You need to be willing to walk away from the partnership if necessary. Not that it's something you want to do, but you can't let fear of it control your actions

You need to be willing to walk away from the partnership if necessary. Not that it's something you want to do, but you can't let fear of it control your actions. Or conversely, if you decide you can't do that because you don't have a viable business without it, then you need to acknowledge that you aren't building something that has a chance of being an independent company, you're going for a pure acquihire play. And if the latter is the case, you need to re-evaluate. Acquihire can be a fine plan B, but if it's plan A, is this still the best thing you could be doing with your time? Maybe it is, but maybe it's not; it's a question you have to ask yourselves.