how to start a bike collective

This is from my talk in Oaxaca Mexico about how to start a bike collective:

Hello,

My name is Momoko Saunders.  I live in portland OR and 5 years ago, a group of friends and I started the bike farm. We were just a bunch of idealist mid 20 year olds, realizing there was a need in our city for a bicycle collective. A bicycle collective is a place where you can learn to fix your bike.  

The idea was not new, San Francisco and LA had the bike kitchens and bikerowave, Seattle had the bikery. These bike collectives where in every major cycling city, it only made sense that portland should have one too. So we gathered up a list of interested friends, and we stared to have meetings to talk about how we were going to make one of these in our city. The process was quick. We divvied up responsibilities, some people made a tool list, of all the tools we'd need to run the shop, and other contacted bands they knew and asked if they'd put on benefit shows so we could fund raise. Another group of people set about writing letters to all the bike shops in town, asking for donations of tools or used parts. In a month, we had 3 parties, and raised about $1000. We had about 5 donated bikes, a bucket or two of used parts, and permission to use a friends garage for our shop. We had a work party, painted the walls fresh, and put up our tools. We had our first official meeting on September 7th and by December 1st, we were open and helping people fix their bikes.  

Our beginnings were slow, we helped maybe 20 people in the first month and made all of $97. But every month was better, and now we've been running for 5 years and thousands of people have fixed their bike in our shop.

I tell you this not because I think this is some recipe for creating a collective, but rather to inspire the idea in you that anyone can. I want you to understand that the hardest part about building a collective is showing up. But the reality is, if you show up, and you have tools, you can help people get on bikes. And it's not just helping them fix a flat, it's empowering them, it's saving them money, it's helping your city with it's pollution or crowded streets. It's doing your part to make the world a better place.  

Flyer! I will probably still change stuff on it

start ups are hard

http://blog.jazzychad.net/2011/05/02/startups-are-hard.html

this is true, but i've done it now three times

four maybe...

kinda

CORE (a real estate company i worked for) was already started, but i was there for the big push, from 5 employees to 30

same with black star, dave already had the idea and traction, he just needed the organization.

bike farm, i was pretty much there from the beginning

"Collected", that was my failed attempt, i think i'll lump that in with trying to make my house an art collective.

and here i am again, with secure cellar door.

the difference between my successes and failures is first and foremost, having a partner.

"collected" was the biggest failure, and i really felt like i was doing it on my own. i didn't feel like anybody cared one way or another if i succeeded. my dad basically thought i was wasting my time, and while kurt liked the idea of having friends in the house all the time, he didn't care enough to work on the idea with me, or help me renovate the house. I basically had to pay for work from "friends" and so i was financier and founder. I became physically exhausted, and mentally burnt out. after the first year, i dove into depression which was only lifted by my first bike tour. Life changing,

to say what got me through in one word, inspiration.

ok, there are more words, drive, an overflowing of life and goodness, yes!

i went straight into bike farm, the next start up, and i had lots of partners. That helped with the success, and the other thing was that is was a really good idea and totally needed in the portland bike community. i look at the bike temple and wonder why it's not succeeding, and i think it's mostly because, it's just down the street from us. it wasn't really needed. if they had done it in the south east, it might be a different story.

The other success was having a partner that was better than me in a certain way. Ariel is a social mastermind. As much as i like to believe that i am good at making friends and influencing people, she is better. she could just convince people to help her, and followed through with them to make sure it happened. she was also in the community. another thing that i've seen to lead to the success of a company/organization. Dave of black star bags is also very intrenched in the community. he's respected, and has a name. these where too things i lacked with Collected.

as for secure cellar door,

i sort of have a partner. sometimes i don't feel like ben is my partner, sometimes i feel like i'm trying to make the company work on my own. that's silly tho, i have two partners really,

hmm, having a stake in the company is also new, and important

i think that's what i lacked at black star. that's why i left,

i remember the day i realized i was stressing over the business as if it were my own, and then a friend said, "but momoko, it's not."

the same can be true for Secure Cellar Door. while there is a thought of 5% or 10%, it feels far off, and with strings attached. it's not my baby. ben's not my husband and this is not our baby.

but the idea of 5% helps, and certainly with the biggest success, bike farm, i feel that i have a stake in it. not ownership, which is kinda of amazing.

like, i have as much pride as a owner, but whenever i get to a point where i don't know what direction to go with the org, i just ask all the other owners. and honestly, when we fail at things, i don't feel total personal responsibility. this could be seen as a bad thing, and personal accountability is something we work towards, but at the same time, it's really nice to have a space where i can experiment and try things out and not feel like a failure if it doesn't go the way i thought it would.

lots of work environments could be like this, accepting of failure, but even writing it out seems like something you wouldn't want to encourage in your own business. it seems like unsound business advice, "to be ok with failure."

there's something to this i'm sure,

how can i apply this now to my current project.

bike seeds will not be as accomplished if i have to do it on my own. see, i'm already going down the same path as collected, because this is my idea, the other start ups where not.

Is there a need for my idea.

to spread the ideas of collectivism,

eh? yes, but i'm not the first to try,

so yeah, i need to work on that one...

am i in the community? yes, but, i'm loosing my stance. leaving for Australia has really hurt me here. but, i have another year to make it again.

am i ok with failure? yeah! that's the one i've really got. see i want to go on this ride even if i don't change the world. i mean, i sure hope i do, but, biking the pan america highways going to be awesome even if it's just for the ride...

so, i've got a few things going for me,

i shall meditate more on what makes for a good environment for a start up.

first

i'm getting ready for the biggest ride of my life,

i feel worried starting this blog now, i'm half way tired but unable to sleep.

i'm in a place of transition. the rides not for another year but i'm already closing doors, tying up loose ends, letting go of my day to day.

because i need hard line motivation, i put myself in a situation where i have to leave the US for 6 months. this is my test run. if i can set up my life in such a way that leaving for this long doesn't ruin everything i've worked for, well, then i might make it the two years i'm expecting to ride my bike. from anchorage alaska, to some where south in argentina,

i'm going to do that ride.

and i feel like it is "that ride", like the more i read online blogs, the more i see that i am by no means the first, or even the 100th to do this ride. and probably in the year that i'm getting ready to do this, the number of people who have already will double. but this doesn't make me feel less adventurous, i'm thrilled that bike touring is catching on. it does make me nervous that by the time i am ready to ride my bike, people won't be as eager to hear the story as they are now.

i worry not for my ego, (an easy thing to say) but rather cause i actually want to say something this time.

most of my travel has always been for selfish endeavors. self growth, self healing, self esteem, they've been intense, but always a man verses himself type of story. this time, i want to talk about the people. yeah, i want to learn too. it's kinda selfish, but i want to regurgitate all that knowledge as soon as i can, to every one i encounter. i want to be the poster child of the bike revolution! but not really, i more want to be the person wheat pasting that poster all over the world. maybe i'm searching for the poster child, or the designer that will bring about change.

ok ok, the plan:

i want to visit as many collectives as i can and volunteer there for a few days, learn how they operate. talk to them about what works for them, note any advice they have for starting a collective, and then discuss what i have learned in my experience. my experience is that i helped start a bike collective in portland, OR (where one can learn to fix their own bike bikefarm.org) and then kept it going for three years. i learned so much about organizing, and consensus decision making, and non-hierarchal governance. i learned about budget making, and business dealing, simple economics and tax law. but mostly i learned how to build community, enriching friendships that inspire.

i have this idea to some how connect all these bike collectives. and like the ride itself, i am not the first to try. Bike Bike! is doing a good job so far, yet their directory of bike collectives is five years old. i want to help them update that.

i also have this idea that there are many "bike farm's" out there ready to sprout, hence my bike tour name, bike seeds. i want to spread bike seeds all over the country, showing people just how easy it can be to start a collective. i want to help people find funding thro grants or thro micro financing, or even just thro asking people for donations of tools. i want there to be a bike farm, or bike kitchen, or bike church (all different names of collectives which operate in a very similar way to bike farm) in every city with a biking population. i want to stimulate the biking community is small towns. i even have fantasies about collecting data regarding the bike-ability of these small towns as i pass thro them. my god, i could go on for pages about what all i want to get done.

but i'll spread that out.

i find that once i start talking about this trip, i just can't shut up. but it can't be all talk. i've got a lot of research to do, i've got to come up with some words that are worth hearing.