Three ways we solve our problems

There are two main ways we solve our problems.

1. Individual solutions: do the work on our own

2. Top down solutions from businesses, which can offer efficiency that the individual alone does not have access to. They must offer some benefit to the user over creating yourself (cheaper, better quality, convenience etc)

I want to introduce you to a third and better way for the customer/member

3) a bottom up solution created with the users efficiently and effectively

To show you these 3 in action I will use the example of juice

My body does really well when it has a fresh juice every day. There are 2 ways I currently do this

1. I buy, prepare and juice myself. This costs about $5 per juice in produce and about 3 hours to make 5 days worth of juice (washing, prepping, juicing and clean up). By the end of 5 days the juice is not super fresh so I am not getting as much benefit as day 1. Assuming my time is worth $10 an hour my batch of 5 juices costs me $55 or $11 per juice. That is expensive, no wonder I have stopped juicing

2. A company solves my problem and sells me their product. They can bulk buy produce and use expensive equipment to get the cost per juice down. They also have a lot of competition in the market which creates inefficiency because each company has to hire staff,market, maintain a company and solve each of the problems the business faces by themselves many times in opposition to customers (customers want cheap product with highest quality, company wants least cost to make sold at highest profit). With all the competition it is not possible to sell these juices for less than $10 a bottle. My 5 juices would cost about $50 and I could go to a store and buy a fresh one every day or stock up on all 5 since they have a longer shelf life.

3. The third way, a bottom up solution, allows the best of both worlds. How many people do we need to create juice for/with to bring the cost of juice down to $5 per bottle? You recruit that number first and you problem solve together what each single company had to solve themselves in anticipation of their users needs. What produce do we use (organic local)? What container do we use (mason jars, plastic recyclable etc)? How do we get the goods to the user (pick up, delivery, local hubs in neighbourhoods etc)? And you can create ways that could never be done in either of the other 2 solutions. We share in the labour and cost and create for/with the user so that the needs of the user are discussed and resolved directly (instead of guessing and marketing)

This showcases the 3 of the things that make co creating solutions a more efficient and beneficial way than what is currently being done in capitalism.

1. Data: We are asking the participants to give us their individual data to create a better solution for them (how much juice do they buy, how much is wasted, what do they like/dislike, what are the price and convenience cutoffs where they would want to be involved). In this example this would be done with a questionnaire but in the future could be more automated as we will already have usable data to draw from. Both personal and group data can be used to invite potentially interested members. (The system would say there are 10.000 people in vancouver who are juicing daily would you like to work together or a person could ask how many people juice daily and get the answer from our memberbases data that has already been made available)

2. Bottom up solutions: We are not guessing about the market and taking all the risk.. We are asking people what exactly they need and co creating it together to meet the majorities needs.

3. Thresholds: you are not creating until you have the minimum threshold in place. You are not designing a company for 5000 potential juice enthusiasts you are asking 5000 to sign up and commit to what they want (daily organic juice at $5 a bottle delivered in a way that works for them). Creating a system that works for most of the members most of the time done in a transparent and democratic way. Niche needs are addressed in later versions (need to cater to specific allergy needs for example)

With these tools; our data, creating solutions together from the bottom up and making sure critical thresholds are met gives us a huge advantage over the competitive options that are currently available in the market. Whether in a saturated market (like the Juice example) or near monopolies (Walmart, Amazon) we can create amazing solutions that are efficient, ethical and have the users interests at the center.

In this way cooperation kicks competitions ass.