I’m a talented 27-year-old CTO and believe I’m being strategically usurped by my ruthless and more experienced co-founders, just as we're gaining traction.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

At 20 I started workiung for an EU medical tech company. I was very ambitious and quickly proved my worth, and got shares and a board seat at 24. We grew to 100 employees before a successful acquisition in 2021.

In 2019, I founded a B2B SaaS startup with 4 of my board colleagues. As the only technical founder I've worked relentlessly to build our platform since. I’m responsible for 90% of the labour so far, I’ve poured my heart and soul into this and am so proud of what I’ve been able to achieve. My co-founders are focussed on finance/sales, though I’d note the majority of our growth has been driven by digital marketing (which is my responsibility).

After selling our last business I was very happy to leave. I turned down a lucrative job offer as it meant I’d no longer be an employee having to answer to someone else. For as long as I can remember I’ve thrived on a sense of personal responsibility, and wanted nothing more than to be in charge of my own future.

I’ve worked full-time as CEO at our business for a year now, entirely unpaid, whilst getting traction. We’re finally there: about to hit 20k MAU, the vast majority of which are still on our free plan. Our paid plans launched 4 months ago but upgrades are now responsible for $7k MRR.

Here’s the problem…

My colleagues and I operate on very different wavelengths. They’re 15+ years older than me, ruthless old-school businessmen, with lots of influence over the power-dynamic as they used to be my former bosses.

I feel they can’t detach themselves mentally from viewing me as an “employee”. They’re extremely close, a clique / inner circle with each other.

Two weeks ago, one of them informed me he “doesn’t feel we’ll raise any money with [me] as CEO”. I smell BS, sorry... I'm self-aware but see it as a bit of a power-grab. We'd started looking for VCs last month and have had good feedback so far. Yes, we have different styles, but the way he’s saying it I’m certain it’s being coordinated by the rest of them. I feel like this is my business, I’ve built it from the ground up, and it’s being taken away from me right when it’s getting good!

As the one responsible for 90% of the effort so far, who's essential to the company and turned down two extremely lucrative job offers to run this… It sucks. It's untenable for me to continue as CEO. I’ve been doing this because I want autonomy over my own future, now it's being taken away from me.

I became CEO because I wanted to have full responsibility over my financial future, without riding the wave of someone else’s decisions. The platform I’ve built is outstanding, I’m so proud of it — but as soon as I knew I was “out”, my motivation completely vanished.

I’d love a clean break from these guys. There’s a lot of baggage from my old job, and an undercurrent of tension which I hate. But it would be so sad to walk away from all my hard work, as I know it would fall apart without me. I’m down to my last 3 months of savings before I need to start taking a salary, which I’ve partly avoided for this long because I don’t want these guys using it as against me.

I’m very open to selling the business, just to be done with this and get some kind of payout. I know it would be valuable in the right hands. But no idea how to approach this yet. I could try and fight back, but I know these guys would make it pretty miserable for me. They’ve already hinted at that.

What other outcomes might there be? Any alternative ideas?

Thanks for reading, this is a significant moment in my life and I’m trying to navigate it as successfully as I can.