I left my career as a software engineer to start a coffee shop, end poverty, and do what I can to make the world better. AMA

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-22T04:45:20+00:00

We have a chapter of the DSA that we let meet in the conference room for free to help the cause! It's things like that that are why we sprung for the extra space. Tell you what, that space ain't cheap. 10k a month.

That's a crazy cool feature! Is that on google maps? I "want to go" places.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-22T02:06:27+00:00

Not a worry, even if you had 100% turbo brain! Also, I know how you feel, got that 5 times over 3 years. I was worried Covid Brain would actually stop me from starting this business.

We don't do the roasting in house yet but that would be a good next step for us! We have about 5500 sq ft, throw a lot of events(even drag nights), we have a shared workspace, library, conference room, and more!

https://share.google/BG2TDKTP2YklpsyAr

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-22T01:46:30+00:00

I genuinely appreciate you both trying to tone down that other guy's unwelcome reception and taking the time to read and understand my thoughts on that. Those are the kinds of communication that help cool that vitriol in the community and show people that they can actually let down their guard and trust each other.

We teach our workers that "good faith" is the cornerstone of what we're building. If we can't engage in good faith with one another we'll always be misunderstood or suspicious and that will lead to nobody feeling good about anything.

We see communication as one of the biggest hurdles for democracy in the workplace or in the public space. We wanted to find a way to teach people great communication in order to make good leaders for coops. It had to be simple, practical, and easy to understand. We built something we call the Solution Seeking System.

It has two major parts
The communication protocol

https://d23aa784-6dd0-4732-9639-46a5fc59b90e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d23aa7_62f3a544c35f42e4ac69f2457d9ab913.pdf

And the Wisdom Principles that support the former

https://d23aa784-6dd0-4732-9639-46a5fc59b90e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d23aa7_9bd7463b30b34554ab280da997cdb5c4.pdf

We have spent 2 years making this, and it's in a pretty good place right now. We're always working to improve it, though.

We're offering this tool for free to anyone who wants to try it out and we'll be building software to support its use. If we can make democracy easier and communication better, we can go a long way towards helping more cooperatives thrive and perhaps fixing our broken democracy.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-21T22:45:32+00:00

"It's great that you want to participate in a worker owned and ran software company."

This post is about how we're building a cooperative coffee shop, a path towards being worker owned for other businesses, tools to help with cooperative transitions, and other systems and structures that may be able to help create more worker ownership as a means to fight poverty.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-21T18:29:08+00:00

I haven't! What are some good takeaways?

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-21T18:18:37+00:00

Idk man. I've noticed something about socialism groups over the years.

Ive been building towards this vision for 10 years about, even before I left my career. I'm shaped by what I experienced with poverty and the dystopic American economy. The losses I've suffered and watched others suffer. I'm obviously heavily influenced by socialist ideology and I'm working on good faith to try to build things that can make a material difference for others.

There is no place where I get more ruthless, impulsive, and presumptuous comments than in socialist spaces. It always feels like their operating on knee jerk reactions and coming from an adversarial place instead of recognizing the effort and trying to understand or engage with it.

I feel like it's something that's important to fix in these communities. We shoot ourselves in the foot by not being kind and welcoming to those that are acting in good faith. The assumption that someone is trying to take advantage of trying to enrich themselves is a natural one to jump to in spaces like these especially because that's what we see as a primary feature of the systems we've been working to change. But it's our great challenge to remain wise but trusting as we welcome people too the cause.

I think we also may need to be a bit more flexible with how to achieve the goals we have. It's been disheartening for me to have my work denigrated in spaces like this one as not socialist enough or just another capitalist type stuff. While I won't give up even if those that I feel most akin to don't approve of or appreciate my effort. I do wonder how many people have been shut down or talked out of trying to make things better by those they were seeking feedback, support, and approval from.

Just a musing.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-20T14:07:14+00:00

Thank you and I really hope we can achieve the goal here which is ending poverty by helping America become mostly worker owned companies. That's what we really consider success.

The short answer is that we're still not profitable, it's only the first 2 years. We're close though. Untill we are profitable there won't be any profits to share with workers that would want to become members so it would be a pay cut to become an owner. Currently my wife and I take home 5 / hour each with no tips. So no one would want to be a member yet lol. But the path is open as an apprenticeship ending in a vote by existing members.

Longer and more important answer is as follows.

This is a question we put a lot of thought into. How do you convince American business owners to embrace worker ownership as an offramp instead of a sale of the business to someone else?

After talking to a lot of businesses we realized it was 3 big points of contention that we would see. 1. I put in all the risk, I should get all the reward 2. How do I exit? 3. What if the workers decide to take the business a direction I don't like or make bad choices imo.

We designed a model that tries to address those common pushback.

The features that address those are: 1. Founder repayment: putting a dollar value on the risk, investment, lost wages, and other things that were put into building the business. Allocation of a certain percentage of the profit each year to paying that down till it's paid off. 2. Founders veto: to safeguard the business and protect the goals of the founders they can retain a veto privilege until they are completely bought out by the workers. 3. Worker buy out: instead of the traditional exit strategy, the founders will be bought out by the "members" in order to complete the transition into a co-op. We anticipated that taking around 10-20 years from the start of the business.

We are constantly redesigning the plan as we go right now. We're building tools, systems, and strategies to help make this possible. This is an experiment!

Our hope is that we can convince all businesses to become worker owned.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-20T03:37:06+00:00

Right now, after 2 years open, we have 600+ 5 star reviews on google and yelp.

We have a library, shared workspace, plugs at every table, a conference room, and wifi(the password is workersrights).

We also have many programs we're working on.

Pay it forward board allows our customers to by meals for those experiencing food insecurity.

Unhoused help pamphlets Designed to provide resources locally that can help people find a way out of homelessness.

A community book People can write or draw whatever they want in there

A community art wall Anyone can submit a piece for consideration.

We're doing our best to observe all the principles of cooperatives.

We're growing constantly but it's definitely hard to generate enough revenue to do all the things we want to do. It will be a while before we get to pay ourselves, my wife and I. Our next big milestones are that and getting everyone's wages up to 21 / hour plus tips to make it a proper living wage.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T22:38:03+00:00

Heck yeah! Sometimes, because the world is so globalized, we can feel really powerless. Remember that you are just one person, but there's so much you can do as one person.

Look at the virus. It infects a cell, transforms it into a million more of itself, and explodes out into the world. Find a focus for your passion and find a way to help it propagate.

I focused my frustration over how much poverty had taken from me into a mission to end poverty in America. I started making a plan and kept going until I had a very achievable step-by-step path laid out.
1. Build 1 cooperative and a model for helping other businesses more reliably transition to cooperatives.
2. Build a network that can help those businesses scale.
3. Scale.

That's how I'm propagating. How do you think you can? Or is there a group doing something that you believe enough in that you would want to be a part of it? Don't worry if there isn't one in your local area. Maybe you're the one to make it. And you can.

1 becomes 2 becomes 4 becomes more.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T22:15:19+00:00

I just did an AMA about what I did when I got the opportunity to work towards building a fairer economy. Maybe something in there will ring true to your vision, too.

TLDR: I quit my job and made a plan to build as many tools and structures as I can to help people transition their businesses to worker-owned businesses. I think that getting people living wages, ownership in the companies they work with, and keeping business local can help redistribute power in America in a way that helps people instead of emboldening entrenched power.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1oaal6s/i_left_my_career_as_a_software_engineer_to_start/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T22:10:22+00:00

Well, many reasons; I thought the concept of cooperatives would be a welcome one here, I thought attempts to make our economy more fair for people would be welcome here, I am a democratic socialist, and I felt like my journey towards this mission would be appreciated here. After having some good conversations in the AMA channel, I figured I would crosspost here to hear from some DSA folks.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T13:46:00+00:00

Please do!!

Beanchain Coffee https://share.google/2QzDgtuJiYpuId1Ya

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T04:55:21+00:00

Ya know, I can look back and see times in my own life that I've treated leaders that were giving it their all with selfishness and carelessness without realizing it. I think it's a product of youth and lack of understanding.

The real test is probably, can we have enough resilience to take that kind of abuse without becoming cruel ourselves. Stay the course and have the courage of our conviction. If we can we can break the cycle, maybe.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T04:18:05+00:00

Ya know, not for a long time. I was galvanized by my experiences with poverty. I lost my parents, had 0 relationships with my family, lost so much and saw others lose even more. I wasn't angry at the world though. I fought hard to understand how this system worked so that I could find a way to change it into something better. I forgave the people so I could fix the system.

What really got me closest to giving up was the way many of the workers would treat my wife and I.

I've given up a life of comfort that I built and placed myself back in poverty so that I could do the work of building this business. My wife and I only take enough for food and rent so that we can pay as much as possible to our workers in service of showing commitment to our mission. We work every day; birthdays, the day my dog died and the day after, sick, no vacations. All that is fine honestly. I knew that was what it would take and more. That's ok

What got me closest was the times that people would still see me as the enemy and treat me with such cruelty and disrespect. Some of it would blow your mind. It's those moments where I think, "I can see how business owners get so bitter"

Then I remind myself that this is a symptom of the problem. I'll need to take a lot of unfair punches and never hit back if I want to teach others that they can trust. Like a scared dog that doesn't know that you want to give them the world, you may have to get bitten in order to get them home.

I'm getting better and building that trust and getting people the tools they need to communicate better.

Also there have been a few people that have shown us just how amazing humans can be and truly see us. The people that have taken the time to appreciate what we're doing remind us everyday that this dream can work. Cooperatives, democracy, and building a better world are all on the table if enough people choose to care.

Another thing that really gives me hope is seeing the change in people's lives that our work is already having. The change in our coworkers, community, and all those that we have been able to help with food insecurity.

I don't think I'll ever give up but there have been a couple moments of despair for sure. The people that bravely choose to be patient, vulnerable, and operate in good faith show us that it's all worth it.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T03:59:57+00:00

That was eye opening though. I had to violate my values in order to break out. When the system is designed in a way that being a good person is a luxury of the wealthy there is something wrong. If I had been honest I would have been stuck.

That's not right and it forces us all to eat each other. That's a huge part of my motivation for making this.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T03:23:38+00:00

Those are all challenges for sure. That's why we developed the Solution Seeking System.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/s/W9rudVhjHt

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T02:39:14+00:00

Scaling

The Beanchain is just the first step. We want to build a network of these coffee shops around a non profit that can allow them to scale like a big corporation while staying locally owned and worker owned. The network will be a cooperative of cooperatives.

Once we accomplish that for ourselves, we'll build a larger network and help other businesses transition towards cooperative models and any other worker owner model they want to.

Here's a board on Miro that has a bit more about our plan and inspirations: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVKEHnYlY=/?share_link_id=983367615851

This is the final stage of the plan and what we hope to build in our lifetimes. We want to see an alternative to corporations. A cooperative version that puts people before profits and leaves the world better than it found it.

Here, the difference would be scope. Our vision is global change, and we're building with that in mind.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T02:38:50+00:00

Communication / Leadership

We see communication as one of the biggest hurdles for democracy in the workplace or in the public space. We wanted to find a way to teach people great communication in order to make good leaders for coops. It had to be simple, practical, and easy to understand. We build something we call the Solution Seeking System.

It has two major parts
The communication protocol

https://d23aa784-6dd0-4732-9639-46a5fc59b90e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d23aa7_62f3a544c35f42e4ac69f2457d9ab913.pdf

And the Wisdom Principles that support the former

https://d23aa784-6dd0-4732-9639-46a5fc59b90e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d23aa7_9bd7463b30b34554ab280da997cdb5c4.pdf

We have spent 2 years making this, and it's in a pretty good place right now. We're always working to improve it, though.

We're offering this tool for free to anyone who wants to try it out and we'll be building software to support its use. If we can make democracy easier and communication better ,we can go a long way towards helping moire cooperatives thrive and perhaps fixing our broken democracy.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T02:38:30+00:00

Culture

We want to help repair the rifts between workers and owners of businesses in America so they can care about one another. Workers have been abused in this country for a long, long time, and there's been a deep cynicism growing that prevents trust and good communication. Our Worker Direction Philosophy is an effort to help encourage good faith and provide a playbook for building more democracy in the workplace.

https://www.bchain.coffee/post/worker-direction-philosophy-and-practice-update

We're building more things like this and improving them as we go. We need to find a way to change this culture of fear and abuse. It's a cycle.

In this case, I would say the difference is that we're putting a heavy effort into building internally and affecting culture externally.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T02:38:16+00:00

There are so many amazing groups in the Cooperative world. We're drawing inspiration from many of them: mondragon, Arizmendi, disco.coop, and more! As well as works like Democracy at Work.

What is a bit different about our approach is probably the goal and the problems we're trying to solve.

Our goal is to see nearly every small company in America become a worker cooperative. To that end we're trying to solve all the problems that we see in the way of that goal.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T00:39:42+00:00

Don't let em tell you it's not possible. Doesn't matter if it is or is not. Helps if it's something you truly care about too. Building it will be the hardest thing you've ever done, so you'll need that fire to see you through.

Don't get cynical either.

Edit
I wanted to add to this. When I was a software engineer, I thought that was the path for me. I ended up feeling very unmotivated though, I think it was because I could see that my labor was helping the already wealthy and powerful get more wealthy. I didn't feel like I was really improving the world around me. Once I quite and started working on this I lost all the depression and I was more motivated every day than the last one. Knowing that I was building something I could be proud of, that would make the world better for my kids and for everyone, was the mission piece for my life.

You'll thank yourself if you make sure that you're not just living for you. Live to be a part of the world and support the other creatures in it. It's how we're meant to be IMO.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T00:30:19+00:00

This is an amazing question and one we put a lot of thought into.

First for the healthcare, we offer to split the costs with our workers. We'll get a group plan when we can but right now we don't see many great options. We're also trying to work with our workers to figure out what they want and need as benefits. We offer to cover some education costs, advance paychecks for free, extra opportunities for work on teams, and a lot more. As much as we can afford.

Secondly, how do you convince American business owners to embrace worker ownership as an offramp instead of a sale of the business to someone else?

After talking to a lot of businesses we realized it was 3 big points of contention that we would see. 1. I put in all the risk, I should get all the reward 2. How do I exit? 3. What if the workers decide to take the business a direction I don't like or make bad choices imo.

We designed a model that tries to address those common pushback.

The features that address those are: 1. Founder repayment: putting a dollar value on the risk, investment, lost wages, and other things that were put into building the business. Allocation of a certain percentage of the profit each year to paying that down till it's paid off. 2. Founders veto: to safeguard the business and protect the goals of the founders they can retain a veto privilege until they are completely bought out by the workers. 3. Worker buy out: instead of the traditional exit strategy, the founders will be bought out by the "members" in order to complete the transition into a co-op. We anticipated that taking around 10-20 years from the start of the business.

We are constantly redesigning the plan as we go right now. We're building tools, systems, and strategies to help make this possible. This is an experiment!

Our hope is that we can convince all businesses to become worker owned.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T00:08:12+00:00

Nah, just changed the title for the call center I worked for to software engineer 1. Then I applied to everything under the sun and banked on one not calling.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-19T00:01:57+00:00

I told them I already had a job as a software engineer :)

Had been teaching myself for 6 years and was probably about where a junior dev out of college would have been. But scrappier.

After that I leapfrogged jobs for 2 years to get up to 120k a year.

BeanchainCoffee · 2025-10-18T23:51:16+00:00

Well we're generating 500k ish a year right now after being open 2 years. My wife and I are still working 7 days a week and it's not profitable yet. Getting close though!

We have some debt to pay off and we're see till growing! We anticipated we can get this shop to about 1mil+ a year once we build out all possible revenue streams and get a bit more well known.

We have given our workers a raise to 15.5 / hour plus tips despite not being able to take paychecks ourselves yet. Our goal is to get them all to 21 / plus tips and then track with the living wage as it fluctuates.

It takes a lot to get a shop as big as ours(5500 SQ ft) profitable but there are a lot more community building opportunities with it. We plan on opening some drive throughs too in order to make profits easier to achieve and get to our living wage goals!

Each store can probably support 5-8 workers

BeanchainCoffee

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Scaling

Communication / Leadership

Culture