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This is a terribly unethical viewpoint. Just because your startup is worthless doesn’t mean you get a percentage of your cofounders next business. That’s ridic

This is a terribly unethical viewpoint. Just because your startup is worthless doesn’t mean you get a percentage of your cofounders next business. That’s ridiculous.

goatherders 7y ago
It's not ridiculous at all if it's in the same niche doing the same thing.
- owens99 7y ago
  Yes it is. The business's legal structure is being closed and shut down. OP only has claim over how the assets of that legal structure are distributed. If his partner goes on to start a new business in the same niche to do the same thing, legally and ethically there's nothing he can do or claim.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Ownership is bounded by legality. As long as someone starts a new company completely from scratch (without using any of the resources from the prior one), then you have no ownership claim to it.
  - goatherders 7y ago
    No, but you can accuse them of fraud if they start essentially the same company without you in it.
taneq 7y ago
The implication here is that maybe the cofounder's 'next business' is the same business with a different back-end and that the market presence and customer base (which absolutely are assets of the current business) are being carried forward. If this is the case then the OP has a valid claim to any profits generated by those assets, or to being bought out.
- owens99 7y ago
  This is not true at all. The business's legal entity is being shut down and closed. The OP only has claim over assets of that business. If he agrees to certain assets being given to the other partners, he has no claim for the future use of those assets.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Of course, if that's part of the split (you take the code you wrote, I take the customers I sold to) then there's no future claim. The way I read it, there was no discussion of that, but maybe I'm wrong - after all we don't have much to go on here.
    - owens99 7y ago
      Yes that’s a fair point. We don’t know all the details.

This is a terribly unethical viewpoint. Just because your startup is worthless doesn’t mean you get a percentage of your cofounders next business. That’s ridiculous.

goatherders 7y ago

It's not ridiculous at all if it's in the same niche doing the same thing.

owens99 7y ago
Yes it is. The business's legal structure is being closed and shut down. OP only has claim over how the assets of that legal structure are distributed. If his partner goes on to start a new business in the same niche to do the same thing, legally and ethically there's nothing he can do or claim.
manigandham 7y ago
Ownership is bounded by legality. As long as someone starts a new company completely from scratch (without using any of the resources from the prior one), then you have no ownership claim to it.
- goatherders 7y ago
  No, but you can accuse them of fraud if they start essentially the same company without you in it.

taneq 7y ago

The implication here is that maybe the cofounder's 'next business' is the same business with a different back-end and that the market presence and customer base (which absolutely are assets of the current business) are being carried forward. If this is the case then the OP has a valid claim to any profits generated by those assets, or to being bought out.

owens99 7y ago
This is not true at all. The business's legal entity is being shut down and closed. The OP only has claim over assets of that business. If he agrees to certain assets being given to the other partners, he has no claim for the future use of those assets.
- taneq 7y ago
  Of course, if that's part of the split (you take the code you wrote, I take the customers I sold to) then there's no future claim. The way I read it, there was no discussion of that, but maybe I'm wrong - after all we don't have much to go on here.
  - owens99 7y ago
    Yes that’s a fair point. We don’t know all the details.