Each to their own — better together.
In design. Counsel at work. Not an offer — announced as one only when it legally exists.
Some communities are not held together by a common goal but by aligned ones: each member pursues their own stake, and the community exists because those stakes are served better together than alone. A homeowner association — each member’s property. A housing cooperative — each member’s home. A consumer cooperative — each member’s supply. A cooperative where people build and earn together — each member’s work and upside.
Flat voting fails exactly here. When stakes differ, the member who joined last Tuesday should not outvote years of contribution — and nobody’s work should go unpaid. The classic company answers with a pyramid; the classic cooperative answers with flatness. Both answers are broken for this type of community. We are designing the third.
Skin in the game, measured.
Voting weight is not bought and not equal — it is a measure of current exposure: time at risk, verified work, capped capital, and whether a bad decision actually hurts you. Non-transferable, earned slowly, decaying when you go passive. A vote that costs nothing can be farmed; a vote that costs exposure cannot.
Wins are staked, not banked.
Every adopted proposal carries its own success criteria and a review date. The proposer’s reward rides on the outcome of their own solution: deliver, and it vests into real weight; fail, and it burns. Power and risk scale together — the system stops rewarding people who are good at winning votes and starts rewarding people who are good at being right.
Work is honored.
Surplus is distributed in proportion to vested contribution — the century-old cooperative patronage principle, with teeth. Pay is proportional; power is dampened and capped. Money is welcome as capital, openly, with a defined return and a real exit scenario — and zero votes. No silent shareholders. No loud ones either.
Leaving has a fair price.
Every member carries an account of vested, undistributed contribution value. Walk away and you take your data and your honored work with you. A freeloader exits with nothing; a builder exits paid.
Where it stands
The governance architecture is drafted. The legal form is being designed with counsel. Nothing here is offered, sold, or promised — this page exists because we build in the open, and because the communities this is for deserve to find it early.
Members-to-be hear it first — via the contact page →
This page describes design work in progress. It is information, not an offer, not a solicitation, and not investment, legal, or tax advice. Any future structure takes effect only when legally constituted, and will be announced as such.