Ask HN: Cofounder conflict, startup dying or dead for a long time already?

Post by smashing » Tue, Aug 14, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

csfl wrote: post #14

jyu wrote: post #10

Sounds like you got a bad cofounder. I was listening to a VentureHacks talk about finding a cofounder, and they had two main points: 1. Is your team making progress? Because startups have fewer people and resources, your founding team needs to be effective producers. 2. Do you guys trust each other to have your back? An example they gave was how two cofounders were arguing over equity. Instead of arguing that the oth…

We definitely could have been more efficient, we had a lot to learn. But the biggest problem I see is that we were still quite efficient producing features but not so much validating assumptions and developing customers/users (my stance: "let's go test it now and perhaps make some mistakes publicly but get feedback early", his stance: "it won't work unless we finish feature X, we have to change our business model and…

Post by smashing » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 2:05 AM UTC

csfl wrote: post #23

smashing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says anyone changed their opinion? Sorry, but it appears to me to be that he wants as most coding done as possible before he invariable cuts you out of the deal. Going public would mean that you have a kind of partnership and are therefore entitled to equity. By keeping it private, or in a prototype phase, he can keep the number of people who are aware you are working together to a minimum.

> Who says anyone changed their opinion? I don't know what happened but I know the "awesome new guy" seems to be actually ok and very reasonable. He just fails to see the real point of the project and I think my cofounder is swayed too easily by unfounded opinions of people of a seemingly high status. I actually don't think my cofounder is that much evil but he is out of touch with reality and refuses to engage in an…

Post by bazookaBen » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 9:30 AM UTC

csfl wrote: post #23

smashing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says anyone changed their opinion? Sorry, but it appears to me to be that he wants as most coding done as possible before he invariable cuts you out of the deal. Going public would mean that you have a kind of partnership and are therefore entitled to equity. By keeping it private, or in a prototype phase, he can keep the number of people who are aware you are working together to a minimum.

> Who says anyone changed their opinion? I don't know what happened but I know the "awesome new guy" seems to be actually ok and very reasonable. He just fails to see the real point of the project and I think my cofounder is swayed too easily by unfounded opinions of people of a seemingly high status. I actually don't think my cofounder is that much evil but he is out of touch with reality and refuses to engage in an…

Post by EarlofGrey » Mon, Aug 20, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

zalew wrote: post #21

inuhj wrote: post #20

Failure to communicate is reason enough to call it quits. I'm having the same problem with my cofounder. He refuses to work via phone calls--it has to be email only. I'm in the process of withdrawing my financial investment from the company and leaving to start my own version of the same company.

> I'm having the same problem with my cofounder. He refuses to work via phone calls--it has to be email only. he wants to have in written everything you say so he has stuff on you. in other words, he doesn't trust you. otherwise, a follow up email with notes about phonecall agreements would be more than enough.