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Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

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Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#31

Post by cortesoft »

tediousdemise wrote: post #29
chadash wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bosses, visionaries, and founders typically don't write code, they delegate it to people who do. So would Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin not count as bosses, visionaries or founders?

Proof of counter examples does not invalidate that statement. I could just as easily mention non-technical founders such as Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Tim Westergren (Pandora), Aaron Levie (Box), or Sean Rad (Tinder). And just a reminder for you, per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's eas…

Your comment said:

> Likewise. If their co-whatever wrote all the code, they sound like the employee. Bosses, visionaries, and founders typically don't write code, they delegate it to people who do.

I think it is a fair criticism to your comment... the comment made it sound like writing code precludes someone from being a founder/owner. Pointing out examples where founders/owners wrote code shows the statement isn't true. The fact that the other cofounder wrote all the code has no bearing on whether they are a real founder or not.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#32

Post by djsamseng »

trapexit wrote: post #6

Your co-founder's code is mostly worthless at this point without the continuing involvement of the co-founder. Developers have their own idiosyncratic coding styles, and without a multi-member dev team providing continuity of design, I expect that a new developer would rewrite it as the product evolves. At the same time ... if you've been at this for 6 months already and you don't have any meaningful traction, you sh…

Also want to second this. The team behind the code is much more important than the code itself.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#33

Post by lumost »

hkhanna wrote: post #2

I've counseled a number of founders on co-founder breakups. It's hard to tell you what I think without knowing more detail, but based on what you wrote, and assuming you both signed customary IP assignments and RSPAs at incorporation, the simplest way to move on would be for the other founder to resign as an employee and director. That would enable the company to repurchase his shares and you would own 100% of the co…

If this is a breakup situation, it's also possible to highlight that the OP would not be effective in the new company - and that maintaining the existing corporate structure would be suboptimal for the other founder.

Now, there is a separate question here of why the other founder wants to use this code in their new venture. Are they interested in the branding etc. from the OP? Is the staffing agency truly orthogonal? There might be "interesting" arrangements to be made for a new corporate structure via affiliate marketing etc.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#34

Post by d3ckard »

carlgreene wrote: post #21
bbulkow wrote: post #12

You are not a co founder, you are an employee. hint. founders get shares, employees get options. you are now in the situation of whatever you can bargain for, you can get, whatever you can't bargain for, you don't get. Dealing with what you call a highly risk adverse person makes it hard to negotiate, because the most risk adverse action is bury the code and say goodbye (what they have proposed). It is likely you can…

Where does it say the OP has options and the co-founder has shares? I think he explicitly said his _shares_ haven't vested yet...

If it needs to vest, it’s not a share.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#35

Post by basisword »

You both want different things. You've only been doing this 6 months. Move on. Forget about it and move on. There is nothing worth fighting for and the stress it will lead to is not worth it.

>> [...]and don’t love the idea of walking away with nothing to show for my time

That's how it goes running a business. Most of the time you will end in failure and have and you need to learn to be ok with that. Hopefully you've learnt something at least (in this case possibly about having equal control of the company next time) and that will help in the next venture.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#36

Post by tediousdemise »

cortesoft wrote: post #31
tediousdemise wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof of counter examples does not invalidate that statement. I could just as easily mention non-technical founders such as Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Tim Westergren (Pandora), Aaron Levie (Box), or Sean Rad (Tinder). And just a reminder for you, per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's eas…

Your comment said: > Likewise. If their co-whatever wrote all the code, they sound like the employee. Bosses, visionaries, and founders typically don't write code, they delegate it to people who do. I think it is a fair criticism to your comment... the comment made it sound like writing code precludes someone from being a founder/owner. Pointing out examples where founders/owners wrote code shows the statement isn't…

That's why I used the word "typically." This absolutely does not mean "always," but I didn't think I'd have to clarify that.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#37

Post by JamesBarney »

bbulkow wrote: post #14
Shindi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda disagree with this. Depends what percentage of the company OP has. Growth + marketing + content are critical functions despite what the HN crowd thinks.

Op has 0 percent is how I read it. Op has options.

I don't think Op has options. He said no one's shares have vested. You can't have a company ownership only made up of stock options.

I think they both own restricted stock units that are repurchased by the company at nominal values if the employee leaves or violates certain terms.

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#39

Post by JamesBarney »

> When I asked my co-founder for rights to use the existing code in my new venture, he refused, citing concerns over sharing IP.

If this is a actually a good idea, then I'd try to find a new technical co-founder.

If you really think the IP is valuable (which I doubt considering you don't have any users), I'd focus on why your co-founder won't sell you the code for a % of the company. What are his concerns over sharing IP?

Re: Ask HN: Co-Founder pivoting, what are my options?

#40

Post by swatcoder »

tediousdemise wrote: post #29
chadash wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bosses, visionaries, and founders typically don't write code, they delegate it to people who do. So would Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin not count as bosses, visionaries or founders?

Proof of counter examples does not invalidate that statement. I could just as easily mention non-technical founders such as Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Tim Westergren (Pandora), Aaron Levie (Box), or Sean Rad (Tinder). And just a reminder for you, per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's eas…

You're being downvoted and debated because you're relying on an intuition that many people here don't share, and there's no quantitative data that could conclusively validate or invalidate the claim you've made.

At any time, there are tens of thousands of startups bubbling through their first 6 months or year of development. The composition of who's an "idea person" and who's an "implementor" will be in pretty much every permutation you can imagine.

Now, it may be that the few startups that grow to conquer the world had a certain composition in their early years, but that really has nothing to do with the company the OP is involved in.

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