If you insist on keeping your share and they shut the company down, I suppose they also wouldn’t be able to stop you from copying the idea?
Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
271–280 of 435 posts
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#272Can I give you some advice that really sucks? Walk away. It's not fair, but starting a company isn't like getting a job. It's a relationship and a risk that doesn't always work out. Sometimes you find more money and success than you could ever dream of, and other times you waste 11 months. Here's my thought process. You and your cofounder aren't going to be able to work together after this. The company has no money a…
if you can emotionally check out but legally remain, thats ideal. you are mostly likely getting pushed out, so recognize that you are in a 100% adversarial relationship and separate yourself from any kind of personal emotional investment. a completely detached self interested approach is totally warranted given the circumstances, and would significantly increase the probability that you will be compensated more fairl…
IMO. No serious investor will give money to a company where someone who owns 40% of the equity is no longer involved and/or left on bad terms. Having him around but not active is going to limit how the business raises money in the future.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#273Can I give you some advice that really sucks? Walk away. It's not fair, but starting a company isn't like getting a job. It's a relationship and a risk that doesn't always work out. Sometimes you find more money and success than you could ever dream of, and other times you waste 11 months. Here's my thought process. You and your cofounder aren't going to be able to work together after this. The company has no money a…
Agree with this, 3% of something is better than 40% of nothing. I was a technical co-founder was that left a startup early on, and because we didn't have a vesting agreement from the very beginning, I was entitled to my 40%, even when I left the company. While it was to my advantage, I didn't want my co-founder to give up when I left, so I gave most of it up. For my next startup, I'll make sure to have a goals-based…
I don't have any confidence that the other founder would ever honor the 3% arrangement in any form given their past behavior.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#274I'm not a lawyer and don't know what I am talking about, but even if the other co-founder fired them, couldn't they file a wrongful termination suit since them being fired at this point would clearly not be due to performance, but due to the co-founder wanting to fuck them out of their shares?
I may be vindictive but I would not walk away, and would rather see the whole venture tank than get blackmailed into giving away a year of my work for free.
To be clear, I wouldn't do anything illegal that would be dumb. But I wouldn't roll over just because a bully tried to bully me out of my cut.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#275Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#276If he owns > 50% he can dilute you to whatever he wants. But, if he owns less than 50%, then he'd need to get voting control to do it. Is that possible? Do you own enough to prevent it? If so, I'd just tell him you're not interested.
If he controls the Board, then he can do pretty much anything. He can create more shares and give them to himself (that would possibly create tax issues, so he might not want to do that).
Also, I'm curious how the stock is valued. Do you know that?
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#277I'd say first things first. You have 11 months and a one year cliff. Find a way to stall for a month and your position gets much stronger. This is a great environment to find a way to stall. Tell your co-founder to write up a proposal so that you can have a lawyer look at it. That's easy to turn into a month of stalling.
Stand your ground. A judge will not look favorably on a "partner" that is trying to remove you a month before your cliff expires. Especially since you have driven massive growth.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#278Talk to (1) a lawyer, and (2) the $100K investor. Because when capitalized that loan will quite probably tip the scales as long as they agree with you to a > 50% stake in the company.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#279Do NOT sell. keep 40% of nothing, matter of pride first and for all. Secondly, they are more than likely bluffing. They don't want to put advertising that would generate 5k/mo means they are trying to make things look artificially worse so you leave and keep the rest for themselves. Don't fall for the 40% of nothing once you are close of making money. They just don't want to share the pie.
Agreed. And also: if you give up that 40% then for sure there will be a play to give up the rest.
Re: Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer
#280Can I give you some advice that really sucks? Walk away. It's not fair, but starting a company isn't like getting a job. It's a relationship and a risk that doesn't always work out. Sometimes you find more money and success than you could ever dream of, and other times you waste 11 months. Here's my thought process. You and your cofounder aren't going to be able to work together after this. The company has no money a…
Disagree. Normally I would agree, but this is such an outrageous situation that the OP should just dig in and tell the other side to GFT. Let's not set precedent that a-hole co-founders get to cut out their technical co-founders after almost a year for zero compensation without a fight.