Braintrust is a new entrant in the online talent marketplace space, but with a twist.
Instead of being owned by investors and founders, Braintrust is a non-profit and the founders say it will be user-controlled by their talent.
In other words, Braintrust is a coop, which is a business owned and controlled by the members that they serve.
Braintrust focuses on high-end IT projects and works with an impressive list of large corporations. According to the company, their clients include Deloitte, Nestle, Netflix, Nike, Four Seasons, and Task Rabbit, NASA, Porsche, PWC, and Pacific Life.
They also (naturally) have a blockchain and cyber token angle.
The talent will be issued tokens in exchange for working on the site or bringing new talent or clients to the site. These tokens equate to voting rights on Braintrust's corporate actions and decisions. This is how power will be distributed to the workers.
Braintrust argues that by being a coop workers will earn more and have better control over their work.
Establishing a coop online talent marketplace is not a new idea. In 2014- 2015 the concept of "platform cooperatisim" was widely discussed in sharing economy circles.
Shareable's 2016 story How Platform Coops Can Beat Death Stars Like Uber to Create a Real Sharing Economy nicely covered the topic.
It pointed out at that time a number of online talent marketplace coops existed. These included New Zealand's Ensprial, a cooperatively owned and operated freelancer network, and Loconomics, a now-defunct (at least in the U.S.) coop version of Task Rabbit.
And, like Braintrust, the article argued that coops would provide workers with more income and control. But 4 years later, coops haven't made a dent in the online talent marketplace industry.
But many great ideas and business concepts fail a couple of times before succeeding. Maybe the same thing will be true with coop online labor platforms.
We hope so. Alternatives are always good, especially ones that are worker-friendly.
For those who want to learn more, Harvard Business School's Future of Work project has an excellent podcast interview with the founders of Braintrust.
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