and the community at large, is to flip things around a bit by posting tasks on a “Bounty Board” in a way that will hopefully promote fairness, give everyone in the co-op a shot at getting paid work, and also promote collaboration. If you see anything on the bounty board that your skillset could provide value in completing (and the price is high enough for you to be willing to do it), you can choose to claim it. If you can’t complete the task by yourself because other skills are necessary, team up with a fellow co-op member (or recruit a friend), and negotiate a split of the Bounty. Set a deadline for when you plan to complete it. If the deadline passes you can still submit it, but the task re-opens up for others to claim and submit too. Tasks that aren’t getting any takers will slowly move up in value as they become more urgent/important (and again, the urgency/importance of various tasks is partially set by votes from Members). *Should we offer a specific bonus/incentive to team up or just let it happen naturally if it fits?*
And remember, you can also work your way to a Membership by completing Bounties as opposed to paying cash, or some combination of the two.
3. Regular investors
If you’re the type of person that likes to invest larger amounts of cash under more standardized terms and payback periods, you’ll be able to do so via discrete projects, like a 3D printed housing development, or a water infrastructure venture.
Click the picture below to check out our first attempt at a discrete investible project: The Warner Spring’s Regenerative Power Park. Unfortunately, we are struggling to secure site control for this project from the landowner and evaluating how to proceed.
Click the image above to learn more!
Or if you really buy into the grand vision talked about here, we’d love to have you invest in the company as a whole. We are open to negotiating for both debt and equity investments under a variety of terms.
