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> 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 communicat

by 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 svnt 4y ago

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.