(upbeat music) (whooshing) (upbeat music) (whooshing) (upbeat music) - So, let's just jump right in.

The first thing I would love for you to do is introduce us, our viewers to Pingree Detroit.

So, what is Pingree Detroit, what do you guys do, what do you sell, where do you work?

Gimme the rundown.

- Pingree Detroit, we are an eight-year-old, worker-owned design manufacturing cooperative, yeah.

Just celebrate our eighth birthday on January 15th, actually, which is exciting.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you.

And so, we take materials.

So everything from leather to seat belts, airbags, otherwise destined for the landfill, we keep those outta the landfill from the big three, and we turn those into everything from the first shoes made Detroit in the fifties to backpacks, purses, wallets, dog leashes, coasters, everything in between.

- How is Pingree doing?

Are we getting ready to expand?

Are we downsizing?

Is it business as usual?

Where are we headed?

What's the condition of the experience?

- Yeah.

So our look would be inspired with a chance of smiles.

So, (laughs) we're pretty excited.

We're in a really good spot.

So we're growing our team.

We're now about to be joining our 13th member of our team and we're worker-owned.

So that means that 77 cents of every dollar and profit goes right back to the workers on our team.

And as we're growing, we're now doing more pop-ups.

Our goals is 250 in-person activations throughout the year of 2023, - Wow.

- which means Eastern Market on weekends.

We're gonna be at the Autorama this month, you know, the auto show, again, doing everything from live shoemaking to selling our goods right here in person, so folks can touch, feel, smell that new car.

- Right.

- We like to say it smells a new car because it nearly was.

(both laughing) And so, - Yeah, yeah.

- we're excited to do that.

And that, really, that growth allows to connect, inspire folks, have them be a part of our story and a part of our mission.

- So one of the things you just mentioned is that you're a worker-owned company.

So, for anyone who isn't familiar with what that actually means, what is a worker-owned company and what made you decide to go that route with Pingree?

- So, worker ownership, some folks are familiar with the term cooperative, co-op, right?

There's energy co-ops, there's food co-ops, there's REI where you can go buy your camping and supplies, a lot of credit unions.

That is a co-op, right?

We have multiple stakeholders where as a worker-owned co-operative, we chose to be this type of model, because we wanna maximize equity and maximize wellbeing not just maximizing profit.

- Right.

- So we wanna be really intentional around designing structure, so that when we do well, our team does well, our neighborhoods do well, and the environment does well.

- So, in this model, how has it been when it comes to attracting talent, retaining talent?

Because if we're talking about the future of work and where things are going, pretty much across every industry, the narrative is we need more talent, we need more people, and we need them to stay.

So, how has your business model helped you maintain that talent that you need?

- By being able to incentivize and offer folks to co-own the company.

- Yeah.

- Not just get another JOB, but, like, to work, to be a part of the meaningful culture to actually create and benefit from all the small ways that you might make that company better to not just, you know, maybe you get a bonus in some other companies, or, sometimes, there's a stock split.

It's great, you know, we just heard about, you know, folks in the unions getting a nice little bump from certain auto companies.

Great.

But what if it wasn't just a small check?

It was regardless of the size of the company, you're sharing 77% of the profits.

- Right.

- Your innovation's celebrated and that could be an additional bump at the end of the year.

So we really wanted to offer and say "If you're gonna join our team, maybe you might make a little less per hour than you would if you're gonna go work in New York or in LA, but you can be a part of something great.

You can be a part of not just making a a good wage, but actually making neighborhoods stronger.

- Right.

- Being a part of solution-driven environment.

- [Will] So what is one thing that could be better about doing business in Southeast Michigan?

- One of the challenges of doing business in Michigan and Detroit is there's sometimes not the critical mass of people in certain areas to where if we did a pop up, you know, downtown right now, for instance, we might need to have a thousand conversations over a course of a week to do really well.

Well, we might only get a couple hundred.

- Right.

- How many folks are actually gonna come into our store?

So, like, for us, being in front of enough people with enough consistency for us to be able to accomplish our goals, to stay open as a business is really important.

And we have consistently had a hard time of just getting in front of enough folks.

We've gotta get really creative and everything from online advertising to more, you know, unique activations.

So for us, one of the hardest things has just been getting enough support from enough folks consistently.

- [Will] What is a good thing about doing business here in southeast Michigan?

- Yeah.

So we often say relationships are our strongest currency.

And I think that one of Detroit's strongest currencies is the relationships, the people.

There's this energy, there's this vibe around cooperation more so than competition.

Yes, we're competing to be our best and bring forth the best thing.

And sometimes we'll have the same product that we're offering, but, like this equipment behind us was donated to us by Shinola.

Like their team mentored us when we first were getting started.

We've collaborated with hundreds, hundreds of individuals from the get-go.

I call myself a co-founder.

I'm the only technical founder, but I would not have started this without hundreds and thousands, literally, of conversations of folks offering to take me to coffee and mentor me, and sharing this resource, and donating this piece of equipment.

We've found so much energy around cooperation, and it's allowed us to not only just keep moving forward and sustain, but actually grow.

And now we're doing the same thing.

Well, you know, our scraps, we're donating.

There's over 30 different small entrepreneurs that are getting our scraps and turn them into earrings, and other products.

And majority of women of color, majority native Detroiters.

So we're really focusing on how can we kind of, you know, as we're getting pulled from someone in front of us, how can we also pull from behind and really embrace those relationships?