How too Inconsistent was founded

A bit about us

We're Maciej and Andreea, a couple of software builders who decided to start a cooperative together. We've been working in tech for over a decade, in various roles and industries, and have been talking about starting our own thing for a while.

I'm a former engineering team lead and CTO, and Andreea is a product manager with a background in marketing and advertising. We've done Silicon Valley startups and have long been passionate about organization design and self-management, wondering how we could apply these principles to our work.

You can read more about us in our about page.

What inspired us to start too Inconsistent as a cooperative

too Inconsistent was born during the pandemic, circa 2020, at least conceptually, but it laid dormant for a few years.

At the time, we saw businesses close left and right and essential workers squeezed and burnt out, and realized society needs more resilience for things not to break down. Cooperatives are generally resilient and have survival rates that match or exceed those of conventional businesses. So why aren’t there more of them?

In conversations with friends and coworkers, we realized that most people don't think about them at all. And if they do, cooperatives are not well understood. Almost everyone can think of some "old-fashioned" milk or producer cooperative, but never stopped to wonder why they're not more common in tech.

We believe that cooperatives can be a viable alternative to traditional businesses. This is especially true in software, where startups are not usually that capital intensive, the work can create a lot of value, but the benefits are not always shared equitably. Not only that, but we are not beholden to investors or shareholders, and we can focus on building products that serve our users, rather than add features that no one needs and hike prices to meet growth targets.

That’s how and when we decided to start too Inconsistent as a cooperative. We want to try a business model that is resilient, sustainable, and equitable, and believe that a cooperative structure is the best way to achieve that.

Alongside that, we also want to play an active role in Europe’s growth as a continent, as we see potential where others don't. Oh, and there was a compelling personal event: the birth of our son, which prompted us to rethink how we want to spend our time.

How we want to work

Everything we missed in our previous jobs, we want to do now.

1. Focus on quality and craftsmanship. We want to be proud of the work we put out and take the time to do things right. We don't want people to suffer our buggy software, as much as possible.
2. Work on projects that we believe in. We want to work with people who share our values and are passionate about what they do. (Want to join us? Let's talk more!)
3. Commit to small and open source projects. Or, at least not line the pockets of giant companies that pay lip service to values. We'd prefer to contribute to the community and support those who improve the commons.

After so many years of doing things for others, we want to do more of the things we are passionate about, adding a dash of creativity and weirdness into what we do and sharing our knowledge as we go.

We're aware of the inevitable challenges ahead, but we're excited to tackle them head-on and see where the future leads. We won’t know until we’ve tried.

As we start building out our studio, we plan to focus on building a suite of apps of our own. In the meantime, we also want to write more to put a philosophical stake in the ground and maybe even invite collaborators to our project. We're excited to see where this journey takes us and hope you'll join us along the way.

Stay tuned!