The next chapter

After 10+ years as a startup founder, CEO, COO, CMO, and CTO I realized that even the best-executed ideas with the best teams and the best intentions often fail to create meaningful impact in the world.

Maybe it was because of the pressure to grow quickly, maybe the desire to create enough traction for the next round, maybe in the midst of all the doing — we forget why we decided to do this in the first place?

Maybe it starts even earlier?

At the very beginning, there is a deceptively simple choice presented to founding teams — how to organize and structure the venture. Often there isn’t even a thought, if we hope to raise capital and we are aiming for a $1b valuation — we register as a Delaware C-Corp and move on. Perhaps we discuss the merit of becoming a Benefit Corporation (which I did in my last venture), or perhaps this idea is best structured as a non-profit or a cooperative. Ultimately the pull for founding teams with big ambitious goals that require investment is towards the c-Corp.

So are pigeonholed into Profit/Non-Profit, Corporation/LLC, Coop, or Benefit Corporation. Each of these choices has an impact on the direction of the venture, its reach, whether it is funded, whether it succeeds or fails.

What if there was another way?

There must be a way reward risk with upside returns for capital investors while creating ownership, voice and incentives for value given for everyone who participates in the success of the venture. What if we could build internal incentives and align economics to add new value to our customers, to creates more network effects and improve the platforms we build?

That is the concept behind my new project — EVERYONE Inc. Our team is laying the groundwork for a flexible governance and ownership model that we call the E-CORP.

E-CORPs create more value by sharing. At the founding of an E-CORP, we conduct a stakeholder mapping exercise and examine the network effects that drive advantage for the business either in the customer acquisition costs, in engagement, product quality, churn, and ultimately in venture valuation.

To explore this opportunity to leverage stakeholder capitalism to create competitive advantage we have raised a small fund dedicated to a Venture Studio tasked with building new ventures leveraging this thesis.

We are currently looking for EIRs to help co-create this next chapter in human cooperation. If you are interested in what we are doing and want to work with us, or know a perfect candidate that would please get in touch!

We hope the result is hyper-engaged communities of value exchange that create meaningful utility and wealth for EVERYONE. Stay Tuned.