Set-up: Phase 1 – exploring

You’re at the very first stage of developing your platform co‑op idea. Now is the time to research your market, define your stakeholders and their needs and understand if a co‑op is right for you. 

Find other people to work with that share your vision and that can bring skills and networks to support its development. 

It’s still early to set up as a business, but there are forms of finance you can already access. Founders tend to secure around £5,000 in this initial phase. This won’t take you very far, but it is a good way to test if there is appetite for your business idea.

Available funding

• You and your fellow founders will most likely be working on the business idea unpaid, so you will be relying on savings and other personal income sources you already have to keep you going.
• You can ask friends and family who believe in your idea to provide financial support. This can be done informally or by setting up a personal donation based crowdfunding page.
• You can apply for grants. As you are not set up as a business, you can:
  • Apply for grants that do not require you to be set up as a legal entity – for example grants for individuals.
  • Ask an existing organisation to act as a sponsor. It might be an organisation you are already part of, or another organisation that is aligned to your mission.
• You can rely on support ‘in kind’ from friends, family and organisations that are supportive of your mission. This can come in many forms and should not be underestimated, especially in these early stages. Examples of useful support in kind include access to workspace and equipment, access to relevant networks and expertise, and referees for grant funding or promotional support for your crowdfunder.
• You can use digital tokens or ledgers to record the amount of work and resources initial members or founders put into a company and determine how this will be compensated in the future (sweat equity). 

What you need before you start raising funds:

Fundamental

• A working title for your business, even if it is not the final one. It will help you build your business profile and get recognised.
• A mission statement which is a single phrase or paragraph that summarises the “who, what, why, when, where, how” of your organisation.

Ideal

• A landing page, a one page site with basic information about your mission and a way to get in touch with you
• A social media presence on the most appropriate social media platform for your audience. Use it to start building your user base, understanding their needs and testing your ideas.
• A network of people you can rely on for support and advice with varied skills and expertise.

Case Study: Guerrilla Translations and contributing accounting

Guerrilla Translation is a platform co‑op of translators that offers a variety of communication and translation services alongside publishing translated political content on their digital platform. 

They use contributive accounting, shaped around feminist economics, a form of accounting where contributions to a shared project are logged to ensure fair distribution of income. The system is quite complex, but can be summarised as follows. 

• All members create value. 
• Part of this value is processed through services they offer and is converted into monetary value, which is then pooled and distributed to benefit different value streams. 
• There are three value streams based on the type of work delivered: 
  • Pro bono work
  • Paid work
  • Care work. 
• Each value stream has its own credit system and members track their credits separately depending on the type of work they deliver. 
• On a regular basis and based on the income the co‑op receives in that period, credits are then converted to money. 
• Credits that have been paid are called divested credits, those that haven’t yet, are called invested credits. 

Based on their experience Guerilla Translations are developing a model that other organizations can adopt called DisCO, which stands for Distributed co‑op Organisation.