>"During this 15-year journey they were acquired, but subsequently
bought the company back a few years later and are now wholly owned by
the staff."
Non-small tech companies owned by staff are pretty rare. Have you ever
written anything about the experience? Does it work well? Is it
structured like a co-op or similar?
(sorry for the barrage of questions, but I've always wondered about
this)
Several companies on this list are household names; Avis was run as a typical corporation, W. L. Gore has no managers, and Springfield ReManufacturing is discussed in Jack Stack's book _The Great Game of Business_
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_compani...
There's actually not that much to write about. It's a regular company with share holders, the share holders just happen to be some of the staff.
Fortunately the owners all get on very well, have similar beliefs in which technical, financial and marketing directions we want to head in, and love what we do. The result is that everything just runs pretty smoothly, so far at least :)
I think I mentioned in the interview though, the difference in vibe between being owned by Opera and being owned by the staff isn't as big as you'd think. Much more important is just actually loving what you do, the things you create, and the people you work with. All of those are absolutely great, both as they were under Opera and now back under staff ownership IMHO. I wonder if other FastMail staff will have their own thoughts :)
If I ever start another company, I am definitely going to do this. The burden of supporting only paying customers is so much lower, and you can really focus on what's important to them.
You only really have the choice of doing this if you are running a bootstrapped lifestyle company. You are not going to be a VC "outlier" if you do things like charging people for your product.
The fact that we even have a discussion about this is amusing. Outside the tech bubble what business even questions if they should be charging customers or not [1].
1. I am not saying that tech businesses are wrong to not charge (it is the most rational thing to do in many cases), but just pointing out how unusual tech is.
This really depends on who is considered to be a customer.
Imagine a street musician who wants every listener to pay money instead of few voluntary contributors. (Would fail - too little reach)
Or a shopping mall / water front/ etc. with an entry fee as an alternative to charging their retailers (without significant wow effect driving people in..)
I enjoyed hearing about the history of FastMail, but there isn't really much here about "Why You Should Charge from Day One". How do we know FastMail couldn't have had more success with ads?
[+] [-] jcr|11 years ago|reply
>"During this 15-year journey they were acquired, but subsequently bought the company back a few years later and are now wholly owned by the staff."
Non-small tech companies owned by staff are pretty rare. Have you ever written anything about the experience? Does it work well? Is it structured like a co-op or similar?
(sorry for the barrage of questions, but I've always wondered about this)
[+] [-] kourt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robmueller|11 years ago|reply
Fortunately the owners all get on very well, have similar beliefs in which technical, financial and marketing directions we want to head in, and love what we do. The result is that everything just runs pretty smoothly, so far at least :)
I think I mentioned in the interview though, the difference in vibe between being owned by Opera and being owned by the staff isn't as big as you'd think. Much more important is just actually loving what you do, the things you create, and the people you work with. All of those are absolutely great, both as they were under Opera and now back under staff ownership IMHO. I wonder if other FastMail staff will have their own thoughts :)
[+] [-] 100k|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|11 years ago|reply
1. I am not saying that tech businesses are wrong to not charge (it is the most rational thing to do in many cases), but just pointing out how unusual tech is.
[+] [-] fwn|11 years ago|reply
Imagine a street musician who wants every listener to pay money instead of few voluntary contributors. (Would fail - too little reach)
Or a shopping mall / water front/ etc. with an entry fee as an alternative to charging their retailers (without significant wow effect driving people in..)
[+] [-] jmckib|11 years ago|reply