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I left the startup I co-founded 4+ years ago. The entire process was an emotional roller-coaster. My co-founders (and business partners), who are the majority
by aqui_c 3y ago
I left the startup I co-founded 4+ years ago. The entire process was an emotional roller-coaster.
My co-founders (and business partners), who are the majority shareholder, made it abundantly clear that the company was 'theirs'. They made decisions behind my back although I am the only founder working full time on the company. I felt alienated, undervalued, and frankly quite miserable for a while.
At some point, when this behavioral pattern started affecting other team members and I realized I had nothing left to do, it was time for me to move on.
I tried to write down how I felt, keeping it politically correct.
- JimtheCoder 3y agoIt is probably no consolation for you, but now your former co founders have "their" own company that's four years old, still has no customers or an MVP, and apparently no one really working full time on the company... Seems like they get what they deserve...
- aqui_c 3y agoWell, there's one product, one MVP, and a team of 8 full-timers... My biggest concern was the people, trying to find a situation that somewhat guarantees their short-term future and they can then go from there..
- glitchc 3y agoHonestly not your problem at this point.
- JonChesterfield 3y agoIf the full time people don't identify a founder leaving as an existential threat and look for their way out that's on them.
- quickthrower2 3y agoAlso it is a job. People can get fired (impacted I mean) at any company. They weight it all up like any other job. Company is family never really existed.
- hinkley 3y agoYou can keep people off balance enough that they don't have time to think about finding another job. That's what a 60+ hour work week is for, after all. You work and sleep.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- David_SQOX 3y agoLife is too short to stay miserable, OP. You launched a startup that has lasted 4+ years, that in and of itself is a huge accomplishment. I've had several startups fail over 20 years and each was a it's own heavy learning experience. You've gotten much further than most ever will. Good work aqui!
- neilv 3y agoBased on this description, I had to double-check that you weren't a particular founder I know. FWIW, it's not just you; these seem to be non-rare things to happen. One can guess at the likelihood that egos, differing understandings/philosophies, or just plain greed are likely to become a showstopper problem. But, unless it's obvious that the showstopper problems are likely (some people telegraph warning signs heavily), if one is ever going to do anything, one has to guess and sometimes take a leap of faith.
- aqui_c 3y agoIndeed, I've found some others in similar situations. Definitely a learning experience on which to build.
- ilamont 3y agoCofounder conflict is one of the biggest untold stories of the startup world. Happens all the time, but no one wants to admit the scale of the problem or get into their own specifics.
- nmfisher 3y agoI'm grateful that I experienced "cofounder mismatch" at a young age (23) and when the stakes were small. Basically, building an app with two friends when one wasn't committed at all, and the other was about half as committed as I was. Ended exactly how you'd expect (though thankfully, we're all still friends). This is the chief reason why I'm the sole founder of my current venture. I'm not militant about avoiding cofounders (and I have actually scouted), but it would have to be a unicorn who is exceptionally good at the exact things that I'm bad at. Even then, I'd only do it after dipping my toe in over a number of months with smaller projects to gauge their personality and level of commitment.
- ilamont 3y agoI too am glad my first cofounder flaked on me when I was just getting started. Learned a bitter lesson that I will never forget. This is also why I went the solo route for #2 (ignoring the investor/"expert" insistence on multiple founders). 10+ years later my bootstrapped (non-tech) company is profitable, has a strong dedicated base of customers, and allows me a degree of flexibility in my company direction and life that I would not have otherwise.
- psyklic 3y agoFWIW something similar happened to me as well, dropped out of school to go full-time as a co-founder. We put in writing several times that we held similar numbers of shares, yet nine months in discovered my business partner awarded himself nearly all of the equity. When I left due to this, the company completely lost velocity for over a year, which I suspect might happen due to your departure too. The betrayal weighed on me for years, especially since I eventually had to involve lawyers. I think the most important thing you can do is find new opportunities to occupy your mind so you can learn from it but not dwell on it.
- taberiand 3y agoSounds like something that should have involved lawyers right from the "put in writing" stage.
- psyklic 3y agoWe had well-known lawyers from the beginning who deferred payment until we raised. The problem was that we delegated all legal to my business partner. When we traded the written equity split, he didn't disclose that he held (estimated) >80x more shares than what was listed next to his name.
- quickthrower2 3y agoAmazing people think that’ll work. Might be OK if the person doing that is the majority of the drive behind the business. But if not of course it will collapse.
- aledalgrande 3y agoHow can people be so sketchy and still sleep at night is out of my mind
- liquidpele 3y agoThey use their stolen money to buy very nice mattresses.
- opmelogy 3y agoThat really sucks. I'm sorry to hear it. I tried twice to start software companies with people I knew. Both times the other party didn't invest nearly as much time as I was putting in. And in both cases I figured this out fairly early and started to match their drive and investment into what we were building. As you'd expect, the companies folded within a few months. What's interesting to me is that one of the guys I'm still friends with and the story he tells for why it folded is very different from my view. To him, it was me backing away and causing it fail and from my experience, it was I switched from working on it 7 days a week to working on it two weekends a month. I don't think he's being mean spirited here - I think he is just that clueless about what was going on. My current start-up was founded differently. My partner and I did multiple smaller projects together to see if we could work together. We also went through a deep dive on "past traumas" (key life defining moments for us) along with exercises on what sorts of values we want to inject into the company (ranging from how we handle feedback, to how we respond to failure, to what our employees would say about us and the company 2 years in the future, etc.). This allowed us to understand where we are coming from, figure out if our values aligned, and help lean on each other when things got hard/stressful. It really does make navigating building something together. Basically "wtf?!" reactions can easily be replaced with "uh oh, is everything okay?"
- taneq 3y agoIt sounds to me like the two perceptions of your previous startup are pretty well aligned. You felt your partner was coasting so you checked out. They felt that you checked out. Maybe they were doing more than you realised, or maybe they were just freeloading.
- opmelogy 3y ago> You felt your partner was coasting so you checked out. They felt that you checked out. Yes that's basically what happened. I get that this is their perception, but find it funny how much self-awareness is lacking as to what they contributed. I'm still friends with them and still like them, but they are firmly in the camp of "nope" moving forward. > Maybe they were doing more than you realised, or maybe they were just freeloading. I'd love for it to be the case where they were doing more than I realized, but considering we're all engineers and I'm the only one working on designs and implementing code...and driving all the discussions...you get the idea.
- treprinum 3y agoBy leaving you gave your co-founders what they wanted and they probably celebrated that their nasty behavior led to the expected outcome. Sometimes it's worth fighting and not avoiding conflicts.
- princevegeta89 3y agoSorry to hear. Reminds me of the "cofounder" that I had who wanted a sizeable equity but ended up bringing nothing technical or managerial to the table. The startup failed after 1 year, and we just wrapped everything up. I was secretly glad it failed. It also reminds me to only work on startups with someone who you really know and trust, like a best friend.
- barelyauser 3y agoGreat way to ruin a great friendship.
- princevegeta89 3y agoI don't necessarily agree with this statement - if I know my best friend inside out we will have a super large room for flexibility, and that often prevents conflicts.
- barelyauser 3y agoMy practical experience is that there is no way of separating the two things, friendship and co-worker. And I believe there is more to lose than to gain in this arrangement. When a problem comes up I rather not argue with my friend (sorry, co-worker) about how my position is right and his is wrong.
- princevegeta89 3y agoThanks for the insight. In that case, I'm wondering what would your preferred network be, if you're looking for a cofounder?
- whack 3y agoSorry to hear that. How did you end up in a situation where you're the only founder working full-time but the other founders have more equity and control over the business?
- taneq 3y agoMaybe they funded it?
- ab-dm 3y agoI had to check I hadn't written this in my sleep overnight. You're describing a very similar experience to mine, and I'm honestly shocked at how common this experience seems to be. 2 weeks ago I signed the contract to "sell" my shares for my startup of ~7 years. I'm just now starting to realize how utterly miserable I had been for a long, long time. It's a very difficult decision, but it gets easier every day (on average, some days can still be tough). It's only going to get better.
- hinkley 3y agoWhy is it always that the most practiced storyteller on a project seems to tell themselves the story that their contributions matter head and shoulder over those of everyone else combined? "We wouldn't be here if I hadn't pushed thus and such." At some point they forget that the value others brought to the table was a big part of what made them participate in the first place. Now they devalue all of those other players.
- rendaw 3y agoHow'd you end up as a minority shareholder? I feel like this is a fairly common story, and I'd be interested to know if there are signs/how to avoid it.