Common Wealth have done a bit of work on “platform cooperatives”, you can start looking there. My start-up is structured as an employee owned cooperative. We started with a grant which got us to product market fit on a part time basis - and are now “default alive” in our current structure. I should add that we applied to and were rejected by Y Combinator after interview (narrowly a/c the rejection email). At that point I started looking around for other options. After the YC rejection I realised we were not a potential unicorn, although will in all likelihood be profitable. That realisation was incredibly helpful as it spurred me to look into ways that would not depend on fashioning ourselves as a VC casino chip. We can also build the enterprise we want to run, rather than something that appeals to a narrow (but important) class of investors.

Edit: What do you define as “successful”? We are not successful on VC metrics. But we’re happy with what we’ve built and it will make us a bit of money.

In this case, "successful" means making enough money to provide the members with comfortable living, or better than that.

I would love to chat about your company structure if you have time. I have an interest in forming a cooperative myself. My email is in the profile.

Hi - I don’t see an email address in your profile.

Added, sorry and thanks :)

I think you should do a 101 on this subject. Lot of HNers will be interested. A zoom call maybe?

What is your definition of a startup? You can find a well maintained list of tech cooperatives from all over the world at https://github.com/hng/tech-coops.

Related submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456918 (not sure whether any of them can be counted as startup)

One of the responses[0] is from someone working at kantree[1]. They are talking about raising funds and building a product, which I assume would somewhat qualify.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31459041 [1] https://kantree.io

In France, there is Les Tilleuls, https://les-tilleuls.coop/en (creator of API platform, PHP/Symfony/JavaScript/GO contributors)

It seems like the prime difficulty in getting off the ground with a fully employee-owned entity is the startup losses (especially in cash flow terms) inherent in almost every business have to be borne by the employees.

That’s easier when the losses are small and the absence of salary is easier to take if you do it part-time (the “5 to 9er” lifestyle).

There are cooperative models that allow for external investments.

Can you further define? Sounds like you're looking for an incubator.

I am pretty sure that OP is looking for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative - so a tech startup that is owned by its employees, a worker cooperative.

That's correct, except (as noted in the Wikipedia article) there are many forms of cooperatives, some of which include customers as owners, and some even allow for external investment.