This interview is research for my book We Should Own The Economy, which I am writing in public. Readers can invest in the project and earn a share of the revenue when it sells. We’ve reached our funding goal and are now getting ready to open a Community Round. Join here 👇🏻
This morning I met with
who founded a company in college, dropped out to grow it, then sold 30% of it to employees in 2019, with the plan to expand to sell even more of his company to employees over time. Interestingly, his dad did the exact same thing with his business 20 years prior!Tim’s employees now own shares in the company, accrue more of them each year, and see their shares go up in value as the company does. They are building wealth the same way that executives do, and are incentivized to see their company succeed financially, just as executives do. Tim’s employees even earn a share of the profits each year, further increasing their wealth potential.
On our call, Tim detailed how he established an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), what companies are a best fit for this process and how they can do it, and walked me through some of the nuances like how employee-owned companies can be bought, sold, get financing, buy other businesses, and go public. He answered a lot of questions from the audience, including ones submitted in advance by
and .I especially loved the part about how he would like to see employee ownership evolve over the coming years, including by creating a Y Combinator for employee-owned companies, something I’m actively researching as I write my book We Should Own The Economy, in public. Expect to see that and other related essays in May!
Note: It might help to read two articles I’ve written about employee ownership before you watch our discussion. This will give you some helpful background on the acronyms—ESOPs, EOTs, and Cooperatives, among others—and how they all work before we dive into Tim’s specific use case.
Bonus! Tim was featured in his local paper this week! Here’s the article if you’d like to read more. As you can see, Tim’s personal mission is to help companies sell to at least 10,000 employee owners throughout his lifetime and he is available to speak with company founders interested in learning more. You can DM him on Substack or LinkedIn for more information.
I’m grateful to have Tim as the lead investor for my book, he’s a wealth of knowledge on employee ownership and I’m excited to share more of what I’m learning shortly.
As always, thanks for watching and for participating in my research. We’re here to fix capitalism, and I appreciate you joining the charge.
Disclosure: I am 'testing the waters' to gauge investor interest in an offering under Regulation Crowdfunding. No money or other consideration is being solicited. If sent, it will not be accepted. No offer to buy securities will be accepted. No part of the purchase price will be received until a Form C is filed and only through Wefunder’s platform. Any indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind.
