[Refresh Austin: 3774] RoR Coop/Group of Freelancers

Mark Stephan Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:54:01 -0700

Hello All!

Over the past couple of months I've been passing around the idea of creating a RoR Cooperative/Development Community/Knit Group of Freelancers with a Purpose/whatever you want to call it. (Ultimately it might expand to include designers etc.. but we're not to that stage yet.)

The concept is that there are a lot of freelancers (or individuals with a lot of free time) out there trying to make it on their own. They love the benefits of independence, but really don't like the negatives of independence.

Especially with the current economy as it is, perhaps banding together might not be such a bad idea, and while developing this in a bad economy, I believe in a good economy such a model will flourish and can grow. I already have parties interested in Dallas, Houston, and beyond.

Calcedon has been playing with idea for several months now, and really wants to move forward with it.

Read our blog post about it here: http://blog.calcedon.com/2009/02/13/community-and-corporate-entities

Our goal in doing this is to play the role as an umbrella corp that handles the sales, legal, branding, marketing, and other aspects that many developers don't like, and allow developers to work on projects that they find interesting, able to turn projects down they aren't interested in, send projects to the coop and get commissions for that, build teams in the coop to complete projects they can't do or don't have time to do themselves, build community, mentor others, and be mentored.

I think this is an awesome opportunity for those who are trying to build their own products, but want to work within a community to get extra work/mentorship/and build community.

Our hope is to build an environment that developers find exciting and beneficial to them, while keeping some independence, not selling their soul to a company working on stuff you really aren't interested in, and sometimes signing contracts that keep you from working on your own products.

Right now I'm trying to pull together those who are seriously interested in such a concept.

I don't think this would be a fit for people who just want work, but no community. Community as defined by you not only taking, but also giving back to the community helping make it better for everyone involved, whether that takes the form of mentoring others, building tools that helps everyone, evangelizing the community to others, etc...

Whether this ends up as an official "cooperative" or just a well organized tight-knit group of freelancers, I'd love to hear from anyone intrigued by the idea.

I'll be starting some mailing lists to start initial discussion about this. So if you want to be on it, please let me know.

Also I am willing to meet with anyone interested as well. So email me if you'd like to catch a coffee/lunch.

Thanks,

Mark Stephan