Franchise
Franchise as a business model is consistent with many of OSE's goals, and we are considering this model for widespread replication of OSE work towards global transformation. A franchise is a business model for spreading simple products, such as burgers, far and wide. A complex product like a 3D printer, a microfactory, or OSE Campus seems less likely a candidate. Thus, some innovation needs to happen to transform the franchise business model to its OSE counterpart - the Distributive Enterprise. OSE is an education organization, and there is at least one good precedent for an education franchise. For example, Challenge Island is a successful STEAM education franchise that shows that transformation through education has a glimmer of hope.
In the OSE model, the franchise would be like stepping into a different parallel universe where the rules of the game are collaboration. This means no Competitive Waste. The experience would be more inclusive - in that the Distributive Enterprise carries with it a fundamental philosophical shift towards true collaboration. It would be a lifestyle based on collaboration and lifelong learning, where collaborators strive to transcend a scarcity mindset. This is similar to mainstream entrepreneurship, but mainstream entrepreneurship is so far not succeeding in transforming institutions to freedom, justice, and end of war - to name a few outstanding societal issues. It appears that entrepreneurship is helping, but the rules of the game are still to kill your competition - whether human or wild. We favor a more collaborative approach that starts with Collaborative Literacy and a shift in culture from scarcity to a growth mindset. The training period for the OSE enterprise would be more extensive, and the enterprise would initially require existing skill sets in the collaborators.
OSE believes in creating entrepreneurs - and specifically - movement entrepreneurs - as a means to solving all pressing world issues. This is consistent with principles of the Tipping Point and Political Ponerology. Ie, macrosocial evil requires leadership by example, starting with oneself. Few people have the courage to engage this, but we think that we can teach more people to live with this courage - by teaching people to gain strength. It is our belief that many people want to make a better world - and some even want to put a dent in the universe - but only a few people have an entrepreneurial mindset that allows successful negotiation of failure. According to Growth Mindset, only 2% of the population are entrepreneurs - defined as those people who negotiate failure successfully.
However, most entrepreneurs are not motivated towards open source economic development in today's world - so the level of distributive economic development today remains limited, and essentially non-existent in hardware. See Market Share of Open Source Hardware. While open source software has dominated the field of software, which is 20% of the economy, the effect on wealth distribution from access to open source software is not clear. See Gini Coefficient. Arguably, the amount of small enterprise afforded by open source software has been offset by the amount of wealth concentration created by directly or indirectly via open source software (Amazon, FB, Google, Apple).
Independence is a key motivation in OSE's work. OSE believes in creating entrepreneurs - not employees. This is consistent with self-determination: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Health, pursing one's calling, and love are true motivations - embodied in the 3 elements of self-determination: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. See Self-Determination Theory.
To grow movement entreprenuers, to pursue self-determination - are key to OSE. If we examine various business models - the franchise models has the capacity to deliver these two. If we talk about other business models - corporate employers, even small family owned businesses - these do not meet our filter of Collaborative Design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance. If OSE becomes a huge employer, we do a disservice to human transformation towards responsibility. It is difficult to remain integral, or to be responsible, within the current framework of corporate, power-centralizing charters. This is why we believe the next economy is the open source economy - distributed enterprises that form the next trillion dollar economies via Distributed Market Substitution. We may think that Amazon or Walmart are big - but the next generation of enterprise will be bigger, collectively. Ie, we predict that a lot of distributed players will displace the Walmarts and Amazons in the future. The main shift will be from centralized to distributed operation. We believe that the franchise business model is a way to get there.
The way to get there will not be a standard franchise - it will be the open source version of the franchise - the Distributive Enterprise. In today's language, the word franchise is understood - but nobody knows the Distributive Enterprise. So we will refer to the open source franchise and Distributive Enterprise interchangeably.
The current model to build upon is the franchise. It is a method to spread the state of art to independent entrepreneurs. In the OSE version, we will teach entrepreneurship, and publish all the blueprints openly. Where is the revenue then? In an education model. We release all information for free, but we charge for our time teaching. This makes sense: one with plenty of time can study our materials online - but if they want the fast track of immersion training or certification - we can provide that service.
The goal of the OSE franchise includes STEAM Camps, Summers of Extreme Design and Build, and the building of OSE Campuses.
Distributive Enterprise - Open Source Franchise
For OSE's purposes, the franchise will offer:
- Working with the most ambitious movement entrepreneurs - our call-out is for people who want the most exciting life of solving pressing world issues at a fundamental level - in an institution designed explicitly for this purpose. You will be surrounded by collaborative movement entrepreneurs who want to put a dent in the universe - or at least fix all pressing world issues by transforming institutions and industries to a regenerative path.
- Now to explain what we mean by 'most ambitious movement entrepreneurs': A-Player entrepreneurs typically have their own gig already. It can probably be said that these A-Players do not rate as well in terms of open collaborattion (distributive enterprise) - so we are really looking for A-Players of collaboration, not execution. The collaboratieve A-Players must be open to learning in order to bring their execution up to A-Player level.
- Continuing learning and advancement opportunity up to OSE Campus startup. The advancement track is thus designed for people with a deeply-engrained Growth Mindset
- Collaboration opportunities - our goal is to assure the success of our collaborators - so that they can get involved in further R&D as part of their lifestyle. The idea is that we make survival trivial by sharing best practice - so that we can shift to solving pressing world issues
- Design for A players - the calling is the most ambitious - to solve all pressing world issues by funding ourselves through distributive enterprise. The idea is that the enterprise activity is both regneerative, and it funds further regenerative development
- The OSE Campus is intended to grow communities - as points of light setting an example for their surrounding communities. All OSE Campuses coordinate effort toward making the open source economy - an economy based on collaboration as opposed to competitive waste - the natural evolution of humanity.
