How can collaborative organisations “outrun” and perform better than the competitive society we live in? How can collaborative and cooperative startups, organisations or political ideas spread faster than the Ubers, Walmarts or Trumps of the world? This is something that I’ve been looking up to as a collaborative hippy wanting to make change happen. And for this I’ve always been …

Sounds pretty impossible, right? Creating a traditional business is a great struggle. Finding clients, polishing your product, making payroll, finding the right employees, automating processes… Since there are so many moving parts, you’re always wondering, “Where do I focus now? Am I doing the right things? What should I be doing next?” And if you are trying to build a …

There is an ancient Chinese myth that helps illuminate what happens with increasing inequality where fewer rich people concentrate more and more wealth, while other people are being deprived of resources: There was a monster, it is said, called the Taotie, which was possessed of an insatiable appetite. It consumed every creature around it, even the earth itself, yet it …

We are all obsessed with all kinds of growth. When we are children, we want to grow and become adults. When we are adults we want our wealth to grow to quit that job we don’t like, to have the security that we’ll have enough to provide for shelter and food. And when we have enough wealth, we want to …

How can you create a best-selling product or service if you can’t put as many invasive ads in front of their eye-balls, spend as much money as you want in PR stunts and must be sustainably successful? Easy. Make your users successful by growing their skill set, by helping them broadcast their message or by helping them make money. Most …

An open source project is not a business. Or at least not on its own. If there’s one thing I had to learn the hard way when I started my first open source business, it was this lesson. Since letting go that business a few months ago, I’ve seen the same story played out time and again in the open …

Can you save more people than Batman? Entrepreneurs want to save the world. Specially social entrepreneurs. There is plenty of inspiration to be taken from great entrepreneurs who have had an amazing impact on people’s lives. Mohamed Yunus was one of the first to start this movement. He lifted millions of people from poverty with his micro-credits in Bangladesh. Another famous …

Your stuff is being copied. Nobody is calling you to ask where they can pay for what you made. They just download it, consume it and call it a day. Gratitude seems scarce. You don’t want to go through this pain, especially after all the effort and money that you’ve invested. So you’ve decided to use a Non-Commercial Creative Commons …

Open hardware and social entrepreneurs are pretty good at having ideas and creating new stuff. But they have a harder time selling their creations and ultimately moving from part-time to full-time. When we put our heart into a project we tend to get in love with our idea and we believe everybody else will also immediately fall in love with …

Tl;dr: If you want to make sure you can turn your open source idea into a business and that it’s not stolen or commercialized by others, first validate people are interested in using and paying for it. Then find a few contributors who are interested in developing it with you and open a space for the communities’ contributions. Once you …