Happy new year from Open Collective Inc. + quick update

Dear investors, happy new year! I wish you all the best for this year, and above all, that it will be filled with joy and community.

2025 will bring a lot of changes on many levels. To navigate them, community is immunity. It’s the best tool we have for deep adaptation. We can’t live alone in a bunker. We are going to need each other. Years ahead will test the strength and resilience of our relationships.

As I was reflecting on what could be a good picture to keep in our head in 2025, I drew this:

Healthy and resilient communities are the ones that have stewards that take responsibility, they are the ones that breathe, they inhale new community members and exhale others ready to leave. They optimize for connections within the collective to create stronger bonds. And they are driven by joy and purpose.

“We are offering people not a world of less, not a world of sacrifice, not a world where you are just going to have to enjoy less and suffer more - no, we are offering a world of more beauty, more joy, more connection, more love, more fulfilment, …” — Charles Eisenstein

We are practicing with our own new HQ: the Commons Hub Brussels. A coworking and event space managed as a common. This is a fantastic testing ground for us. It gives us the opportunity to walk the walk and to experience along the way the tools that are deeply needed.

I’d love to challenge you to invest more in your local community in 2025. Share with us the joy it brings, and the challenges. Our job at Open Collective is to give you the tools to support you and your community.

As always, feel free to book a time in my calendar to grab a virtual coffee. And if you are up for it, please respond with your calendar link and the reasons for which other people within this community of investors in Open Collective could book a time with you. This is also part of creating more opportunities for connections in 2025 within the Open Collective community.

With a lot of joy and love,

- Xavier

Quick update on the transition

We are finalizing the legal documents for the transfer of assets of the current business to the “Open Finance Consortium”, aka OFiCO, the non-profit managed by the fiscal hosts that are providing a home for the existing 3722 collectives.

I reached out to the largest shareholders to give them a heads up and make sure that they were still engaged in the project (since it’s been almost 10 years since their initial investment). While my preference was to keep them engaged for this new chapter, a few of them decided to sell their shares back. Jim and Semil sold me their shares for a symbolic amount and General Catalyst returned their shares back to the company. While I’m sad to see them go, I’m thankful for their support during the first chapter and grateful for what their investment enabled us to do (Hemant Taneja from General Catalyst was our very first check back in October 2015).

I will provide an updated captable as soon as all of this is settled, but none of this is impacting your ownership. Please note however, that my intent is to eventually dissolve the company. Open Collective shouldn’t belong to me. It should belong to the community. That’s why my goal is to slowly transition to an DAO. But DAOs are still complicated and messy. They are still in their infancy. That’s why we are going step by step at our own pace.

I’m also glad that Pia is remaining on board and that Aseem came back. I’m also very grateful for Roy’s active participation in this process. Together, we will make sure that all contributions (financial and non financial) will be fairly compensated as part of the DAO.

That being said, none of this matters if we can’t create a meaningful platform that will create enough abundance for everyone. So that’s our number one priority for 2025.

Onwards! 🚀

Some numbers

• 3,256 collectives had at least one expense reimbursed in 2024 (+11% compared to 2023)
  (863 at least 12, compared to 859 in 2023)
• 9,846 users have submitted at least one expense (10,627 in 2023)
  (727 at least 12, compared to 989 in 2023)
• Burn rate: $33k/month (including $12.5k/month to OFiCO to support current version, $10k legal fees, only $3k in salaries, not paying myself atm)
• Treasury: $509k
• Runway: ~12 months