bring your bestie. build a co-op!
Build a co-owned business for free with coin!
The Big We + Historic Clayborn Temple's Co-Op Opportunity for Inclusive Neighborhoods (COIN) is a 20-week accelerator program powered by The Big We for people ready to turn their business ideas into sustainable, community-centered co-ops. COIN is for future entrepreneurs, dreamers, and doers who care about making Memphis better. We give you the tools, guidance, and network needed to bring your vision to life, even if you have never run a business before.
your road to community ownership
-
A cooperative (co-op) is a business owned and run by the people who use it, work in it, and benefit from it. Members share decisions, risks, and rewards.
-
In traditional businesses, a few owners or shareholders make decisions and take profits. In co-ops, members each have a voice and a vote, and profits stay within the business or community.
Together, these gatherings reframed capital as something Memphis builds collectively, giving Memphians real tools to build wealth from the culture they already create.
Your support helps transform this historic sanctuary into a vibrant stage where Memphis’ culture, talent, and imagination take center stage.
-
COIN is for future entrepreneurs, dreamers, and doers who care about making Memphis better and want to bring a business idea to life in co-ownership with friends and/or community members. You do not need a degree, funding, or experience to participate. All you need is curiosity, collaboration, and a willingness to learn.
-
Through COIN, you will work through the core building blocks of a sustainable co-op, covering your customers, your business model, your numbers, your governance, your operations, and capital readiness, including what lenders look for and whether borrowing makes sense for your cooperative.
Community in Memphis isn't passive; it's something Memphians actively build, one room at a time, and In This Place exists to keep giving them the space to do it.
-
By the end of the 20 weeks, participants leave with a cooperative that is legally structured (or a clear path to structuring one), a business plan they have tested rather than imagined, a financial model built on their own numbers, a governance structure their members agree to, and a cohort of other cooperative founders and mentors they can call.
-
COIN is a good fit for people with a new business idea, groups already forming a co-op who want direction, folks with little to no experience in sales and revenue, neighbors who want to build shared ownership in their community, and people who have the hours to dedicate to the work and can lock in for the full 20 weeks.
COIN is free and built for people who are ready to find success and want the resources to create a sustainable, successful co-op. We also have a second track that helps existing businesses convert to cooperatives! Click a dropdown to learn more about co-ops and COIN. Click the button to download the full COIN program packet.
Applications for COIN close on November 6, so now is the time to lock in your spot in Memphis' co-op accelerator. Before you apply, make sure your team has four or more current or prospective members ready to participate, is based in Tennessee, and understands the commitment to weekly sessions over the full 20 weeks. If you know someone with a business idea and a group ready to build it together, share this with them today; spaces are limited, and applications are reviewed as they come in. Be sure to complete both the group and the individual applications by the required date to be considered.