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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?

#51

Post by Phlarp »

kanwisher wrote: post #42
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…

YC and every other Vc recommends founders to vest

Based on the OP it seems like one founder had shares and the other 'founder' had options still waiting to vest.

That's a pretty clear cut power dynamic no matter what the VCs recommend.

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

#52

Post by chadash »

tediousdemise wrote: post #36
cortesoft wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is it typical? Sure, if Bill Gates or Elon Musk founded a company today, they'd hire people to write the code. But for people who haven't made it big, I'd assume that having at least one technical founder is extremely common. Just in the examples you gave, Apple had Steve Wozniack. Sean Rad built the prototype for Tinder at a Hackathon. Seems like Box had a technical cofounder as well based on Wikipedia article.

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

#53

Post by orthecreedence »

Phlarp wrote: post #51
kanwisher wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC and every other Vc recommends founders to vest

Based on the OP it seems like one founder had shares and the other 'founder' had options still waiting to vest. That's a pretty clear cut power dynamic no matter what the VCs recommend.

"None of our shares have vested" seems to imply they both hold options, with the other founder holding a majority of the issued options.

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

#54

Post by carlgreene »

d3ckard wrote: post #34
carlgreene wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Vesting is just receiving the full rights of the share, option, or whatever over a specific amount of time.

If you start a company with someone you don't (er, shouldn't) just automatically get 50% of the company. That would allow you walk on day 3 and still own 50%. Instead you receive the ability to leave with your shares on a vesting schedule so that you have skin in the game.

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

#55

Post by cortesoft »

tediousdemise wrote: post #36
cortesoft wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but you then used that attribute to decide that the other cofounder wasn't a real cofounder. You can't use something that is only typical to then prove they can't be a real founder.

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

#56

Post by weusedto »

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…

This is a great point. I had thought a little about this but wasn't sure to what extent this code would have value with a different technical partner. Thank you!!

Agree on the lack of traction - I'm not convinced it's dead yet, but I recognize there will soon come a time when it is time to put this behind me, I'd just like to try a little harder before doing so.

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

#57

Post by weusedto »

tmp_anon_22 wrote: post #45
basisword wrote: post #35

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…

> with nothing to show for my time If you haven't learned a ton of stuff during this process you've been doing it wrong. That experience should be invaluable to your future career prospects.

Thank you both...I can't explain how much I've learned in this time, completely agree, even with it seemingly going to 0, I am far ahead of where I would have been had I not chose to take this risk.

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

#58

Post by weusedto »

rovingEngine wrote: post #18

Something I’ve found helpful: imagine you were starting from scratch today. Is this still THE problem you would want to work on? If not, move on. You’re right that 6 mo is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. Sunk costs suck, but there’s no getting them back. If it’s still a good problem, then maybe your cofounder is right and the solution you were working on won’t solve it. If he’s the tech guy and you’re the bu…

I've been thinking a lot about running this using no-code and/or simple Google tools...thanks for mentioning that, and the avoidance of the co-founder conflict is probably the most echoed advice in this chain, so I will keep that in mind as I handle this.

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

#59

Post by weusedto »

Shindi wrote: post #9

Damn, that fucking sucks, but good for you for pursuing the mission. 6 months is not super long as it sounds like it takes 12-18 months to get to PMF. curious what your founder agreement says? Does it have a clause on dispute resolution? It's shitty that your founder won't let you walk away with the code if they are doing something totally unrelated imo, and this is coming from an engineer.

Thanks for this. I think he plans to leverage little pieces of the code in his new project, but it's essentially value-less at this stage. I also think as he wrote the code and has put so much time into it there is likely a strong sense of ownership and high level of value assigned (regardless of its true value).

The 12-18 months to PMF is really why I'd love to push it a little further and see what comes out of it. I think doing so without a product is possible, and based on a lot of the comments that seems to be my best path.

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

#60

Post by weusedto »

edp wrote: post #5

Is there any way you could offer to _buy_ the code from your cofounder ? If he/she believes there is no value in it (hence the pivoting), there shouldn't be any problem.

I had thought of this. Unfortunately I think his price will be exorbitantly high based on the time he put in. I also am not convinced that there is really much value in the code itself, it just puts me slightly ahead of square one in a new venture. Based on some comments it sounds like the code without the developer is actually quite worthless, so I'm coming around to it being OK that I don't have any rights to it should I leave.
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