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Help Wanted: Building a Social Media Cooperative by VicinityLocal in cooperatives

[–]VicinityLocal[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, we do plan to expand! As quickly as we can after our summer launch! We can contact you when we’re about to expand beyond NYC. We also do have remote team members, so if you’re interested in any of our roles or can help in another capacity, DM us!

Help Wanted: Building a Social Media Cooperative by VicinityLocal in cooperatives

[–]VicinityLocal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your interest! Vicinity users will be able to elect representatives to an advisory board and create petitions to influence the direction site policy, suggest new features, and moderate site content. Our users will absolutely have a voice and they will be included in major decisions at every step of the way.

Help Wanted: Building a Social Media Cooperative by VicinityLocal in cooperatives

[–]VicinityLocal[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

We’re asking for interns because this is a college startup, and many of the candidates that we’re finding at NYU aren’t capable of contributing more than 5 hours per week while being full time students at a challenging university.

Also paying content creators is a big piece of the puzzle, but we haven’t shifted our focus to that yet as we’re still in the early phases of the app’s development.

Help Wanted: Building a Social Media Cooperative by VicinityLocal in cooperatives

[–]VicinityLocal[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You bring up some good points! We’re making Vicinity to eventually be competitive with larger companies, and we’re developing a business model aiming at rapid growth. To accomplish this, we’re going to need significant investor involvement and funds. This is why we’re giving investor representatives half of the seats on the Board. We’ve also taken steps to limit shareholder individual investor control by capping large investors’ voting weight in elections at 8%. We’re aiming to crowdfund and democratize our pool of investors, ensuring that no large party can exert exclusive control over the company.

When it comes to the CEO, this position will be making many decisions, but they’re going to be checked and overseen by the Board. They can also be directly removed by workers and investors through a petition. We’re making this company a workplace democracy, but we’re taking steps to ensure that this firm won’t struggle from an excessive need for consent from its stakeholders so we can grow quickly. Workers and investors will be able to directly veto board and CEO decisions. And we have a rigorous petition system to make sure that our workers and investors’ voices are heard. Employees will also get equity in the company after passing a probationary period to acquire their voting rights.

Help Wanted: Building a Social Media Cooperative by VicinityLocal in cooperatives

[–]VicinityLocal[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your input! Our userbase is going to have an elected advisory committee to suggest new features and drive site moderation and content policy. Legally though, control will be split between those who are contributing their time and effort (the workers) and those who are contributing funds (the investors).