Flying the Coop

"We're optimizing for a sustainable container to take care of the people within it — and to do some cool work while we're at it." - Janel Torkington Most businesses optimize for growth. Scale as much as possible, make as much money as possible, get as big as possible. It seems like the only option in the playbook. But that path has never called to us. Strange Birds has been operating as a cooperative for three years, and six months ago we made it official. This episode, we take a beat to stop and ask, wait, why did we do that? What are we optimizing for instead? Is it working? Also, what are you wearing? We get into: Why our style of consensus-based decision-making tops out around five people Why and how we've set up equal pay for equal hours (bonus: patronage refunds vs. dividends! A tiny schmear of tax code!) The un-touchy un-feely case for designing an anti-burnout business Why we often advise our clients to downgrade their subscription tier with us Janel: still detoxing from US productivity culture Anna: anti-cutting up watermelon ---- Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a worker owned cooperative. Strange Birds helps purpose driven companies say out loud what makes them worth choosing. We build stronger connections between audiences and brands with the right messaging. Then we implement it across the board. Find us at http://strangebirds.land

"When you take infinite growth off the table, this entire world of possibilities opens up." — Ramsey Nassar, EMMA Technology Cooperative We make this show to learn things, ask good questions, and let really cool people shine (and maybe occasionally get a little clever ourselves). This conversation did something different: it reminded us that what we're building isn't just a business model. It can be radical. And maybe it should be. Ramsey Nassar, Gwen Pasquarello, and Andy Wallace at EMMA Technology Cooperative have spent five years as a worker-owned co-op building software and hardware for video games, theater, public installation, and media arts. And theme parks. And custom programming languages. And a nonprofit arcade collective. They're thriving. This one gets into: Why consensus produces the highest quality decisions at the lowest velocity How their compensation model works: flat salary plus a percentage of every invoice cleared, paid out throughout the year as patronage dividends How they survived a 10-month dry spell: suspending commissions, recording a debt to members on the books, and plugging away regardless The Venn diagram problem: useful and interesting work vs. profitable work Also: Emma Goldman (now on our reading list), and the strong case for EMMA jumpsuits ---- Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a strategic marketing cooperative. We help small yet mighty teams figure out what actually needs to happen — and then we go do it with them. Most partners bring only thinking or doing. We bring both to your big idea, and we stay until it's shipped. Find us at http://strangebirds.land

"If they teach you how to build a business, you stop buying their stuff. That's not what they want." — Jessica Lackey A lot of business advice is a slot machine dressed up as a strategy. Jessica Lackey's book Leaving the Casino lays it out cold: the entrepreneurial industrial complex isn't, in fact, designed to help you build a sustainable business. It's designed to keep you spending money on the PROMISE of one. She and Anna get into: Why and how the casino targets the most vulnerable entrepreneurs, MLM-style The zone of enoughness: how to define your minimum and maximum across money, time, schedule flexibility, and creative autonomy Why "just raise your prices" might be the most misplaced advice in the industry, and what to actually do instead The difference between slowing down your activity and slowing down your expectations Why if your marketing isn't working, it's probably your market, not your mindset --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a worker-owned co-op. When the opportunity is clear and the doing feels impossible, we get inside your hardest project, find what needs to happen, and follow it all the way through. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

"Collective care feels like an exhale — like finally being able to breathe at work." – Nilou Khonsari Most organizations that say they value collective care don't actually build for it. They write values statements, flatten a few org chart lines, and hope the culture follows. (spoiler: it doesn't.) Nilou Khonsari spent ten years co-building Pangaea Legal Services, a nationally recognized immigrant justice nonprofit, into a model of what collective governance actually looks like in practice. Through her book The Future Is Collective, she helps organizations build structures that truly reflect their values. Anna and I did a full winter book club around this one.(We ate it up. I read every word of the appendices.) This conversation gets into hardcore collective scaffolding: The difference between advice process, modified consensus, and consent-based decision making What Nilou learned from almost paying her co-founder $1,000 less than herself How equal pay worked beautifully at Pangaea for years, until it didn't How to redesign a nonprofit board so the people closest to the work are the ones driving it Boundaries as a collective practice, not a personal one And woven throughout: Strange Birds' own messy, ongoing, in-progress attempt to enact a lot of this fun stuff ourselves. --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a worker-owned co-op. When the opportunity is clear and the doing feels impossible, we get inside your hardest project, find what needs to happen, and follow it all the way through. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

"If you want to take the time to really understand every human being you're working with — that takes more time. And time is money. And that's inherently anti-capitalistic." — Meg Rye Hiring is a power system. Most people on both sides of it (candidates and companies alike) have just accepted that as a fact of life. Meg Rye hasn't. Meg is the founder of Good Maven, a design recruitment and career coaching business built on a pretty radical premise: that recruiters can function as guardians rather than brokers. That the job isn't to scoot humans through a pipeline as efficiently as possible; it's to understand what each person actually needs, and make connections that honor that. In this conversation, we get into the mechanics of what that looks like in practice: how Good Maven approaches underrepresented talent, why diverse pipelines don't happen by accident, and what it actually takes to redesign hiring around care rather than conversion. We also go deep on the structural side — B Corp certification, Employee Ownership Trusts, EMI shares — because Meg is building the values into the bones of the business itself, not just the pitch deck. (Janel will be the first to admit this part of the conversation made her head spin a little. Anna loved every second of it.) We explore: Why "there just aren't enough qualified candidates" is a load of hooey... and what actually widens the funnel What consent-based recruiting looks like in practice, from the first conversation to the final offer How to balance meaning and mortgage in a job market that's genuinely tough right now The structural scaffolding Meg is building at Good Maven: B Corp, EOTs, and why she's thinking about exit strategy before she's anywhere near exit Why the next generation of recruiters needs real mentorship, not just AI shortcuts --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a worker-owned co-op. When the opportunity is clear and the doing feels impossible, we get inside your hardest project, find what needs to happen, and follow it all the way through. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

“We’ve been sold such a narrow idea of what a business can be — like you either coach or sell a course. But there are so many ways to build something rich and beautiful, something that’s actually yours. A business can give you so much more than just money — it can give you community, relationships, growth, and experiences.” - Tarzan Kay What would work look like if designed it around real humans, real relationships, and real choice? In this episode of Flying the Coop, we’re joined by Tarzan Kay, a leader in consent-based business design and marketing. Tarzan shares how her thinking has evolved from traditional online marketing into a much deeper exploration of power, persuasion, autonomy, and responsibility. This episode was extra special to me as I've been following Tarzan for the last decade, watching her evolve from self-dubbed "email marketing diva" into something much more expansive and inspiring (who still tells a mean story or three 'round the fire). What a total honor to have her on the show to explore: How classic business models limit creativity and possibility Why urgency and persuasion shut down critical thinking What consent looks like on a practical level in marketing, leadership, and community spaces Why businesses hold real power, and how to wield it responsibly This convo smashes to smithereens the prefab version of success we’ve all been handed, replacing it with hope: expansive, relational, creative, and alive. --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

“Supply chains are made of people, not just products or paperwork.” – Sara Otto Supply chains touch almost everything we buy — clothes, home goods, gifts, art — yet most of us never really see how they work, or who they rely on. In this episode of Flying the Coop, we’re joined by Sara Otto, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Nest, a nonprofit working globally to make artisan supply chains more equitable, transparent, and sustainable, especially for home-based and small-workshop makers who are often invisible to traditional oversight. Sara shares how Nest operates at the intersection of ethics, compliance, logistics, and real-world commerce, translating “we want to do business better” into systems that actually protect workers’ rights and dignity. Drawing on years of experience living and working alongside artisan communities, she offers a look at what real-deal ethical sourcing looks like. Together, we explore: How "social compliance" rests on relationships How Nest bridges the gap between global brands and small-scale artisans How transparency begins with simply knowing who is in a supply chain What equity looks like beyond paternalism or "white savior" models This conversation is a grounded, compassionate look at how complex global systems can be redesigned to respect humanity at every level. --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

“Human rights aren’t things that happen over there. They show up in everyday business decisions.” – Chloe Poynton Chloe Poynton is the co-founder of Article One Advisors, a global consultancy that works with companies to put people and human rights at the center of business, from supply chains and product design to emerging technology and AI governance. They have partnered with organizations ranging from major consumer brands to tech platforms and manufacturers, helping them move beyond surface-level compliance towards real change. Chloe shares her path from humanitarian work in refugee camps with the UN and why she shifted to working with businesses. We talk about what actually changes when businesses stop treating human rights as a compliance exercise and start treating them as a lived responsibility.   What we talk about: The difference between preventing harm vs repairing harm — might sound simple, but it isn’t! Why every company has a responsibility to human rights, whether they acknowledge it or not How incentives, governance, and KPIs directly shape ethical outcomes Real stories of uncovering and remediating harm inside complex global companies What it means that the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is a process document How AI changes the scale of risk, but NOT the underlying responsibility What gives Chloe hope, even in a turbulent moment for values-led work Join us to talk about how care, accountability, and dignity can be implemented inside large, messy systems, and why centering people in business is often about designing better structures to hold them and their work. This interview covers a lot of ground with a lot of heart. --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land

"Every business could be a social enterprise if they wanted it badly enough." – Lauren Edwards Lauren Edwards has spent her career helping businesses stop treating "doing good" as an afterthought, and start building it into the core of how they operate. As Executive Director of SeaChange and owner of NextStep Business Consulting, Lauren works with entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and corporations to prove that profit and purpose don’t have to be in tension. In this conversation, we dig into what social enterprise actually means (and why the label matters less than the intention), why nonprofits and for-profits are both constrained by broken systems, and how trust (and the lack of it) shapes everything from wage gaps to public policy. We also cover: What defines a social enterprise (and what doesn’t) How profit and impact collide, and how to navigate those moments honestly Practical models for values-led businesses (B Corps, benefit corporations, worker ownership, revenue sharing, and more) Why "shop social" can matter as much as shop local What it looks like to show up ethically when no one is watching This episode was a beautiful reminder to us that how we structure our business is one of the loudest ways we can show up in the world. --  Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land Chapters (00:00:00) - Flying The Coop: Lauren Edwards(00:01:03) - What's a Social Enterprise?(00:03:25) - Double-Bottom Line(00:05:26) - Social Entrepreneurs: Profit and Purpose(00:08:13) - The Case for Social Enterprise(00:11:47) - The Fight for Higher Taxes(00:17:35) - Shop Social: How to Support Social Enterprise Companies(00:20:18) - The Importance of Choosing Your Own Money(00:23:08) - The role of individuals in fighting climate change(00:26:31) - Give More to Nonprofits: We Need a Business Model(00:30:30) - Five Ways to Do Good While Starting a Business(00:36:44) - Local Businesses to Support(00:37:19) - The role of trust in our society(00:42:15) - The Value of Communication(00:44:43) - SeaChange: Celebrating Social Enterprise's 10th Anniversary(00:46:25) - Flipping The Coop

“Capitalism is all about squeezing every last bit of value you can… and what we are trying to do is explore a model that allows us to exist within a capitalist hellscape, but takes care of us as a fundamental driving mechanism instead.” - Janel Torkington In this end-of-year episode of Flying the Coop, we’re looking back on what it’s actually been like building Strange Birds (and the podcast!) in 2025. We talk about: What it really means to move toward becoming a worker-owned co-op How open books and shared decision-making have reshaped our relationship to business Why we define full-time work as 25 hours The systems and “containers” we’ve built to handle big feelings, hard conversations, and real life Our “Bird Brain Summit,” where we mapped how our very different brains, speeds, and working styles actually complement each other (curious? here are the question prompts we used for this) Why showing up consistently sometimes means showing up for ourselves before the business This episode is part retrospective, part behind-the-scenes, and part planting our flag for building a business that’s for-real human first... especially in a year that basically tried to eat us alive. --- Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at ⁠http://strangebirds.land Chapters (00:00:00) - Flipping the Coop: Year One(00:03:17) - Janel on Going Co-op(00:05:04) - Taking a Step Back: Becoming a Co-op(00:06:37) - Dear Strange Birds: When Will I Be an Employee?(00:08:15) - Drinking Vermouth(00:09:01) - What Makes a Coop So Fun?(00:12:45) - Show Up Consistently For Your Job(00:17:00) - The Bird Brain Summit(00:22:46) - The Way We Approach Time(00:27:22) - A Year in the Life of the Podcast(00:28:29) - What Have You Learned From The Co-op Podcast?(00:30:09) - What Are You Hoping For In 2019?(00:32:12) - Flying the Coop: Brand Marketing