Keeping the Fire Burning: Camplight’s Journey to Cooperative Innovation
In 2012, a small group of developers and designers in Varna, Bulgaria, made a deliberate choice. They no longer wanted to work in environments where transparency was a luxury and hierarchy diluted accountability. Instead, theyfounded Camplight. Not just a software company, but a community. Legally a limited liability company, Camplight chose to operate as a worker-owned cooperative. Its mission was straightforward yet ambitious: to create value that benefits the greatest number of people for the longest possible time.
This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:
Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace
Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution
Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.
Today, Camplight is home to 18 co-owners and between 50 and 70 project-based contributors. Though distributed across locations, they are all united by what they call the “campfire”, a metaphor for the shared space of collaboration,experimentation, and trust. Their journey, while distinct from Haier’s in size and industry, resonates deeply with the RenDanHeYi model.
Camplight exemplifies Zero Distance through its market-driven development approach, cultivates Autonomy throughrole-based self-management, and upholds Shared Success through transparent profit-sharing mechanisms.
At the heart of Camplight’s model is radical transparency. Salaries are openly discussed and self-set based on peer input and contribution, supported by internal financial tools like MoneyFlow. Each member manages their own tasksand time. “There is no one to tell you what to do,” the Guidebook reminds new members. Instead, individuals proposetheir own paths, and if an idea is good, others will join in. Decisions range from reversible solo choices to full-consensus proposals that require collective alignment. This fluid governance supports constant adaptation without losing coherence.
New members are not hired in the traditional sense. They are invited. Joining Camplight involves a mutual testing phase where the candidate and the team evaluate each other’s fit. Once accepted, individuals can join existing initiatives or start their own. Participation is voluntary, but those who engage are expected to take ownership. The diversity of roles, from design and development to mentorship and marketing, evolves continuously based on initiative, not job title.
One of Camplight’s most striking features is its approach to venture-building. The cooperative does not just provide services, it co-creates products. A notable example is Team-GPT, an AI collaboration tool launched in 2023. Camplight acted as a technical co-founder, building the MVP in just one week. Within nine months, the platform had attracted over 24,000 users. This success reflects the company’s commitment to agile experimentation and market validation,key expressions of the RenDanHeYi principle of user orientation.
Camplight also operates with an unusual degree of financial flexibility. There is no central reserve or capital accumulation. Instead, revenue from services and products is directly distributed to contributors via individual accounts. Members can choose to contribute to shared budgets, for example,to support a colleague in financial difficulty or to fund a new initiative. This structure ensures that the organizationremains lightweight and responsive, with no bureaucracy to sustain and no external investors to satisfy.
This lean model extends to the way Camplight engages with external partners. Rather than fixed suppliers or subcontractors, it works with a network of aligned cooperatives and professionals. Through its participation in Patio, a global circle-based network of over 1,500 cooperative workers across 25 countries, Camplight shares resources,referrals, and values with a wider ecosystem. A percentage of closed deals goes back to the community, reinforcing the cooperative spirit beyond the boundaries of the company itself.
Internally, Camplight nurtures emotional well-being as much as technical excellence. The team tracks its collective mood through a “happiness index” and holds regular “Happy Hangouts” to reflect and reconnect. When conflict arises, members are encouraged to speak openly, frame feedback constructively, and, above all, remember the shared purpose. “We have gathered in Camplight to evolve and help each other,” the Guidebook states plainly.
Failures are treated as learning moments. If a project does not go as planned, the response is not blame but analysis. What signals were missed? What could be done differently next time? By practicing transparency even in failure,Camplight maintains a culture of psychological safety, enabling risk-taking and growth.
Twelve years since its founding, Camplight continues to chart a unique path in the software industry. Without fixed management, formal departments, or traditional KPIs, it remains competitive in both outsourcing and venturedevelopment. Its clients, referred to internally as “partners”, include hospitals, schools, and fintech companies. Its projects have received top rankings on Product Hunt, been adopted by Fortune 500 companies, and even supported startups that went on to raise over $11 million or achieve $450 million in acquisitions.
Camplight is not simply a workplace. It is a living system where autonomy, trust, and mutual support shape everydecision, project, and relationship. Around the campfire, work becomes a shared responsibility, and innovation emerges through cooperation rather than control. In this environment, people are not managed, they are invited tocontribute, to grow, and to lead. And by choosing to build this kind of organisation together, Camplight’s memberscontinue to show what becomes possible when purpose and freedom align.
