Ask HN: Forming a Consultancy Cooperative

Hi HN, A few of my friends and I are considering forming a freelancer coop. In our line of work, contracts are for relatively large sums and normally involve 1 or 2 people working on each project for several months.

The purpose of the cooperative is to have each member capture most of the revenue of their individual work (so each member is effectively a freelancer sharing an office with the rest). None of us have any experience as freelancers or as business owners, so we would be interested in hearing whether anyone is familiar with similar arrangements in the past.

Particularly: - Is this a good idea?

- How is the legal landscape for cooperatives? What kind of legal advice should we be looking for? Are there any unexpected traps? (we're located in Israel)

- What part of the revenue should we be using to fund the cooperative itself, and what kind of things we should be funding? The possibilities range from nothing at all to an office and a base salary, but it's not clear what will make us the most effective cooperative.

And if anyone has interesting perspectives to share about this kind of arrangement, I would love to hear them. Thanks