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Ask HN: What would you do? Co-founder troubles.

3 points by rugpuller ↗ HN
Hello everyone, for obvious reasons this will probably be a bit light on specifics, but I'm looking for some personal opinions and a bit of perspective really.

I'm in the position of co-founder in a startup, and I'm having serious doubts about the commitment/benefits of the other founder.

He approached me initially with an idea, we brainstormed casually for a month or two off-and-on, and then decided to make a go of it... and that's where his contributions have ended.

It was the plan that we'd both build the app together, we're both capable coders, and we'd split responsibility for all the non-coding tasks. It started well, we both collaborated and code was produced; however, due to his family/personal commitments I took on a heavier workload for the programming and he volunteered take responsibility for the more businessy side of things (registering the company, hiring an accountant, acquiring appropriate licenses, hosting, payments etc...).

Fast forward 3 months. The app is now almost complete, 99% by my hand (he contributed literally 1 class in the end), and I'm starting to put in place the finishing touches for launching. I've also taken on all the admin/business duties too, in order to keep the ball rolling.

His contributions:

  * Initial idea
  * Brainstorming of ideas/vision
  * 1 class in codebase ;)
My contributions:

  * Brainstorming of ideas/vision
  * All development
  * Register and manage servers (CI, test, and a prod box, email, database)
  * Register company, handle the accounts, and bank account
  * Licenses/legislation
  * Payment processing
I like the guy, and it was his idea, and we did both do a lot of chatting about what the idea should become; but I'm not really seeing that he's really pulling his weight to own 50% of the company, right now I could've probably got the same value out of chatting to a friend at the pub. I have no feelings that he's deliberately trying to screw me or anything of the sort, he's just not actually doing anything.

I'm not that short-sighted though. I'm aware that doing it alone could be significantly more difficult than with a partner. I'm conscious that he may very well come through in the long haul.

What do you think? Am I being a fool for thinking like this? Or a fool for going 50/50 with this guy because we're friends and it was his idea.

Thanks for reading! Any advice would be much appreciated.

tl;dr: Should I pull a Zuckerberg on my co-founder for welching on his responsibilities and leaving all the work to me?

15 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 47.0 ms ] thread
emerika
It's not only impossible to do everything yourself, but it's not effective. If he's doing stuff you don't want to do, then good. There much more to success than any product.

If he's really doing nothing, then talk to him and change the split.

If you continue they way it is though, don't waste your life thinking "I could have had more.", blah blah It's not healthy.

rugpuller
Thanks.

Your third point is something I've been trying to keep in mind; of course I want more, but I'm conscious of that desire so hopefully it won't get the better of me. I keep reminding myself that "50% of something is better than 100% of nothing". Sincerely though, I'm not interested in owning the whole company out of greed, I'm just conscious of splitting it 50/50 when the responsibilities currently aren't stacked in that manner.

Mainly, I'm just unhappy because he really is doing nothing. We split out our responsibilities--with myself taking most of the hard work--and despite that I've still ended up fulfilling both of our roles.

There's an aspect to this that I'm thinking we may just be operating on different timescales. I do believe he'd come through in the end, but I get the distinct impression his end may be in a year or two, while I'm aiming at considerably nearer than that.

Obviously, the solution to all this is to just talk to him, but I'd rather get my slaps here if I'm being silly before saying anything stupid.

devs1010
I don't mean to be overly critical but letting this go for 3 months is a bit much, in my opinion. If I were in the same situation after a week or two of my doing a lot of work with him doing nothing I would have had a talk with him, maybe just something to consider going forward, maybe I'm more cynical than I should be but you always have to be looking out for your best interest when it comes to startups and small companies. I'm not saying trying to screw others over but these situations tend to have issues like this arise fairly often it seems.
rugpuller
That's definitely a fair point, 3 months is a long time.

It's gone on so long mainly because we ended up having separate responsibilities. It all sounds a bit silly in retrospect. After he said he'd tackle the business stuff--instead of coding which he couldn't find time for--our responsibilities pretty much ran in parallel without intersecting. Until now.

I've had my head down for those 3 months--baring in mind this is part-time--hacking away, and it's only when I've come to start dealing with things he was responsible for (like, "Hey, you manage to get a VPS for our test box yet?" "No, sorry mate been too busy.") that I've realised that he's effectively done nothing for a good few months.

In hindsight, we should've been communicating more. I shouldn't have let this go on for so long; at least not without some communication.

ergo14
Maybe his family/personal problems are serious. After all we are all humans. If I would be in your place I would take this list you made here, present it to him and ask what he thinks should be done to improve things - and maybe you have your own ideas too. I would first present your concerns to him and try to talk this out in a friendly matter.
rugpuller
I believe there aren't really any problems, just he doesn't have a lot of free time with a full time job and family; but you're right, I may not be aware of the full picture here.

I'm honestly not interested in screwing the guy, we've both (mentally) invested in this project even if he hasn't contributed significantly to the actual work itself. An honest sit-down is definitely the way to go.

ergo14
Maybe there aren't any problems - but your partner may believe things are as they should be. Because you have not expressed your concerns. The first thing is to talk about, you can always pull Zuckenberg on him later. But without this step you will never know if you were right or wrong.
rugpuller
You are, of course, correct. I've been a bit cowardly so far, but that needs to change; I'll talk to him and see if we can't work things out. At the very least, I should make him aware I'm feeling like this.
ergo14
Well the confrontation can't be avoided forever. It's best if you do this when things can be fixed.

"I'll talk to him and see if we can't work things out" That is a dangerous freudian slip there.

trussi
Next time... :)

Make sure all co-founders' equity is vested.

Don't do a 50-50 split. One person needs to have a majority stake. Otherwise, you spend too much effort being a democracy instead of a startup.

rugpuller
It's funny how obvious some things are in hindsight. I never once thought there'd be an issue with a 50/50 split; but yes, no one person has power of veto. Interesting about vesting equity though, I'd not heard of that before (naive much?).

There's a twist to the tale though: we haven't incorporated a company yet. No shares have been split; we've just got a verbal agreement that we'd divide them up that way. If I wanted to do a Zuckerberg, I could quite easily register the company and put myself on as the sole director.

devs1010
If its a of web app I doubt its "complete" as they never really are (I work for a company with a 10 year old web app thats still having changes made to it), so you can go to him and say, "I've put in 3 months so far, you've put in basically none, now it's your turn" and he can handle the next stage of development, bug fixes, feature additions, etc while you take the back-seat for the next few months and handle the fluff work. If he doesn't like this, then maybe consider pulling a zuckerburg
rugpuller
You're right, of course. It's by no stretch of the imagination complete, but it's getting very close to our minimum viable product to push out the door.

Maybe I'm a control freak, or maybe I'm impatient; I like your suggestion but I can see it now: he'll agree to it, then nothing would come of it for a few weeks/months, then I'd grab the reins again and do it myself.

After having this discussion on HN, I'm definitely of the mind that his and my timeframes are just incompatible. Looking back, he's had a casual and slow, "it'll be done when it's done" attitude, while I'm very much of the fail-fast mindset (aka push it out the door ASAP and see what happens).

Thanks for the thoughts.

sfields
Co-founding any project is akin to marriage. Don’t pull a Kim Kardashian and give up just yet, but you do have to take a stand… sooner rather than later. I did an executive leadership program with AT&T and the #1 thing they teach is managing your people. You, sir, need to manage your co-founder similar to how I would have one of my employees or peers. Don’t be timid bc it’s his idea, bc we all know that an idea is nothing without blood, sweat, and tears (which at this point his contribution = 5%, and yours = 95%). To me it seems as though you are quite invaluable already. Take him to a café or pub and ask him how things are going for him. Pull a doctor phil and let him open up a bit and then ask him if HE believes that these issues will affect his ability to contribute to the project. You need him to be honest more than anything else or you won’t know whether he is taking advantage of the situation and exhibiting his true lazy behavior or just needs to get back on track. FYI behavior predicts behavior and apparently your honeymoon phase is over…
PonyGumbo 

  * Brainstorming of ideas/vision
  * All development
  * Register and manage servers (CI, test, and a prod box, email, database)
  * Register company, handle the accounts, and bank account
  * Licenses/legislation
  * Payment processing
Is his name on any of this? It sure sounds like you own the company. Some of these things cost money. Did you pay for all of it, or has he contributed financially too?