Are you tired of your dead-end job? Do you feel underappreciated and overworked? Would you like to get rich working from home? Friends, today I’d like to clue you in on an exciting new business opportunity.

Anyone still here?

Don’t worry — the Startup Junkie has not lost his mind and started selling Quixtar, or opened up an eBay store. I’m not going to drive off my friends and family by recruiting for a pyramid scheme. I am involved in a new way of doing business — something that’s never been tried before. For some of you webheads out there, it’ll be right up your alley. It’s called The Business Experiment, and it is just that — an experiment. Robert May had the crazy idea that a business could be run — from day one — like an open source software project. Free participation. Everything out in the open. Members contribute as much or as little effort as they like, with compensation (and perhaps company equity) distributed accordingly. If you’ve done time in a cubicle, that may seem like a pipe dream. Believe it or not, it’s all true.

In the early days, there wasn’t even a business plan; members submitted ideas to the message boards and everyone voted on them. (Each time a member votes in a poll, that vote is worth a certain number of points that will one day be used to determine equity in the company.) After several rounds of discussion and voting, the winner was an idea called The Wisdom of Us. It’s a simple idea, one that takes advantage of the collective nature of the project and requires very little in the way of capital. The other day, we all voted on a company name and logo. If this first company takes off — or even if it doesn’t — there’s no reason the cycle couldn’t start again with a completely new business plan.

There are several things about the concept that interest me. First is the large number of people involved (currently, 887 members are signed up) and the even distribution of influence. In a normal organizational structure, you’d better hope the folks in the top boxes know what they’re doing. The Business Experiment is a democracy. Sure, there’s an executive team –someone has to drive the bus — but the big decisions are made by anyone who bothers to vote. Everyone knows what everyone else is working on, so members are not going to get blindsided with bad business decisions. Second, the risk is spread thin. With such a large talent pool, no one person has to lay it all on the line. Many hands make light work. Since participation is voluntary, most likely the right people are doing the right jobs — and the most committed people get the most crucial ones.

I’ve been involved in the experiment from its early days. Why am I participating? I’m working full-time, and running the greatest site in my town. It’s not like I need something else to do. But it might just be the most interesting thing on my resume someday. There are all sorts of bright, skilled folks working on this thing: entrepreneurs, designers, writers, financial geniuses. The networking potential alone is reason to get involved. While you’re checking out the TBE site, take a look at the list of available jobs. They’re small, and they don’t pay — not in actual money, anyway — but chances are that you’ll find something on that list that you’re passionate about; that you’d do for free, at least in the short term. Maybe you’re thinking about a career change. Do you know what it is you’d love to do? Would you like to try it out for cheap, and get some real experience? Here’s your shot.

You could be involved in an idea that changes business as we know it.