Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Martensen.
Hi Matt, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Sure!
By way of introduction, I’m the founder of User Cooperative, a user-owned web browser startup that exists to put tech power and profits into the people’s hands, and we’re releasing our “Surge Browser” for Mac users in a couple of months with more platforms to follow.
I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and, by the time I reached high school, I was stir crazy and wanted to get out and experience the world. So, I did. I’ve lived in and traveled to a bunch of places, and I got a finance degree from Rutgers and an MBA from Yale.
I’ve since settled in Durango, Colorado with my girlfriend, Haley, and our pet-children Darwin, Huxley, and Juliette. More often than not, we’re out hiking or spending time with our family and friends. (I’ll sneak in a video game here and there.)
My professional background is corporate finance, where fair-market value, prudent financial strategy, and strict financial accounting reign supreme. My jobs in this field have included mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and analysis, and accounting across manufacturing, internet technology (“tech”), and homeowners’ associations.
My entrepreneurial journey has been like most everyone else’s: a journey. You get an idea stuck in your head, you work overtime during free time to flesh it out and implement it, and you try not to completely alienate your friends, family, and yourself in the process.
User Co-op began as an intuition years before I incorporated User Co-op. I was a financial planner for an ad-funded shopping app company that gave users cash rewards for shopping in bricks and mortar stores. The only problem was that the company didn’t have the cash.
So, my “big idea” to solve that problem was to issue company stock (i.e., ownership) to users as a non-cash financial incentive to drive user engagement. It wasn’t the plan to give the whole company to users, just a piece of it. I pitched that idea to the senior management, and they rejected it.
Later, I left the company, and found the idea of user-ownership to be a brain-barnacle. Couldn’t shake it. So, I decided to flesh it out, and see if I could make a legitimate business out of it. The tricky part was that no user-owned tech company had ever existed.
So, I spent years living “lean” (euphemism of the year) to conduct market research, come up with a rough business plan, identify a corporate structure, and incorporate User Co-op.
Since then, it’s been a patient and methodical build. We’ve built our website, started growing our membership, and raised just enough money from our members (all voluntary chip-ins) to give us the “financial runway” to release a Mac version of Surge Browser in a couple of months.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Haha, no, but that’s just the way it goes.
I’ve been on the User Co-op road for seven years, which includes the years I spent ruminating on user-ownership before User Co-op was born, and, to be sure, there’s still a lot more road to go.
That said, founding your first company, especially if it’s unconventional, requires mastering and applying a whole new set of skills. You go way outside of your comfort zone. You suck at the beginning, but you get there.
You try and you fail over and over again, say, in tinkering with your “product.” Then, you think you’re onto something. Then, you get into it, and it becomes an obsession. You change your life to create the time and space for your “hobby” or “project,” and no one else really gets it but you.
Then, you have setbacks, say, when someone doesn’t “get” what you’re doing. You doubt whether you’ll succeed and sometimes, after an especially grueling day, you crumble to the floor, stare at the ceiling, and question why you started down this road at all.
On the floor, you realize that you have two choices: quit or continue. After considering your convictions and how far you’ve come, you get up and get back to it.
These ups and downs continue. But, you grow more patient with them. First, to conserve your energy. Then, you embrace them as growth opportunities. After that, your eagerness to reach your destination gives way to enjoying the journey.
Small victories start mounting, say, when you get customers or a news interview, and then you’re really ready to put the pedal to the metal.
That’s the gist of the User Co-op road so far, and I’m looking forward to all the fun up ahead!
We’ve been impressed with User Cooperative, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
User Cooperative is a wholly user-owned web browser startup that’s uniquely structured as a consumer cooperative, a member-owned and -governed company. You can think of us as “REI meets Chrome.”
We exist to put tech power and profits into the people’s hands through free membership and our business activities.
Here’s our approach:
1. We build our membership and raise voluntary contributions from our members to cover our startup costs.
2. We develop, release, and profit from our “Surge Browser,” which will be free to use, members-only, and available on all major platforms, starting with Mac on March 1, 2026.
3. We use our profits to make other tech services, like a search engine, and pay dividends to our members in proportion to their activity, or “clicks,” on our services.
Here’s why we’re a consumer co-op:
Tech businesses, like those comprising Big Tech, are built on people’s information and content, or “data,” which is conveyed through people’s clicks, and it exposes people to some kind of risk. That makes people’s data risk-capital and their clicks risk-capital transactions that, in our market system, entitle people to a sizable ownership stake in every tech business that profits from their clicks.
So, we believe it’s time for a tech business to share all its wealth with people on the basis of their clicks on its services, and we believe the best way to do that is through a consumer cooperative ownership structure, like REI’s, which distributes all profits and corporate control to its members on the basis of their patronage.
Here’s how we distribute our profits and corporate control to our members:
1. Patronage dividends: All our profits go to our members in the form of patronage dividends, which will be distributed electronically to each member in cash, in kind, or both in proportion to their clicks on our services.
2. One member, one vote governance: After we get past our “development stage,” we’ll be governed electronically by our members on a one member, one vote basis, and a simple majority. Members will elect our board of directors, which oversees all our business affairs, and members will decide on any business item submitted to a member vote by our board of directors, CEO, or members. A business item can relate to anything we do, like business acquisitions, hiring/firing key personnel, lines of code in an algorithm, product features, privacy policies, terms and conditions, and a company sale. Our members do not (and will not) manage our day-to-day operations, however; our staff does.
Here’s why our first service is a web browser:
Our first service is a web browser because web browsers are widely used, major sources of data, relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy, easily switchable, and they can be very profitable, while being free to use.
We believe that profits from proven browser revenue streams, like search engine royalties and targeted ads, will be enough to pay member dividends, and make other best-in-class tech services so that we can put more tech power and profits into the people’s hands.
The Surge Browser experience:
Our browser, the “Surge Browser,” will look and feel a lot like Chrome. It’ll be free to use, members-only, and available on all major devices, starting with Mac on March 1, 2026.
Indeed, Surge Browser will be an ordinary browser that doesn’t introduce a bunch of new features. It’s meant to be familiar so that people can capitalize on their clicks with ease, as we think they should.
Almost every click on Surge Browser will increase the dividends a member is entitled to. For example, clicks that access a hyperlink, enter a search query, go to a specific URL, go back a page, reload a page, change browser settings, update the browser, and view an ad will all increase dividends. Members will need to be signed in to the browser to get credit for their clicks.
When we determine that member dividends are due, we’ll pay them electronically to each member.
Transitioning to Surge Browser will be easy. During setup, members will be able to transfer their bookmarks, cookies, passwords, payment methods, form-fills, extensions, browsing history, settings, etc. from their current browser to Surge Browser in a few clicks.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I believe that tech businesses are going to capture larger and larger shares of the world economy, and I believe artificial intelligence, or “AI,” is going to accelerate that process.
In its charter, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, defines AI in its highest form as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” I calculate “most economically valuable work” to be roughly $60 trillion per year (i.e., 2025 world GDP of $117 trillion, multiplied by 51%). With this “market opportunity”, no wonder tech businesses are racing to develop AI.
I can attest to this trend too. I’ve used both ChatGPT and Google Gemini to develop Surge Browser. For a combined $40 per month to use those services, User Co-op members have saved millions in costs that we’d otherwise incur to employ a software development staff. The business case in favor of AI is too strong. In fact, I’d consider it a breach of fiduciary duty to our members if we didn’t employ AI to the fullest extent possible.
But, I don’t believe that this impending transfer of GDP to tech shareholders is a foregone conclusion. In fact, I believe that people as members of tech businesses, like User Co-op, will soon become the true arbiters and beneficiaries of all meaningful wealth generated by the tech industry, from web browsers to AI.
Imagine that!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.usercooperative.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/usercooperative
