Now, we don't know how to make it. We don't have anybody hired who knows how to make it. We don't have a plant to make it with. In fact, we don't even have any money. We then asked our potential members, who are pretty big buyers in their own right, if they would buy anything from a person like that.
Every business has a critical mass in terms of size and production capability.
If you are not that size to begin with, you will fail. We then proposed what was essentially an installment pay plan to cooperative formation and membership. This would give each potential member the right to take membership in the cooperative, once we got it formed. At the same time we asked for the seed money, we told them we would be coming back for more money later. This money would be put in an escrow account in their name, and they would then become members of the cooperative.