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Continue or Quit?
Please share your experiences and suggestions.
It is my first start-up, we had known each other for little over a year when we decided to work together,we have been in this start up for last 6 months.
I have no idea if this situation is common or is it a special case but there is a clash of personalities between me and my co-founder. If I have to summarize, I would say that my co-founder is a "Controlling Person" (commonly called as "control freak") . Although I don't mind him being the way he is, I see that he has trust and communication issues too. As a co-founder I expect him to trust me on some matters at least and communicate with me in a timely manner when he has an issue with what I do or not do or how I do something instead of going around my back or in some cases holding grudges and then complaining about those things after 2,3 months.
I am an optimist so at several occasions when things went bad I tried to solve them positively, after discussions we reached a conclusion and things started to seem better. But looking back at our issue resolving conversations now, I realize that not once in those discussions he admitted that what he did was wrong. He probably never even considered the possibility that his attitude might be needing some improvements.
Question in my mind is that should I quit or continue with him for a month or two to see if we can get along?
just to be clear I have nothing to gain by separating, I'll be the one who leaves the affairs of our company, reason being when we were deciding roles and responsibilities he choose to be the CEO because he wanted to eliminate the possibility of other co-founders kicking him out of his own company, which I agreed because I wanted to give him space to be comfortable so that we could work together.
- pedalpete 12y agoI had a friend who was in a somewhat similar situation about a year ago. He had founded a start-up with 3 other partners. Two of the partners weren't getting along to the point where they either weren't speaking at all, or would just scream at each other. They had had some success in the business, but if they had to buy out the troublesome founder, or come to some other agreement, they would have essentially be forced into bankruptcy. What to do? They went to 'founders therapy'. That's not a joke. They went to a combination therapist/mediator to work out there issues and figure out how to work together. My friend said that along with improving the relationship with the troublesome founder, it improved how they all work together and the business as a whole has been very successful since. The great thing about going to therapy (if you can convince your co-founder to go) is that you both may gain knowledge that would help you in future business situations aside from just dealing with your current co-founder. He may learn to recognize when he's being too controlling, and that could improve business all in, or maybe he isn't actually being controlling, but you're reading something else into it. Worked for my friend, your mileage may vary. Best of luck .
- B-A 12y agoit seems like a good option,Thanks.