Hi Chris! Yes, I think there is always going to be a tension between who owns (and has ultimate decision making power) in a business and how the business is run/who it serves — and that a hierarchy is absolutely the best way to describe this. In hindsight, I didn’t use “non-hierarchical” as an expectation for our business for this reason.

I don’t have a solution for the hierarchy of ownership and the power that comes with it yet. Although, your question about cooperatives is a good one. It might well be avenue I explore in the future.

Coincidentally, I was just talking with Kate Strathmann today about how she approaches incorporating “democratic principles into a single owner business” and we talked about some ways that can happen in an organization… but I think, again, there aren’t any clear solutions when you start adding in customers and other stakeholders.

Right now, I’m trying to address the way value is created in our community & company through the less of hierarchy/non-hierarchy. The way we have things set up, there is only so much value that the company can create on its own. If we want to create a truly valuable product, we need to create a space, culture, and community where people who have experience want to share that experience — and where those same people benefit from others’ experiences.

In the past, value creation has been uber-hierarchical. If I didn’t make it, it didn’t exist.

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I don’t have a lot of thoughts on cooperatives because I haven’t had the chance to explore them thoroughly yet. My husband has been part of two in the past and we talk about it fairly often… but I mostly have his experiences to go off of.