Loconomics, a startup that offered shared services to freelancers, became a darling of academics and allies interested in platform cooperativism. But while academics secured grants, Loconomics struggled to gain traction. Appearances at conference panels and in magazine features never translated to enough funding or users to scale. So, after six years of bootstrapping, product pivots, and one big break that didn’t pan out, Loconomics came to an end in 2020.
The original idea was to create a sharing economy platform that put the workers first. We started out by incorporating as one of California’s first benefit corporations. But we didn’t feel like “people, planet, profit” went far enough. Sure, I had no guilt in making a market salary — but I didn’t want to be a millionaire off the backs of labourers. But for service professionals, there was nothing that strong to say that we were offering anything vastly different than say TaskRabbit, other than maybe commissions would have been less. So I went back to the drawing board. I’d known about co-operatives, but not how it would apply to a technology platform, so I went to a free legal clinic put on by Janelle Orsi who founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center. She and I hit it off and brainstormed how that would look. We wanted to do something the other platforms weren’t doing — giving ownership to the workers and have that written into its bylaws. We revised the articles of incorporation to become, what I think, was the US’s first technology platform co-operative in June of 2014.
Certainly early on Janelle Orsi was a great supporter and cheerleader. I was part of the LGBT and San Francisco startup scene and found many people who said “Wow, that’s a really great idea” but didn’t understand the business model very well. I also went to many events in Oakland that were much more impact-oriented at the local level. Their mission statements were much clearer and more tangible, but they heard my idea for Loconomics and said “Wow, why doesn’t that exist?” Somehow, though, I or Loconomics didn’t quite fit in.
Maybe six months after we converted to a co-op, Nathan Schneider started writing about Loconomics and then we got a lot of attention from academics — most of the attention was from academics, people in the social impact space, and some entrepreneurs that respected what I was doing. They all tried to help in their own way. And no one told me it was a dumb idea.
I validated that there was a need for Loconomics, for sure, but coordinating a ton of people that are interested in it and not having the funding to actually hire anybody — I think that was the toughest part. It’s great having volunteer help but pulling it all together into a tangible product, that was really hard. I don’t know who possesses that expertise but I didn ’t. It’s still everything I believe in politically, socially, and philosophically, and I hope someone figures it out.
It was mostly academics and people in Janelle’s circle, in sustainable economics, and there were tons of fans who saw the need for Loconomics as a solution to the perils of the gig economy — but it was not the workers, the service professionals. I think the platform co-op movement wouldn’t have started without an example like Loconomics, and I got so many interviews and so much fanfare from it, but it needed to be the people who were actually going to use the platform. I think on paper it’s the perfect solution, but it’s a little bit more complicated for the workers who actually power the platform to understand how they benefit, which is what really matters, and it was harder to reach those people as they weren’t going to the conferences or reading whatever publications we were in.
Loconomics, a startup that offered shared services to freelancers, became a darling of academics and allies interested in platform cooperativism. But
while academics secured grants, Loconomics struggled to gain traction.
Appearances at conference panels and in magazine features never translated
to enough funding or users to scale. So, after six years of bootstrapping,
product pivots, and one big break that didn’t pan out, Loconomics came to
an end in 2020.
The original idea was to create a sharing economy platform that put the
workers first. We started out by incorporating as one of California’s first benefit corporations. But we didn’t feel like “people, planet, profit”
went far enough. Sure, I had no guilt in making a market salary — but I
didn’t want to be a millionaire off the backs of labourers. But for service professionals, there was nothing that strong to say that we were offering
anything vastly different than say TaskRabbit, other than maybe commissions would have been less. So I went back to the drawing board. I’d known about co-operatives, but not how it would apply to a technology platform, so I
went to a free legal clinic put on by Janelle Orsi who founded the
Sustainable Economies Law Center. She and I hit it off and brainstormed how that would look. We wanted to do something the other platforms weren’t
doing — giving ownership to the workers and have that written into its
bylaws. We revised the articles of incorporation to become, what I think,
was the US’s first technology platform co-operative in June of 2014.
Certainly early on Janelle Orsi was a great supporter and cheerleader. I was part of the LGBT and San Francisco startup scene and found many people who said “Wow, that’s a really great idea” but didn’t understand the
business model very well. I also went to many events in Oakland that were
much more impact-oriented at the local level. Their mission statements were much clearer and more tangible, but they heard my idea for Loconomics and
said “Wow, why doesn’t that exist?” Somehow, though, I or Loconomics didn’t quite fit in.
Maybe six months after we converted to a co-op, Nathan Schneider started
writing about Loconomics and then we got a lot of attention from academics
— most of the attention was from academics, people in the social impact
space, and some entrepreneurs that respected what I was doing. They all
tried to help in their own way. And no one told me it was a dumb idea.
I validated that there was a need for Loconomics, for sure, but coordinating a ton of people that are interested in it and not having the funding to
actually hire anybody — I think that was the toughest part. It’s great
having volunteer help but pulling it all together into a tangible product,
that was really hard. I don’t know who possesses that expertise but I didn
’t. It’s still everything I believe in politically, socially, and
philosophically, and I hope someone figures it out.
It was mostly academics and people in Janelle’s circle, in sustainable
economics, and there were tons of fans who saw the need for Loconomics as a solution to the perils of the gig economy — but it was not the workers, the service professionals. I think the platform co-op movement wouldn’t have
started without an example like Loconomics, and I got so many interviews and so much fanfare from it, but it needed to be the people who were actually
going to use the platform. I think on paper it’s the perfect solution, but it’s a little bit more complicated for the workers who actually power the
platform to understand how they benefit, which is what really matters, and
it was harder to reach those people as they weren’t going to the
conferences or reading whatever publications we were in.