19 Feb, London: Platform co-ops: solving the capital conundrum

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Nice one @polly enjoy the show!

Agreed, innovative value-adding offer and evidenced roadmap are critical. However, alas, at least from my experience, there has been too many platform co-ops with too little software (not even a ‘fancy website’ as with generic vapourware startups). It could be worth mentioning that working with co-ops in a co-design fashion would open ways of developing more context-sensitive and adaptable (gradually adding modules based on feedback) software rather than a ‘powerful platform’ in build-and-they-will-come style?

PS. Perhaps worth mentioning the links CoTech established with other networks (mainly FACTTIC and Happy Dev) and that we are exploring a shared/federated platform (Hubl trial report)?

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Interesting to revisit this thread. From where I’m standing the early promise of the platform co-op concept has yet to achieve anything close to fruition. In part because the challenge of raising the capital required remains largely un-addressed other than an interesting use of community shares to emulate the investment rounds used by VC funded startups, and in part because it looks like the thinking is perhaps more about ‘how can we copy the conventional developmental model’ rather than ‘how can we leverage our cooperative values and principles to create profitable platform businesses’ that generate serious revenue flows for the cooperative economy’.

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