Despite their exaggerated hopes, naiveté, and ill-preparedness for mining, many Argonauts recognized that good preparation for their journey would prove essential to their success. Toward this purpose, they joined or formed joint-stock companies. These companies organized the journey and sought to organize the diggings in California by exploring the mining situation and functioning as joint-stock companies with relatively equal shares of expenses and profits among their members. Although some seagoing Argonauts formed companies, in order to buy a ship and load it with trade goods which they sold in California as an additional source of money. Overland migrants joined or formed companies much more frequently, putting up about 200 dollars, in order to help provide wagons and carriages, care for the animals, carry the passengers and their luggage, and supply food during the approximately 60 days of the journey.
The travelers signed a document that spelled out rules of conduct and laws with respect to participation and sharing of duties. They called these rules a constitution, modeled after a federal constitution with its judicial, legislative and executive elements. The organization also included quasi-military structures with democratically elected "officers" or "officials" who exerted a power of command for organization and self-defense during the hazardous overland journey. Usually organized after the principle of a representative democracy, the companies had a president, a vice president and various directors who had to account to their members of their actions. Leaders could also be engaged by the members for specific tasks.
Despite these preparations, many companies badly underestimated the difficulty of the trip. Often, the wagons were heavily overloaded, forcing the travelers to either walk or throw much of their baggage away, including heavy and expensive mining equipment. Even worse, scurvy, caused by lack of food, and cholera killed many Argonauts. For those who survived, the companies offered social support for the men who had left their close-knit social networks and feared the strange land. The formation of friendships and more formal declarations of mutual support, often encouraged by the companies´ rules of conduct and equal share of duties and participation, helped to minimize loneliness and reduce individual risk. Some 49ers sought to convince their male relatives and friends to join them in their search for the Golden Fleece, while others relished the sudden anonymity. Women occasionally complained that the 49ers hid the fact that they were married. With family and friends left behind, the 49ers identity could be hidden or changed, whether on the journey or at the diggings.
Once in California, the companies usally collapsed very quickly, as did most personal agreements of mutual support. Since the dangers of the journey were now behind them, most newcomers thought optimistically that individual mining, or mining in small groups, would be more profitable than the amount of gold they might receive from employment with a larger company. While the joint-stock companies proved very successful as instruments for organizing the journey, they failed to efficiently organize larger groups of miners at the diggings. Despite their limited success, these companies became the models of political self-administration and self-rule in the mining districts from 1849 forward.