
Ask HN: My co-founder sux. What can I do ? - troubled1
Disclaimer: Long time HN, written from a new frow-away account.<p>Intro:<p>Almost a year back, I met a (not so close) friend, who like me, quit his job and was looking to strike out on his own. After some "dating" we decided to start a company. I was to write the site and he was to do the bizdev/sales.<p>Half a year later:
The site is up and running. We have invested some of our money and spent months of work on it. And now came the second part. He needed to go out and start getting customers while I continued ironing out the tech parts.<p>Here things started to take a turn. He never truly fails, but constantly gets very average (and below) results. Reading some of the emails he sends and accompanying him to a meeting or two, showed he is far from what I would of wanted.<p>Current state:
- Most of the tech stuff is done
- We are getting traction and sales are starting to come in
- Or deals are pretty lame (compared to a direct competitor who has 10x better deals)<p>While we are slowly growing, I am constantly worried about staying in this business (as this might be my only shot at a venture - savings are running low).<p>Has anyone been in a situation like this ? I would love some advise..<p>EDIT:
To clarify: We have spoken on the issue and he admits he is not doing too well. He has suggested we join hands at sales. Sadly I am not good either. There is nothing else he can do to benefit the company.<p>We both are at the end of our savings, buying each other out is not an option
======
jacquesm
Identification of the real cause of the problem is your top priority.

Rather than some of the suggestions in this thread that would most likely
result in an unpleasant ending of your venture I'd suggest that both you and
your co-founder seek help from a third party you both trust to give you good
advice, and that has relevant experience.

Another thing you should do is talk to your customers, and figure out what it
is that you can do to make the sales work more effective.

You've failed to do the 'verify' part earlier on in your relationship when you
could have done it without cost, so now you're stuck with the consequences of
the 'trust' bit. Don't worry too much about it, it happens to all of us.

I'm assuming your product is business-to-business because you mention direct
sales to clients, selling in that world is a skill.

So, not all is hopeless here, skills can be improved and even if you're not
selling nearly as good as you should be you and your partner are selling
something, now you need to identify where in the sales process you drop the
ball and correct that.

Rinse, repeat, and it should end out ok at some point.

Attempting to remove your partner by force or to quit by walking out of it is
going to destroy your company and your investment with it.

Probably your partner is just as disappointed as you are, you have a common
goal here so work together to get it solved, it's far from hopeless at this
stage.

0 sales or no product that would be a real problem, some sales and a product
that is at least acceptable to some customers sounds like a fixable situation
to me (at least, without much more knowledge).

Another alternative that I haven't seen suggested yet is find a buyer for the
whole project.

edit: Maybe you should talk to flavio87, see if he's interested in taking over
your project, from what I gather he's doing something comparable (but he's
been at it only for about 2 months iirc).

See this posting by him:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1188524>

best of luck.

~~~
nearestneighbor
Never try to teach a salesman how to sell. This will not end well. See
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHRLN66Q2E>

~~~
jacquesm
Right, because no salesman ever managed to improve his sales skills.

I've seen guys go from barely able to say hello without getting their tongue
tied up to being able to pull in 6 figure deals without breaking a sweat
(contract work, web development), I really don't know this guy at all but he's
_already_ selling, all he needs to do is to improve what he's already doing.

Going from 'not being a salesguy' to 'being a sales guy' is a lot harder than
going from 'being a not so good sales guy' to 'being a salesguy that is a bit
better'.

Even an experienced salesperson would have a hard time selling a product he
has no experience with, and that has only just been 'baked', they should have
overlapped much better with the development but this product seems to be 'all
or nothing' so that may have been harder than what we know from the info
given. Building up a sales pipeline takes time, and as you sell a couple of
times you usually get better at it.

~~~
nearestneighbor
> Right, because no salesman ever managed to improve his sales skills.

That's not what I said.

~~~
jacquesm
So, elaborate then because I'm not following you. You say "Never teach a
salesman how to sell, this will not end well".

But the guy is _already_ a salesman. So we're not teaching someone to sell
that doesn't know how to.

He needs to improve his skills, and that's teaching someone how to sell as
well, but not from scratch. Or isn't it ?

~~~
nearestneighbor
> He needs to improve his skills, and that's teaching someone how to sell as
> well, but not from scratch. Or isn't it ?

OK, I didn't realize you were from Netherlands until I read that sentence and
clicked on your profile. In English, learning does not imply teaching.

~~~
jacquesm
Ok. I never even used the word teach in the original piece though...

~~~
nearestneighbor
> Ok. I never even used the word teach in the original piece though...

But you misinterpreted my use of it, so what's your point?

I see that I'm getting downmodded on top of having to waste my time on this,
so that'll teach me how to help people with their English next time.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I think you're getting downmodded for implying jacquesm simply doesn't
understand english enough to know the difference between learning and
teaching. Pretty patronizing.

If you bothered to _learn_ you would know that most Dutch people speak
English, and that it's a required course in schools.

But that's OK I'm happy to _teach_ you.

~~~
c00ki3s
But in Dutch, "leren" means 'to teach' and 'to learn' (IIRC), so his
presumption was at least a very logical one.

------
Uchikoma
"My co-founder sux. I met a friend, with whom I founded a company. He is the
tech guy, I do the sales. Now he is "finished" with the service, but it isn't
the quality we need and doesn't have the features our customers want. It's
very tough to sell this beast. He always argues that those are the best
features and won't implement what customers want as they do not know what they
need. He's always comparing his work to a competitor who gets 10x better
deals, but clearly his tech stuff is not in the same league! What should I do?
Should I dump him? Thanks troubled2"

Just for thoughts.

~~~
troubled1
Guess I should of been more clear. We are a marketing startup. We have
contracts with businesses and our product is sold to consumers (average Joe).

On the consumer end, everything is perfect. Sales are up and user base is
doubling every 2 weeks. Mixed responsibility. (I do customer support, SEO,
design, etc and we share marketing ideas)

On the business end, we are still stuck with crappy deals: low margins, poor
brands, etc. His responsiblity.

We are currently considering bringing in a sales guy/girl (for equity &
comission). But while I still have a ton of work on the tech side, my co-
founder who was supposed to be CEO and sales has so far failed on the sales
dep and is not impressing me with his biz decisions nither. Thats the big
worry.

~~~
eande
The first information was that your partner did not perform to your
expectation. At the same time I read that half year passed your have not been
out at the customer front to see if your business model is viable. Just
because comparing to a competitor does not mean your business is in the same
situation. The low margins, poor brand is both of your responsibility and can
have many reasons.

As a startup founder you are the face of the company and there is no excuse to
not talk to customers and close deals. Your are small team and there is no CEO
or VP or Sales. It is you and him to close the deals. If you want your company
to survive a simple phrase will do, do whatever it takes.

And if you think this is not what you signed up for than follow the advice of
many, stop it now and fast.

~~~
CyberFonic
Have you guys read Steve Blank's stuff on Customer Development Process?

If you are not making enough margin, then are you asking for more money? Why
not? Maybe you are not delivering enough value. You have to show people how
they will make lots of money before they'll give you any of theirs.

------
javery
First off you should be talking to him and not to us, have you voiced your
concerns? What was his response? Come up with a plan on how he can do better
and what you expect from him.

If he doesn't execute on that plan then it's time to talk about buying out his
share or getting someone else to buy it out. Do you have a partner agreement?
What are your options?

~~~
troubled1
We have spoken on the sales issue repeatedly. He is currently suggesting that
I too join sales and let the tech on a slow burner. Sadly I am not a start
salesman, and even if I was. I don't want to be pulling the wagon all alone.

Buying wise, we both are at the end of our savings, no one can afford to buy
the other. And there currently doesn't seem to be any funds raising in sight.

~~~
mikeryan
A buy out doesn't have to be in cash. Look right now you have very little but
likely some sweat equity and your product isn't really worth much.

Offer him some shares or options in the future company but tell him this isn't
working out. He'll say he already owns "half" but the truth is if you walk
away he likely doesn't have a damn thing.

Offer him some equity to walk away or tell him you're quitting.

~~~
puredemo
Best advice on the thread.

------
omd
I was in the exact same situation years ago after starting a company with a
longtime friend. The company was growing like crazy, but then my partner
wanted to slow it down to spend more time with his family. Everyone I talked
to (an investor, lawyer, friends) agreed he was holding the company back and
should leave, but it wouldn't be easy. It would have been difficult and costly
because he was a shareholder as well as one of the lead technicians.

Finally, someone explained it to me from a different perspective: If my
partner didn't want to leave then I was the one with the problem, not him.
Instead of looking at what I was missing by him being there (a fact I couldn't
get around), I should look at what I could be doing on my own without him. I
talked to my partner about it and we agreed I would leave and keep some of my
shares instead of a buy-out which the company couldn't afford at the time.

8 years later he's still running the company the way it was after I left. I
sold my shares to a new partner for a price that was many times what I would
have received if I was bought out when I left. In the past years I've been
able to build a company like I envisioned the first time, sold it and am now
in the process of repeating that for a second time.

Looking back I've come much further than I would have if I stayed at the
company. My former partner found the perfect balance between his company and
his family life, and we've been closer friends for the past years than we had
been before working together.

------
swombat
Useful links:

<http://vimeo.com/11491691>

[http://danieltenner.com/posts/0005-starting-up-with-a-
friend...](http://danieltenner.com/posts/0005-starting-up-with-a-friend.html)

Some thoughts:

Generally, if sales is hard, it's also because of the product development.
Don't blame all of it on him, your product is not as amazing as you might
think.

~~~
patrickk
+1 for the video.

My main takeaway from it was don't assume that you and your co-founder are on
the same wavelength - write down explicitly what you are agreeing on, and be
concrete with figures e.g. "I'm willing to work 8 hours per day, 6 days per
week", or "I'm happy to consider this successful if I make $100,000/year" etc

------
ErrantX
If you plan to talk to him about it (you _should_ ) then make sure you
identify some specific examples of where you feel he is under performing -
otherwise he could think your just finding excuses/passing blame for the sales
not going well. Brainstorm (together if you like) ways to improve those areas.

This question is asked here with some regularity - it's one of the most common
issues in startups. The consensus is almost invariably:

    
    
      - talk to him
      - if it's still not working out part ways
      - offer to buy him/her out if you can afford it
      - don't leave anything hanging (unresolved ownership issues etc)
    

(good luck!)

~~~
eru
> \- offer to buy him/her out if you can afford it

Some people have shotgun clauses: Offer to buy him out, or be bought out at
the same price.

------
amanuel
You have to ask the hard questions. Why are you getting 10x worse deals? What
is wrong with your product or value proposition that is requiring you to give
such deep discounts?

It is never just one thing. It could be you are selling at the wrong time of
the year, wrong customers or perhaps wrong pitch?

If he truly does suck at selling you need to have that conversation and find
someone else to sell. Find out what your co-founder can excel in and move
him/her there.

Find out the real, real, real problem and see if it is something you all want
to fix together.

------
jaxn
Honestly, your title using "sux" makes me wonder if you might be a little
difficult to work with. I hate to read too much into one word, but I am just
sharing my impression.

I read a neat post today that I think applies (your co-founder is providing
poor customer service to you): [http://michaelhyatt.com/2009/09/four-
strategies-for-respondi...](http://michaelhyatt.com/2009/09/four-strategies-
for-responding-to-poor-customer-service.html)

------
zavulon
I was in a similar situation, and my advice is: run. fast. now.

If someone sucks at sales, they're going to suck at sales. Of course, one
could learn sales etc - but the ONLY value that he brings is sales, and he's
supposed to be good at it already.

And then he says you should do sales too? Fuck that. Find someone else, FAST.

------
alain94040
You are asking about one of my favorites topics (co-founders)...

First of all, understand that he needs to quit. When someone is concerned
enough that they post online, it means the situation is bad. So ignore any
advice on improving his sales skills.

It's hard to fire your friends (been there, done that). Depending on your
relationship, do it nicely, with transitions. Ideally, you want to have a
frank discussion where the joint conclusion is that he is not working out and
should stop. That's not that hard. If he is genuinely trying to help the
business, show him that by getting someone else on board, the business will be
better off.

Finally, there is the issue of stocks. Hopefully you had vesting in place. So
one way is to go by that agreement. He worked 1 year out of 4, and hopefully
you didn't split 50/50. So if you had split originally 66/33 for instance,
you'd now be at 88% for you, and less than 12% for him. Which to me is sounds
about fair. He did do stuff for a year, right?

~~~
barmstrong
Yep - this seems like a good case where vesting would have helped.

------
DenisM
_Half a year later: The site is up and running. We have invested some of our
money and spent months of work on it. And now came the second part. He needed
to go out and start getting customers while I continued ironing out the tech
parts._

For future reference, this is where you went wrong. He should have been out
there selling screenshots and powerpoints, thus generating leads and design
feedback, for the day one.

When something can fail, it should be given opportunity to fail as soon and as
cheap as possible.

------
JaretManuel
If you are both close being out of savings I wouldn't spend much time reading,
rather, refine, learn and get doing. Also, I think there is a fundamental
issue of you hiding behind a "frow away" account. Take more of a "We" vs.
He/she approach, and try and improve the situation. Attack it more head on,
think all around and inside the box, communicate openly, and see what sort of
improvement or resolution you can come up with.

Everyone is great at Sales if they are passionate enough about what they are
trying to create. Think differently about that as well.

Who calls the shots? If it is you, you need to call a shot right now or drum
this up as future business experience. A great leader will accept
responsibility and do something about it.

Good luck as those who hope die fasting according to Hemingway. You have a
great chance to be a leader and turn this situation around. However, it may be
a case of cutting your losses and moving on. If you want something bad enough
you can bounce back. Savings/Smavings... non-sense talk.

You can position the route of x (him staying) = Death/failure (if you believe
this in his current role). Thus, you may be able to offer Y (maybe some
"departure" equity shares) so you can maybe bring in some more aligned
resources. Bottom line, this is your marriage, so you need to get
communicating or you are bound for failure.

I hope this is not the case.

------
uptown
Have you discussed your concerns with him? What is his response? Unless you
trust one another and are open enough to have these difficult discussions then
you're going to have an almost impossible time achieving success no matter how
good your competition is.

Also, though the initial strategy was to use him for sales he may not have it
in him to succeed on this task. Consider bringing in somebody new to work on
selling your product and find another area for your co-founder to contribute.

------
mathewgj
WRT buying out: get to a point where you both agree it's a bad fit, and that
he has better prospects elsewhere, then 'buy him out' for a token - seriously,
like $1.

------
natch
Get out. Start a new idea, or get a job.

But if you insist on continuing, give him the straight facts: You are able to
effectively contribute something of value (the tech), and he is not (there is
the sales, but he's not able to do it). Therefore, he needs to let you bring
in a real sales person (who can be paid on commission, and maybe become
another owner as well since the pay will stink at first). This is to give the
business a chance at success. Even in this scenario all three of you will
probably need to find day jobs, especially the current co-founder since he
won't be allowed to get any of the profits until he figures out how he can
contribute. And any new ownership given to a new sales person (if you do give
them any ownership, that is) will come out of your current partner's share.
And from today forward, your current partner will not be counted as a
continuing contributor - except maybe very minimally as an advisor, if that is
worth anything.

------
mattmaroon
Did you incorporate? If so, how is ownership currently structured?

You might be able to strike a buyout deal for something other than cash
immediately. I'd be really careful about doing this though as it might impact
your future chances of fundraising.

I'm not an expert on this sort of thing, and since you mentioned your savings
are running out you probably cannot afford to talk to someone who is, but my
guess is you're stuck with him. Assuming you are, how can you make the best of
it?

If he admits that he's not that good at sales, he's already taken the first
step to getting better. That's at least a good sign. Perhaps get him to attend
some classes or seminars on salesmanship. Have him review the sales calls he
has made and try to figure out where they went wrong.

If you can swing it, maybe even just hire a salesman. Assuming you can't get
rid of your partner, you'd rather him do nothing than ruin relationships with
potential clients.

------
hooande
Investing more time in a bad cofounder is pointless. You need to ask yourself,
honestly, whether this guy can do the job you need him to do. If there are any
maybes, ifs or doubts...if you aren't sure that he's the kind of person who
will find a way no matter what...then there is no point putting any more time
into this. You'll just be putting good money after bad.

If you feel real passion for your idea and if you see a lot of potential then
you can probably arrange some kind of buyout or work something out with him.
If he can see that you're real serious and he isn't, he should step aside (if
he's a stand up guy). If he won't, then there's no point trying to turn him
into someone that he isn't. Move on.

------
TallGuyShort
>> he admits he is not doing too well

In my opinion, this means he admits he cannot live up to his end of your
verbal contract. He should step aside and relinquish at least enough of his
stake to attract someone good enough to do it right and take over.

------
jodrellblank
Sounds like you might have befriended "A VP OF A FRIGGIN' $100 MILLION
COMPANY"

[http://nukemanbill.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-hire-
idiot.ht...](http://nukemanbill.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-hire-idiot.html)

------
nearestneighbor
Why did you pick him out of tons of "business guys looking for tech guy"?

------
earle
Cut bait now. This problem will only get worse for you.

~~~
all_elements
This is definitely an option that should be considered.

I had a similar situation: I was moonlighting on a very promising startup for
2 years. My partners were supposed to do the fundraising, biz/development, or
pitch in money. But it didn't happen at a level that I consider competitive.
In the end things started to get worse: they don't understand the tech
components very well but still had strong opinions. And that starts to become
a -ve contribution. So I split from them and I am working on a few things on
my own. Looking back in hindsight I feel vindicated.

I'd recommend that you cover all the conversation topics that others have
suggested above. If it does not work out then cut your losses and move on. It
may seem like a big deal after having invested time and emotions with this
person but you should do what is right for you.

Asides: I feel that if an idea involves tech development then techies should
work on it by themselves for a few months and then bring in the biz/dev guys.
That way you know exactly what you are looking for and bring in the right guys
that suit your business (connections, industry knowledge, etc.). Moreover you
get to evaluate the biz/dev guys more closely since you can be with them when
then demo the prototype. The only caveat here is that you need to have some
prior startup experience so you can sort out the high level business aspects
(users, customers, reveune models, etc.) on your own before you specialize
your code/prototype too deeply.

------
haily
This is probably the HARDEST part of starting a company. Every startup will go
through this phase. Traction is a good sign, ask your partner to keep track of
which customers bought and why. Refine your message and focus on those
customer profiles so that you get the cream first.

As more customers sign on, the sales will be a little easier. It's like
starting a fire from scratch.

Good luck!

------
motvbi
Selling is hard. Without knowing the product, the sales he has generated it
would be hard for us to tell you whether or not you should be worried. You
should talk to him bring up your concerns. He will probably bring up a few of
his own. The solution may be as simple as you don't have a sales team or the
current sales team is insufficient.

------
sukantag
Well, first you have to come to a conclusion on what you and he can/will do
from now. If it is not working then you folks need to solve the problem. Then
it seems like you need help in sales/BD so if I were you I would find somebody
to help quickly. What type of a business are you in? What is your target
market? Maybe I can help, sukantag@gmail.com.

Thx SG

------
Tawheed
A co-founder is no different from a marriage. Communication is everything.
Hell, go see a marriage counselor if you have to.

~~~
jonpaul
I couldn't agree more. I wrote about this:
<http://techneur.com/post/555332733/business-marriage>

------
CyberFonic
Just assume for the moment, you had the money to buy him out: What would you
do to become profitable? How long would it take? What ROI on your buyout sum
would you get in say 3-5 years?

Got those answers? Great!

Why can't you implement those steps now? Really??

or

If your plan is so good, then find an angel to buy him out.

Please let us know how it pans out. Good Luck !

------
bdickason
Talk to him, and find someone else to work with you alongside him. If that
person starts to outperform him, you can point to the example as one he should
follow. If he doesn't pick it up, dump him.

------
rue
Hire someone to sell and find something else for your co-founder to do. If you
are at the stage here "sales are starting to come in", you are looking at
possibly expanding soon anyway.

------
hop
I was advised once to have the company take out big insurance policies on both
of us then encourage him to get a crotch rocket or start free soloing rock
climbing.

------
fjabre
Sales? You mean marketing/branding and users don't you? Is this an ecommerce
site or a web app?

It's very hard to advise when we don't know what your revenue model is... Is
it an ad rev or freemium web app or are you selling tires online for example?
If you clarify just a little the advice will be orders of magnitude better..

My gut says your cofounder is not the main problem.

------
patricia
What specifically is he doing wrong or what's not happening with the sales
stuff?

------
ddemchuk
I'm literally in the exact situation currently. It's a bad thing to get caught
in, because as the dev guy, at this point you've invested way more time and
effort than he has. Take some time to think about ways to potentially switch
up your business model so that you can start pitching your product instead of
him. You know it better than anyone else anyways.

Really depends on the niche and target audience, but if you become very vocal
about what you do, you might be able to snag a few initial customers to get
things rolling so you can then have some breathing room to make the right
decision.

------
stiggz
Is there a clause in your partnership agreement where one partner can buy the
other out? Who owns the greater share? If you have 51% of the voting rights,
you can boot him pretty quick, but if it's 50-50, you may have an arbitration
option whereby you can decide how to remove him from the partnership. Sounds
like you need a loan, and/or a sales(wo)man instead of a deadbeat.

