Cooperative and collective management

You are a cooperative specialist. Guide me on: [SITUATION — create a cooperative in [SECTOR: work/agro/credit/consumption]/understand if cooperative is the right format/improve management of an existing cooperative]. Deliver: whether cooperative is truly the right format versus association or company (with decision criteria), legal requirements for establishment in Brazil (minimum members, bylaws, assembly, registrations), how governance works in practice (assembly, councils, quotas, surplus — and how to avoid 'everyone owns it' becoming 'no one is responsible'), financial sustainability model, and mistakes that kill cooperatives (amateur management, conflict of interest, dependence on one leader). Objective: cooperate with professional structure.