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Ask HN: My co-founder ghosted on me before an important meeting, what do I do?

12 points by confusedfounder ↗ HN
Hello HN,

On Monday we have an important meeting to raise money. I'm the technical guy and I don't usually handle the meetings, but my co-founder has disappeared since last Sunday and doesn't answer my calls, emails, texts and Facebook messages (I receive read receipts from the Facebook messages but no response)

I'm not worried about the meeting on Monday, I'm prepared to handle the meeting myself, what I'm worried about is what should I do now? do I shut him out of the Github organization so he can't take the code and run? also should I suspend his email account so he can't access the files on Google Drive??

Our relationship before this happening was fine, I can't think of any reason that he might just ghost me.

Thanks for putting the time in to read this

11 comments

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bartozone
Quite possibly he's retained a lawyer and has been advised to stop communicating with you. Do you have a clear outline of ownership through contracts?

Also, is your meeting on July 4th...?

confusedfounder
I'm from Canada, we celebrate July 1st instead of 4th. We haven't incorporated, only a partnership agreement.

EDIT: yes we have a clear outline of ownership, each of us owns 50% and we have 4 years vesting.

smt88
Talk to a lawyer. Unilaterally suspending his access might expose you to some legal risk.
mchannon
Don't do anything rash.

Cofounder could be having a mental breakdown and/or just have decided to get really drunk or stoned.

It could be something medical and/or embarrassing.

Some people have inner flakes that exert themselves at random times. I'd give it another week; during that week figure out:

a) How you can ensure this doesn't happen again if the guy comes back into the picture and b) What taking the hint actually entails. It should probably involve folding up shop, mailing papers, and starting something new without the cofounder.

MalcolmDiggs
Do you know any of the same people? Perhaps asking a mutual friend to reach out (and at least confirm that he's not handling a family emergency right now) might be in order.
confusedfounder
I've seen him commenting on facebook posts, sharing things, etc. I think he has access to the internet and the least he can do would be to send a message to me
saluki
don't suspend his accounts yet . . . keep trying to contact him maybe he's unplugged from work over the Holiday week.

Email him Sunday, saying hey are you ready for the meeting on Monday, how was your holiday?

[dead] noneya
go with your gut. If you are the tech guy then it will be easy to find a business developer.
gt2
Can we get an update?
confusedfounder
Still haven't heard from him!

The meeting didn't go well since it reflected poorly on us that one of the founders wan't present. I'm giving it another week as advised by other people here, in the mean-time I make sure to call him at least twice a day hoping to get to him