The Free Agent Ecosystem

One of the most exciting trends in coming years will be the formation of cooperative working groups made up of independent contractors. 

Whether they are called networks, guilds, cooperatives, collectives, flocks, or something else, these groups will bring back many of the benefits of working collaboratively with others, without the bureaucracy and overhead of traditional organizations.

As attractive and compelling as it is to be a full-stack freelancer, there are three significant downsides that can’t be addressed without collaboration:

• It is very solitary, even lonely work
• It is difficult to find mentors and peers to learn from and to learn from you
• You have to not only do the work itself, you have to market and sell it