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* During this economy, how wasting so much money on beaches, midnight parties at pubs, and yacht tours can be normal? * How can I deal with this behav

by IncRnd 4y ago

* During this economy, how wasting so much money on beaches, midnight parties at pubs, and yacht tours can be normal? * How can I deal with this behavior of treating your partner like any other employee? * How can I fix this communication problem and prevent future abuses? It seems as if you haven't spoken with your business partner. You should do that. Explain your position. Be firm. Set boundaries. It doesn't need to be a long conversation, but it needs to happen. If this is your company, take charge. ----- I've answered your three questions below, based upon my experiences. The answer to your first question is labled #1. The answer to your second question is #2. The third answer, labeled #3, attempts to answer your third question. 1. It doesn't matter whether this is normal. You should ask whether it is useful and acceptable for your company. Above and beyond that, you need to set boundaries regarding co-owned funds. A marriage won't last between two people who don't speak with each other. In many ways founders enter a marriage with each other, so they need to speak with each other and keep their lines of communication open. After all, you've entwined your financial and business lives together. 2. Stop acting like an employee next to your partner. The first step is to talk with them instead of reaching out to random people on the Internet. It's possible that your co-founder does not see a problem but would be willing to change if you spoke with them. It's also possible they do not see you as an equal. Either way, you need to find out what is going on. 3. You actually didn't state a communication problem in this post. That tells me you don't always speak up and in this case may not have spoken your mind with your partner. If you want them to treat you as a partner, you need to treat them as as a partner as well. Otherwise, they'll never know what you want them to know.

svnt 4y ago
> It seems as if you haven't spoken with your business partner. You should do that. This is the most valuable comment so far. The problem is lack of communication and/or possibly lack of respect of boundaries, but the lack of details and passive-aggressive responses to the event indicate the relationship needs work. The money does not seem like your primary issue. If you don’t repair things with your cofounder then 10% of revenue (which frankly sounds like it is probably kind of a small number given your other clues) doesn’t matter.
- conductr 4y ago
  The fact OP has to ask signals an even larger communication issue. This should be the easiest thing to hash out or at least bring up. It’s purely business and purely controllable. Doesn’t mean it will be conflict free but just talk about it. I’d personally just bring up expense management and how I understood the intent but feel as if we need to think of more cost effective ways to engage our team, etc. If they push back, you can always say you think the partners would agree and perhaps is why they did not attend. Anyways, maybe build a budget together to get aligned as well.
- madaxe_again 4y ago
  It doesn’t always work. I came from the other side of the coin - a business partner who was the king of false economies, refused to ever reinvest a single penny into the company, and preferred to just see the corporate bank balance increase. Never mind fun days, he wanted employees to go out and buy their own coffee rather than having a machine in the office. I won that battle, eventually, on the basis that he was essentially paying people to go stand in line at Starbucks, but he’d always make comments to employees about how they shouldn’t drink too much coffee because it cost the business money. He’d have me, everyone, pay for travel expenses out of their own pocket. No such thing as a corporate phone. Hell, he even wanted people to bring their own equipment to work on. I talked to him about it. Our investors talked to him about it. All he would do is sulk, and dig his heels on further. After a decade, I gave up and left, to his jubilation. He immediately went and spent £100k on a company car for himself, and started paying his wife, who has literally nothing to do with the business, a salary. Six years on, the business is on the brink of folding. I spent far, far too much of my life trying to get him to change - sometimes, you just have to cut your losses and run.

by IncRnd 4y ago

svnt 4y ago

> It seems as if you haven't spoken with your business partner. You should do that. This is the most valuable comment so far. The problem is lack of communication and/or possibly lack of respect of boundaries, but the lack of details and passive-aggressive responses to the event indicate the relationship needs work. The money does not seem like your primary issue. If you don’t repair things with your cofounder then 10% of revenue (which frankly sounds like it is probably kind of a small number given your other clues) doesn’t matter.

conductr 4y ago
The fact OP has to ask signals an even larger communication issue. This should be the easiest thing to hash out or at least bring up. It’s purely business and purely controllable. Doesn’t mean it will be conflict free but just talk about it. I’d personally just bring up expense management and how I understood the intent but feel as if we need to think of more cost effective ways to engage our team, etc. If they push back, you can always say you think the partners would agree and perhaps is why they did not attend. Anyways, maybe build a budget together to get aligned as well.
madaxe_again 4y ago
It doesn’t always work. I came from the other side of the coin - a business partner who was the king of false economies, refused to ever reinvest a single penny into the company, and preferred to just see the corporate bank balance increase. Never mind fun days, he wanted employees to go out and buy their own coffee rather than having a machine in the office. I won that battle, eventually, on the basis that he was essentially paying people to go stand in line at Starbucks, but he’d always make comments to employees about how they shouldn’t drink too much coffee because it cost the business money. He’d have me, everyone, pay for travel expenses out of their own pocket. No such thing as a corporate phone. Hell, he even wanted people to bring their own equipment to work on. I talked to him about it. Our investors talked to him about it. All he would do is sulk, and dig his heels on further. After a decade, I gave up and left, to his jubilation. He immediately went and spent £100k on a company car for himself, and started paying his wife, who has literally nothing to do with the business, a salary. Six years on, the business is on the brink of folding. I spent far, far too much of my life trying to get him to change - sometimes, you just have to cut your losses and run.