Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.
Do you have any examples of this actually working?
Read: Reinventing the Organization
Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
31–40 of 102 posts
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#32I currently do both. I have a small SaaS that I work on one day a week. The last 4 days I work a job. The SaaS pays by far the highest hourly and feeds my hunger to create. The job gives me fulfilment socially and makes me feel part of something. It feels like I should double down on one. But I really enjoy both, so why?
This is what I’m feeling as well. The job handles some needs, and the pure drive to create is best handled in self owned work, but it does depend entirely on the actual circumstances in both cases.
You ideally want a good rewarding job with an owned project you’re passionate about.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#33My wife got laid off a few years back and started her freelance marketing business out of that. She loves it. She's really anti-meeting and bullshit and this allows her to just do her job (copywriting) 90% of the day. Maybe because her parents were small business owners, she is fine dealing with the small business busywork (quarterly taxes, business generation).
Most of her business started with former coworkers who know she's good hiring her, and then that work expanding, and now her website has good SEO and she gets more offers than she can accept.
Some of her other friends attempted freelancing but weren't able to get too much business or didn't like it for whatever reason. YMMV I guess.
I always tell her she should start an agency (hire people beneath her) to make more money, but she hates agencies and is happy with how things are. Only downside is it's a little harder to make heaps of money this way, since she can only raise her rates so high.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#34Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.
Do you have any examples of this actually working?
Any organization where people have the title "partner" is usually structured this way. E.g. I think big accounting firms like EY use this model.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#35At times I hate my full time job. But when I tried to be a freelancer, I went broke. I will not risk this again.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#36Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.
There's also the partnership model of accountants and lawyers - as a normal part of the career ladder, everyone at or above a certain level of seniority collectively owns the firm.
I prefer equality for all. Most partnerships exclude certain positions from becoming a partner, and you typically have to buy out a partner to become one (thus ensuring only the "right people" become partners).
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#37Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.
Do you have any examples of this actually working?
https://www.coops.tech/ has many.
There was an earlier thread with others - I'll try and find it later, maybe.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any examples of this actually working?
Any organization where people have the title "partner" is usually structured this way. E.g. I think big accounting firms like EY use this model.
No, I'm not referring to a partnership. See my comment in the other thread. Equality/equity for all.
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#39I wish I could get a job that pays well, offers camaraderie, fulfillment, and opportunities to grow. I have tried many times to fit in. In a 35 year career the longest I ever held a job was 4 years. I finally figured out that I was not employable. Happy to be working for myself.
What kind of work are you doing now?
Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?
#40It's not surprising that at this point the poll is at 21 vs 22. Competition will ensure that incentives remain more or less balanced between the two options (the less freelancers there are, the more they can charge, and the less full timers there are, the more they will be paid). Unless we lived in a world where one of them was so much easier to attract talent to that the other just died off. For specific people in s…
It isn't balanced anymore.
Users of a site run by a startup accelerator might be prone to lean towards a certain one of these answers.