We get it. Climate is crisis. Wages are stagnant. Politics is a mess.

So for our sanity (and yours), here is the hypothesis we set out to prove:

There is a world where people are paid really well to manufacture sustainably, price affordably, counter inequality, build autonomy, and be kind.

How does this all come together?

Craft is the key.

  • All humans should have the means to domestic reproduction — what you need to live well for another day.

    This means basics such as food, water, shelter, internet, electricity, and so on. When such things are secured and inalienable, then we have the freedom to make demands on our political system without threat to our everyday life.

    We equip people with craft skills. Crafts are the core of domestic reproduction: (1) It is oriented towards the flexible production of tangible goods for the home. (2) The form of work is decentralised and embodied, meaning no one can take these skills away from you.

  • Forget slide deck monkeys, data entries, and cryptocurrencies. Meaningful work is personal and essential.

    We centre on craft works where (1) workers have full autonomy over their work and their rewards, and (2) the fruits of labour tangibly addresses peoples’ everyday needs (not least their own!).

    We believe that maker and object inform one another. So producing in holistic conditions produces holistically fulfilled people.

  • We have a different take on “sustainability”. Instead of selling and marketing ever increasing amounts of “green” products, we focus on putting ourselves out of business.

    Everything we build is built for life: in material choice, construction quality, and repairability. The goal is to reduce production and consumption.

What does this mean in practice?

The Co-op does not mark up our house product prices.

Our house products prices are sold at cost price, meaning material + labour + overheads. Conventional furniture stores add a 50% to 300% markup on top.

Why are we selling below market price?

  1. We are tired of middlemen and dropship retailers; and

  2. Everyone should have access to long lasting, high quality home goods. Affordable buy-it-for-life essential goods is how we do our part for environmental justice.

Our apprentices start at 2x the minimum wage. And it only gets better.

We raise the bar on work in Malaysia by paying more. How can we afford to pay more? We do not have shareholder owners leaching on the productivity of workers; turns out that leaves a lot of extra money for workers.

Pay is scaled according to a standardised skill chart. The more skill it takes to complete a project, the higher we pay per hour. This is reflected in our product design and prices.

The Co-op does not retain profits nor have stock value.

We are a SKM registered Koperasi that also operates as a nonprofit.

This means profits are not extracted nor retained for shareholders. All members are entitled to democratically vote on how funds are distributed, whether it is purchasing new tools, paying for education, or increasing wages.

The Coop will never be sold, and this keeps our mission free from profit extraction motives. This protects product quality and workers in the long run.

Everything you see in our shop is made in-house by us.

We are not “creative directors” curating a taobao collection. We are not “interior designers” middle-manning your purchases.

We are proudly craftspeople, who are invested in sharing skills and making the finest quality goods at mid range prices in Malaysia.

We teach skills for free.

We believe in open source. Gatekeeping skills is a fundamental obstacle to class mobility.

Conventionally, we have to pay for a degree or pay for upskilling. Well at FRIENDS, individuals serious about their craft can get paid by the co-op to learn as an apprentice, or you can join our recreational membership to learn communally.

We lower the cost of recreational access for the community.

Community maker spaces may be becoming common in K.L., but nothing about the pricing or structure suggests “community”.

We believe in building truly public spaces, and actively aim to keep recreational access to our workshop as low cost as possible. We do not profit on space rental, and funds accrued from recreational membership is directly used to purchase community tools.

We are building a machine to change the way production is done.

By manufacturing our own crafts, we have already taken one step towards building better supply chains. Moving upwards, we want to explore how we get our materials.

The co-op aims to use our profits to finance sustainable forestry, wildlife protection, and restorative permaculture. All while paying workers their fair share to build a better world.