

Ask HN: How to deal with a low competence co-founder that you're stuck with - infoplz

Dear HN,<p>I am currently in the process of bootstrapping a startup.  I have one co-founder, who also happens to be my long-time girlfriend.<p>She has been unable to find meaningful work in the year and a half since graduating with a PhD.  Though she doesn&#x27;t really bring any highly valuable core competencies to the table, I could a researcher, content writer and administrative assistant, so I&#x27;ve tried to get her involved in that role.  I feel like she might as well be productive, and since we co-habitate I&#x27;m basically already supporting her.<p>The problem is that she is generally careless, and she doesn&#x27;t seem to take real pride in her work and doing a good job.  She also doesn&#x27;t take the time to learn what excellence in a given task means; for instance, I instructed her to read up on copywriting and creating content that sells so she could produce better articles, but she basically said that was too much trouble and what she was writing was fine.<p>When I express my issues with the way she conducts herself, she gets extremely defensive and refuses to admit she has problems.  She basically says I&#x27;m being &quot;mean&quot; and a &quot;douchebag&quot;.  I admit I&#x27;m not the most sensitive guy in the world but I don&#x27;t have issues with anyone else I manage, mentor or work with.<p>Cutting her off would basically mean the end of the relationship, and I&#x27;m not ready to throw in the towel yet.  Additionally, she has a respectable endowment that we could draw on to get us past early business cash-flow issues.<p>So HN, how would you deal with someone that has a bad attitude, lacks pride of ownership and quickly gets defensive?  What management strategies would you use to reach this person, get them more invested, and help bring out their passion?
======
davismwfl
Oh boy.

Given she has graduated with a PhD, she likely isn't totally unmotivated, but
possibly given her last year she is depressed and having a hard time putting
everything into her work. When you point out what she could do better, she
likely already knows it and is not so pissed at you but venting frustration.
Hence, your a douche.

Sometimes people also feel the work isn't worthy of their abilities, which
sadly I have found of a lot of highly educated but less experienced people.
They sometimes don't respect that experience still is more about learning than
a lecture is. Maybe she places value there, maybe not.

I'd honestly say regardless of any endowment etc. If you really want to be
with her, then talk to her and find out how she is feeling outside of the work
stuff. You mentioned you aren't the most sensitive, but if you open the
communication you might find out she is frustrated and struggling internally
more than you realize/understand. Then ask her if she feels this is something
she wants to do or not, that you can understand if she wants to take a step
back and find something else because maybe she isn't 100% into what you are
doing. You are allowing her to take control here of her destiny without you
being a douche. If she says she really wants to stay in and be apart of it,
then you ask her, how can you better approach her when your vision is
different than hers on writing or whatever. Again, you are putting her in a
position to help you which will let her feel valued and bring out some of her
natural instincts.

Years of marriage I guess does come in handy here. Good luck!

~~~
rajacombinator
I had a reply written but after reading yours just deleted it! Great
suggestion, A+ in diplomacy and persuasion. Hat tip to your years of marriage.
;D

------
esw
I sincerely hope that this post is an awful joke, because the way in which
you're talking about your girlfriend is appalling. If this isn't a troll, then
it sounds to me like your girlfriend agreed to be a part of your project
because she loves you, not because she has some burning desire to [do whatever
your startup does]. If that's the case, then no management technique is going
to inspire her - she's doing it _for you_ , not for _the startup_.

~~~
andrew_gardener
To further this point, it might not be the end of your relationship if you
encourage her to seek meaningful employment in whatever expertise she has from
her PHD. It doesn't sound like she's as interested as you think she is in your
start-up.

------
girlslikehntoo
She's your girlfriend, not your employee. If you want to treat her like an
employee, you better start paying her. Otherwise she's doing you a huge favor
helping you (not the other way around) and you should treat her with respect
and gratitude. And oh boy, when she finds this on HN you can say goodbye to
your big endowment.

------
ObscureRambler
I can see where you go with that 'not the most sensitive guy in the world'. I
raise you with 'possibly the least sensitive guy in the world', and here's
why:

1\. You say she has a PhD but has not been able to find meaningful work. In
other words, she's unemployed and highly educated, which can be humiliating,
depressing, downright increasing one's feeling of worthlessness. Judging by
your attitude, you don't get this. You really don't get how hard it might be
for her right now. And you should.

2\. You could use things for your up-and-coming venture, so you have talked
her into being those things? Did you ask her if those things are what she
really wants to do or are you just putting pressure on her to 'do her share'
or, Deity forbid, 'at least do something' for you? Talk to her. Find out what
she's good at. And if it's not 100% what you are wishing to pull out of that
top hat... suck it up. Life's unpredictable and your viewpoint should flex
with it.

3\. Only a douche would stay with a significant other just for an endowment
that could possibly benefit them. Read it and weep. Get real with your
relationship or set her free. She deserves to be with someone who values her
for who she is and what she does rather than as an emergency money bag. The
latter is just pure offensive.

4\. You're not supporting her. You're bringing her down. Wake up call
incoming, one would genuinely hope...

------
Rainymood
>Cutting her off would basically mean the end of the relationship, and I'm not
ready to throw in the towel yet.

>she has a respectable endowment

>So HN, how would you deal with someone that has a bad attitude, lacks pride
of ownership and quickly gets defensive? What management strategies would you
use to reach this person, get them more invested, and help bring out their
passion?

It sounds to me like your little startup is more important to you than her.
Also: getting real life relationship advice from strangers over the internet
is either a huge miss or hit.

This is why you (try to) keep business/personal separate. Money changes (some)
people.

------
seekingcharlie
"What management strategies would you use to reach this person, get them more
invested, and help bring out their passion?"

Consider for a moment that your startup (or any startup) is genuinely not her
passion. Otherwise, she would have been working at a startup already.

This situation is obviously a strain on your relationship & I would strongly
advise that you stop trying to force it continuing. Be honest with each other,
perhaps this isn't what is best for her career, for your business and for your
relationship with each other.

------
Myce
Some things can't be fixed and harm has been done, this seems to be one of
them. If this ends your relationship, you might wonder how good it already
was.

------
Blackthorn
Wow, just, wow. She's completely correct to call you a douchebag. How anyone
could read what you've just written and _not_ come to that conclusion?

She's basically an investor in your startup at this point with the
"endowment". Also, she has a PhD. Also, she's your girlfriend. Show a little
respect. Douchebag.

For that matter, how is it you're supporting her? Sounds like _she_ is
supporting _you_.

------
6d0debc071
> I feel like she might as well be productive, and since we co-habitate I'm
> basically already supporting her.

Does _she_ feel that way? Or does she feel like she's unemployed and, however
much she might like you, if she has an argument with you she's going to be
homeless? Power disparities get people to do things they're not really into
and tend to stifle their ability to speak freely about it.

> So HN, how would you deal with someone that has a bad attitude, lacks pride
> of ownership and quickly gets defensive?

Fire them. I like to talk to people to find out whether it's something that's
external - maybe they've got a lot of stress going on at the moment, maybe
there's some issue about the environment and we can move them to a different
part of the building, maybe they started for one job and ended up doing
another and we can find a place in the company where they can be productive,
maybe they just hate meetings and would prefer to get a digest of the meeting
by email... but if all that sort of thing fails? If there are serious problems
with someone's attitude, that aren't being fixed by going 'when you say X I
feel like Y,' or 'when you do X it has Y effect' ... that's something for them
to address with a therapist. At the end of the day, I'm your boss, not your
mother.

That needn't be a bad thing, it could just be you sitting down and going 'I
don't feel like you're particularly invested in this, like you might rather be
doing something else, and if we go ahead with it it's going to be a lot of
stress. I want to share this with you but only if you feel like you're
actually interested in learning this stuff. If you're not, then I'm okay with
that - I want you to be happy. But we need to talk about it, because I'm quite
serious about making this project work.'

If she still insists that she's interested and doesn't take kindly to hearing
about the quality of her work after that, then you can be more blunt. 'You
said you were interested in this sort of stuff and now you're saying it's not
worth your bother. What's going on?'

I do think you're going to end up in a position where you're firing her if it
really is a personality mismatch between the work and her. You can fix a lot
of problems in someone's work, but I've never seen someone fix an attitude to
get someone who's not invested in their work invested. I've seen them provide
environments that better suit the person, tasks that better suit the person,
even provide examples of good attitude and a guiding word here and there...
never seen someone change someone just not being interested in something
though.

In extremely blunt condensed form? My feeling is that you can have a
girlfriend or you can have an employee, but you can't treat your employees
like your girlfriends or your girlfriends like your employees without a
significant trade-off being involved. Companies aren't counselling services
for their workers.

