
Ask HN: My co-founder is dead. What now? - caretvii
Hey all.
I lost my co-founder and best friend 3 days ago in a car accident. We are a startup of 5 people and he was the CEO. We are all friends and this has deeply affected us emotionally and I know that, without him, the startup will be on life support soon. What are we supposed to do? many online services were attached to his email, he was talking to customers, he had loaned a lot of money to the company, he was raising capital, he was recruiting... he was pretty much the father of the company.
We are lost and any tip would be greatly appreciated.<p>Thank you very much HN.
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DoreenMichele
Check if there's key person insurance on him. That would help financially with
the transition.

Potentially useful resource:

[https://www.pashalaw.com/business-owner-
dies/](https://www.pashalaw.com/business-owner-dies/)

Couple of maybe kind of resources:

[https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/hr-and-management/what-
happe...](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/hr-and-management/what-happens-now-
how-to-recover-after-small-business-failures/)

[https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-a-company-when-the-
CEO...](https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-a-company-when-the-CEO-founder-
dies-Who-takes-control-of-the-company-if-he-owns-it-all-no-investors)

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anigbrowl
I'm really sorry, this sounds awful for you all. Get your attorney to help you
with your immediate obligations. Notify potential investors/creditors/partners
of your loss and ask to follow up with them in the second or third week of
June, depending on volume. Take care of each other.

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caretvii
Thank you! I had our attorney go after this immediately. One of the biggest
challenges is keeping the team together and ensuring customers and investors
that we'll be fine.

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mhh__
Filling the hole left by a person can be very hard practically and
emotionally, so try to stay calm and go slow.

Legally, presumably you'll have to work around the executor of his will?

Do nothing for a week if you can, then starting doing tasks like changing
contact details and the like. I can't predict the future, but be prepared to
find a few (Legal/Financial in my experience) oddities that rely on waiting
around for companies to respond to fix.

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bwb
Man, I am sorry and my thoughts are with you :(, such a hard thing to have to
both process while picking up the pieces of what sounds to be a budding
company.

Take some time and just make sure you want to go forward with this on your own
or with someone new. That might mean that you are going to go in and do the
busy work needed to keep everything running and give the team the support you
need. Just make sure you get the support you need as you also need the
space/time to make sure you want to keep it going.

If you want to talk there is a contact link in my profile. I'd be happy to
chat and help you think through the process.

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gshdg
Do you have a board of directors? Once you’re past the immediate grief, they
and your investors can be a good resource to lean on in terms of quickly
finding someone to serve as an interim CEO while you look for a more permanent
solution.

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hellosevengenie
I am really sorry. Take break for some time. With my experiance one of ur team
will step up and slowly fill the gap. Stay in market, in long run business
will teach u everything.

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masukomi
setting aside the emotional aspects of mourning your friend and taking some
time to clear your heads.

What did you do when he was sick, or on vacation?

Practically speaking this is no different than an extended vacation.

~~~
caretvii
We started the company about 1.5 years ago. Since then nobody has taken any
meaningful vacation; however, if he wasn't around and we had any question we'd
just call him! Right now I'm the de-facto CEO but I'm seeing the team freaking
out exacerbated both by grief and the gloomy prospects of our company...

~~~
vcxy
If you're currently the defacto CEO, this is going to be a lonely thing to do,
but you might need to be the one to set the example of optimism in your work.
That doesn't mean you need to appear upbeat and happy, but your
friends/coworkers could use your help here. Even if you don't feel optimistic
internally, rather than giving up, perhaps after making sure investors and
customers know what's going on and a short break, you should set the example
of moving forward (I intentionally don't say "moving on", which is thankfully
not a prerequisite for moving forward). This doesn't have to be the end of
this company. I don't know what moving forward looks like for you right now,
and you probably don't either, but the best thing for your employees is to see
you optimistically giving it a go (again, you don't have to be happily doing
it, that's not really what I mean by optimistic)

My condolences, I wish you the best in this difficult time.

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techslave
you need some distance. wait 2 weeks.

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nellypat
It might be a good idea that everybody takes a little time off and regroup.
This is a situation that needs to be approached with sensitivity and care.

