Ask HN: How to get rid of a co-founder

Almost a year ago a friend and I started working on a company idea together. We decided to bootstrap the mvp, get it launched, and then see where to take it from there (probably continuing to bootstrap until it seemed viable as a real business).

I, being the programmer, of course had to build it, with my partner being the domain expert (and non-technical) would handle all business and marketing stuff. The understanding was that since we were building this on the side of our day jobs we would just work on it in each of our free times.

At first it went really well, my partner was engaged and got a lot done. After a few months, though, his enthusiasm fizzled. I myself took about a month and a half off from the project to focus on a talk I was giving, so I wasn't judging him harshly, but since that time he hasn't done very much. Some of the tasks we talked about him doing back in March still haven't been done, to my knowledge, at all. And where we used to talk about our company all of the time (again, we have been friends prior to this), we now never talk about it unless I bring it up.

I've tried a couple of times to give him outs; asking him when he'll have time to work on the project and (hoping he would say that he doesn't have time in the immediate future) wanting to bring up that maybe it's not a good time for him... but every time I've alluded to this he says that he's going to work on it tomorrow, or the day after that, but he never does.

At this point I don't know what to do. I feel like he still likes the idea of our company but doesn't want to put any work into it. I absolutely do not want to launch this product if I've done all of the work but do not have 100% equity. We've missed several soft deadlines because of this, and I find myself even slowing down because there's little for me left to do. I really want to go into crunch mode and finish the mvp off before it gets to a year, but the situation with my co-founder is hanging over my head.

> I absolutely do not want to launch this product if I've done all of the work but do not have 100% equity.

You haven't done all of the work.

Given that the technical work is not complete, I'm not sure it's really a big deal that the non-technical work is not complete. You haven't given us an idea of how much non-technical work remains.

Get the MVP ready, and then if your partner is not ready, ask him for a timeline or something. Let him know your concerns.

Quit thinking about "getting rid of him," it's very premature.

I don't know how much non-technical work remains. If I knew that, then that would mean that I'm in charge of both technical and non-technical work, with him acting as an employee and not a co-founder. That I can't count on him to "own" his area within the company is precisely the problem.

It sounds like you've already made up your mind -- now it's time to take action. Stop "alluding" to things. Don't expect people to read your thoughts.

Tell your cofounder that you'd prefer to work on the idea on your own, and if he agrees, ask him to sign an agreement.

If he's your friend, and if he doesn't care much about the project anyway, that shouldn't be an issue.

If your friend doesn't want to agree to that, one thing you could offer is a mutual agreement to license all existing ideas and code to eachother, allowing each one of you to pursue the project on their own with new partners.

> It doesn't sound like you actually have a "company". Or do you?

> If you didn't incorporate yet, then you owe each other nothing.

Anything that does business is a company (incorporation is needed to form a corporation, which is a specific kind of company; the term is often also used for forming a LLC, another particular kind of company); if two people have joined together with the intent of making a for-profit enterprise but with no formal agreement, it is a partnership.

See, e.g., the first couple paragraphs of this piece, even though the whole piece is focussed on unincorporated nonprofit associations: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-an-unincorporate...

And, even when informally formed, partnerships do have consequences while they exist and steps that need to occur to finally end them. Particularly, getting rid of a partner in such a situation generally means dissolving the partnership. Here's one guide, but definitely not complete info for all scenarios: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/dissolve-informal-partnership...