When I decided to leave my co-founder we asked advice from the local chambers of commerce (In the Netherlands they provide this). I remember feeling the same: s

When I decided to leave my co-founder we asked advice from the local chambers of commerce (In the Netherlands they provide this). I remember feeling the same: surely all my effort put in must be worth something. The advice was clear. The value of the company is based not the future expected cash from my work, not my effort. In small start-ups, a leaving co-founder often takes about as much value away (e.g. relationships) as he/she thinks he/she deserves. Difficult to accept. In the end I told my co-founder that it was important for me to see some compensation for the things we had build up. I got a few percent of the next project he did, and walked away with 10-20k EUR. Looking back, that was totally fair. It has been 2 years since, and the company is still going well and generating good cashflows. Most (all?) of the income now is due to his work, not mine. I've come to appreciate over time how we solved this.