As a group of freelancers, we kept turning down projects too big for one person. A full redesign, a months-long web engagement, a public-sector tender: alone, you can't seriously bid on those. Together, you can. Except before working together, we had to answer a dumb question that blocked us longer than expected: what do we set up, legally?
The struggle of picking a structure
We went everywhere. Limited company, cooperative, economic interest grouping, association, umbrella company. Each option came with its own baggage: capital to lock up, extra accounting, bylaws to draft, shared liability on projects we wouldn't all have worked on. We spent evenings comparing things none of us actually wanted to manage.
The trap was that we reasoned as if we were founding a company. When all we wanted was to be able to work together when a project called for it, without dissolving our individual businesses into a shared shell.
We went informal
In the end, the structure is: no structure. A purely informal collective. Everyone keeps their own entity, their own invoicing, their own clients. When a shared project comes in, we pick who holds the contract, and the others invoice their share as subcontractors. The core idea is pooling skills and know-how, not merging entities.
In practice, that means we can respond together to a private need (a site redesign, a web engagement) as well as to a public-sector tender, without having created a dedicated entity. The day volume justifies a real structure, we'll set one up. Not before.
What we do
The collective is Dev Team Studio. We cover the full web spectrum:
- custom showcase websites on WordPress,
- full web applications, like Audierne Fishing Experience or I Train With You,
- hosting and maintenance of what we ship,
- automation, with AI baked into how we work rather than bolted on top.
Different profiles (web dev, mobile dev, UI/UX, design) that complement each other on varied projects. Exactly what a single freelancer can't offer.
What I take away
The instinct when you want to work as a group is to immediately hunt for the right legal form. In our case, that was premature. We wasted time optimizing a structure we didn't need, when the real subject was trust between us and a clear way to split the work and the money.
Informal has its limits, I know. The day we carry a big recurring public contract, the question will come back. But starting light let us actually get going instead of debating bylaws for six months.