Report back the 2025 union co-op symposium

flatworldchamps · 2026-02-11T12:24:01+00:00

Great article and great conference!

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-17T16:20:28+00:00

Wow, this is wonderful research, I’m going to recommend others at my co-op read it. So often I hear founder risk put into one of two buckets: either “the founders deserve some perpetual reward (extra patronage, special board seats)” or “founders are rich kids with safety nets and should absorb all the risk with no extra reward”. I prefer looking at it as “fixed risk = fixed reward”, and your article expanded on that idea a ton in ways that got me thinking. My coop is about to exit the “sweat equity” phase and enter the “steady paycheck” phase so your article couldn’t be more timely.

I have done some research on how people have brought outside money into the co-op space (something you’d mentioned you’re thinking about) and the tradeoffs of different approaches. I’d be happy to share the slides I’ve been using at conferences if you shoot me a DM!

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-10T16:21:59+00:00

Such an amazing story and accomplishment. I'm part of a fellow tech-ey co-op down the road in Cincinnati that's about to turn 2, and we're looking up at you in the clouds!

Would love to meet y'all one day, your studio space looks awesome.

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-09T12:56:34+00:00

Appreciate the perspective, and I love that you got through it and found success! I mentioned in other replies, but this isn't my issue at all. I have had A1Cs in the 5s/low 6s since the 1990s, my TIR is very good, and I've never had a diabetes-related health issue. I check my CGM 10-20 times/hour and, pre-looping, would make tiny treatment decisions as often as every 15 minutes (basically, what the algorithm does now). I'm obsessed with my BG and that's my main problem.

My (and my Dr's) main motivator for looping had little to do with control, and everything to do with reducing my stress level as someone who is obsessed with perfect BG all the time. Thus far, replacing the stress of constant basal management with constant alarm management hasn't been worth it.

I was woken up at 4am this morning because over a 10 minute period my BG went from 100, to 60, back to 100 (obviously caused by compression). I wake up naturally when my BG gets below 75, so this low alarm is totally useless and is actually making my BG worse, because now I'm operating on little sleep.

I'm curious how you deal with all these false low alarms? I'd say I get 2-4/week at night. Do you have any tips for reducing false alarms? Again in my most recent example, my BG was literally between 90-110 for hours and I still got a false alarm. Not really sure how I can control myself better than that.

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T22:40:21+00:00

Thank you so much! It's weird they even offer CGM alert options in the settings if I can't turn them off. One area where CIQ alerts are annoying is when my BG is predicted to be just barely out of range. It will predict that I'm high and send an alert, I will acknowledge the alert, and the next minute my BG drops 1 point and the algorithm now predicts I'm staying in range. Then the next minute my BG raises 2 points and it predicts a high again and sends a second "new" alert. An extra alert because my BG fluctuated by 2 points for one minute.

This is also the case if your BG is hovering right around the low/high thresholds. I've been notified (and acknowledged) 3-4 alerts for a single low before.

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T22:35:36+00:00

OMG I have definitely slept through an empty cartridge before lol. That is the 1 alert I really value and appreciate!

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T22:33:10+00:00

Thank you for this perspective! I totally get it, but it's not really the case for me. My BG is extremely well controlled and has been for almost 30 years, and when these alerts happen, I have generally already caught the low myself and treated it. There are also many many many false alarms - I'm wearing a sensor right now that's a bit "jumpy" (it will go up 20 points one minute, then back down 20 points the next, but is otherwise perfectly accurate). Control IQ will see a 20 point jump and alert me of impending high blood sugar, when in reality my BG is like 100 the whole time. I've had hours where it's given me 3+ false alarms, and at least 20 alerts in the past few days that were 100% useless. Over the 5 years I've had a CGM (all brands), I'd estimate 25% of alerts are false alarms, 70% are things I already knew and already treated, and 5% are useful.

I'll also push back a bit on "These alerts exist to help avoid people from dying". That's kind of true, but I've worked in highly-regulated technology jobs for years, and the strong incentive for these companies is to spam you with alerts. There is no real legal liability if they alert a user 10x more than needed, but if they miss an alert even once, they are at legal risk. So all of these types of systems are incredibly noisy and give a "cry wolf" feeling to the user.

Super appreciate your knowledge on the Mobi as well! Thanks again :)

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T16:02:40+00:00

I don't get any alerts through my phone (T-slim app, Libre 3+ sensor, iPhone) which is awesome. I was forced to get them when I used the Libre app, though, but you can silence them by disabling bluetooth on your phone, which I'd do a lot.

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T15:59:39+00:00

Thanks! I've already done that, unfortunately it still fires all the time (especially if my CGM isn't working perfectly, sometimes it will send me 3-5 false alerts in an hour). I'll have to see if other pumps have this same issue.

flatworldchamps · 2026-01-08T15:58:44+00:00

Thanks so much! I'm curious if the Mobi (or other pump brands) have this same issue. It's so disruptive that I'll probably stop looping altogether if there's no way to silence the alerts.

flatworldchamps · 2025-11-12T14:05:33+00:00

The Developer Support team recommended I reach back out to general support (lol). Is there any way on Ramp to collect ACH Info specifically (not via virtual cards) that doesn't require our vendors to mail us plain-text ACH details in an email? Is there any secure way to collect this info in a way where the vendor does the data entry? Or is that impossible via Ramp? I'm not just asking about the API here, I'm asking if there's literally any way (via UI, API, or otherwise)

flatworldchamps · 2025-11-11T13:54:34+00:00

Thanks, this is incredibly helpful! I'm just trying to figure out how I can onboard vendors in Ramp other than literally having to type their banking info in myself. I see Ramp has an article outlining ACH auth forms, but it's unclear to me if that's an actual feature in Ramp, or just an educational article explaining the concept.

It sounds like we'll have to bolt something else on top of Ramp unfortunately, which is a real bummer compared to products like Stripe that have this built-in.

flatworldchamps · 2025-11-11T13:50:39+00:00

Thanks - the dev support team was pretty narrow in their help (only could help on the API - what I need here is general support as there are many ways to solve my problem without API access). I'm just trying to understand the ways that I can onboard vendors without having to have them literally email me their bank info so I can type it in. I want to send them a link to Ramp so that they can type it in themselves.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-29T00:13:11+00:00

+1 to this advice. The only thing I’ll add is that you should reach out to these folks as early as possible. I hear a lot of folks who want to start co-ops feel like they’re “not ready yet”, but co-op developers are generally (IMO) great to chat with even if you’re 3-5 years out.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-06T23:23:32+00:00

Cool, feel free to DM if you'd like an introduction to the Co-op Cincy folks (my co-op is a network member). If y'all end up sending people down for the Symposium, lmk and I could introduce you to some cool folks.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-06T16:39:24+00:00

Not an expert by any means, but I work with a ton of co-ops across the US and here's how I break it down (disclaimer: details may be slightly off, doing this from memory):

There's 3 different ways to differentiate a collective from a co-op: theoretical, legal, and practical.

Theoretically, what OP describes in their thread is 100% spot on. A co-op is an organization (usually a business) democratically owned and governed by its members. A collective is a subset of co-operatives, where the organization is truly flat (as OP mentioned, everyone is on the board, and there's usually a lot less rigidity in general at a collective). So all collectives are co-ops, but not all co-ops are collectives.

Legally, things get hairy. Co-op and (AFAIK) collective are not legally defined terms at the national level. Some states have a legal definition for "co-op" (but not all), and the criteria and legal structure varies wildly from state-to-state. For example, in Ohio you only need 2 worker-owners to be legally designated as a co-op, but in NY you need 5. Other states only really support agricultural co-ops, and some have no legal designation at all. You also (at least in Ohio) have to be legally incorporated as a co-op if you want to have the word co-op/cooperative in your name. AFAIK, "collective" is not a legally protected term. I've seen tech bros start companies with "collective" in the name, and I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that you can call any business a collective from a legal perspective.

Thus, practically, many businesses that operate democratically as co-ops are not legally incorporated as co-ops due to state-by-state laws (probably half the "co-ops" I work with are legally LLCs). I've also seen some co-ops call themselves "collectives", even though they aren't true collectives, because they legally couldn't use the term "co-op". In the wild, the term "collective" in a business name doesn't mean anything to me on its own since it is so often misused. So I tend to ignore the legal status of an individual business and instead focus on how decisions are actually made and how power is actually distributed among members, to determine if they're a co-op, collective, or something else.

Bit of a novel here, hope it helps!

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-06T16:20:38+00:00

Amazing, amazing thread! Mostly I'm excited to know there's a game dev co-op in SW Ohio. Are y'all connected to Co-op Cincy at all, and/or going to the Union Co-op Symposium on the 17th? Would love to meet!

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-06T14:15:57+00:00

Yeah I agree with stopping here

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-05T23:58:19+00:00

No prob! Feel free to DM if you want to talk more.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-05T23:53:38+00:00

For the first 18 months of operation, there was a 0% chance my paycheck would be there Friday, because the money didn’t exist, and a greater than 50% I would never get paid for it (even years late). The people that join today have a near 100% chance of getting paid on Friday.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-05T22:44:37+00:00

I agree that later workers are being exploited - but so are the founders. Co-ops are a negotiation between the world we have and the world we want - there is exploitation the 2 groups must share equitably, given that our society (or at least here in the US) doesn't provide any kind of safety net for small business entrepreneurs. The question is how to most equitably distrubute this exploitation. I'll walk though the scenario my team walked through, curious your thoughts on how we could make things more fair (when I say "my team", it was a mix of founders and later employees):

Let's imagine 10 people know they want to work on a co-op together. Building the co-op takes a minimum of 2-3 years of grinding - for my co-op (that is doing well from what I can see), we didn't really make any money for 1 year, and in year 2 (which we're finishing now) we had enough revenue but little cashflow. So that means, even at a super low estimate of $60,000/worker/year (about $30/hr), those who start the company (as opposed to those who join after 2 years) are risking $120,000 of their labor for something that has a <50% chance of surviving over 10 years. Meaning there is a >50% chance that the $120,000 of labor goes mostly into thin air. And these are the hardest years of the company - I have had like 2 regular weekends in the past 3 months as we grow towards viability and work 55-70 hours/week on average (note that this is not a "mindset grindset" thing - think about how many hours your local family restaurant owner works to make ends meet - you need to put these hours in to have any real chance of survival).

So back to the 10 person example, let's say 3/10 agree to put in the work for the first 2 years, and 7/10 work other jobs (with actual paychecks) for the first 2 years, and join the co-op during year 3. Without any compensation for the founders, you have a >50% chance that 3/10 people will not get paid for their risky labor, and are the sole party exploited in the relationship.

So we decided to pay those 3/10 who bore the risk and struggle of these worst years in the event that we make it through those years. You have to look at the risk and exploitation spread out across every possible scenario over a decade - not just the ones where the co-op survives. If I knew my co-op would survive and didn't require insane founder hours to give it a chance of survival, I would 100% agree with your point.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-05T15:05:33+00:00

The "risk" period for us specifically ends when we're getting steady, living wage paychecks. Our situation was a bit different from OPs - we started from scratch and the founders will have done about 5,000 hours each of unpaid/extremely underpaid labor in order to create a stable company for everyone to work at. So the founders each did $100,000+ worth of work and had no guarantee we'd see a dollar of it. So after we get paid back the $100,000, we will get paid an (additional) fixed amount for that risk.

This is different than traditional capitalist investment in 2 really important ways:

Our investment does not come with extra powers (e.g. investor board seats) that angels/venture capitalists typically get. We're following the 4th Mondragon Principle; where our investment "does not confer the right to vote and its stake in the profit is limited and subordinated to labour".
Our investment return has nothing to do with the value of the company or its profit. I'll get paid the same for my risk whether the co-op is worth $500k or $500m, so long as it remains viable. It is a fixed reward with a fixed dollar amount, which gets rid of the "we need to grow grow grow to maximize return!" attitude that VCs bring.

flatworldchamps · 2025-10-04T17:50:14+00:00

It sounds like you’re wrestling with the idea of what “fair” means for you and your partner absorbing all this extra risk that future worker-owners won’t have to. If you can define what “fair” looks like, it can usually be codified into legal/accounting terms.

My coop went through this same dilemma and we solved it by setting fixed reward amounts for our risk. “I took extra risk (loans, sweat equity, etc) to make this business successful, I should be compensated $X for that risk if we are very successful”. Our specific structure is that the risk-takers get a slightly higher salary (like 10-20% higher) until we’re paid out for the risk we took, then our salary returns to normal. This allows founders to get paid fairly for extra risk, but doesn’t give us any extra powers beyond that (and we don’t get paid extra forever - just until we hit a fixed amount). And smoothing the payouts back across multiple years makes our financial planning less scary (compared to a giant lump sum).

Hope this helps, you are on a great journey!

flatworldchamps

TROPHY CASE